Hello all,

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I thought this may be of interest to the community. I’ve been developing, with the aid of a freelancer so far, a computer vision concept (codename, Analizar) for use in the real estate field (in the high octane world of property maintenance, to be precise). This follows on from a previous post here exploring the possibilities of image classification. It is a basic demo website which generates automated maintenance information from user submitted photos; Analizar Computer Vision Concept

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The demo is currently trained (to varying degrees of success) to identify the following materials / issues.

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https://i.redd.it/4lbb6o9w1ac31.png

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You can download the photos here, or see how it performs with photos you can find online.

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https://i.redd.it/88mcx1gx1ac31.png

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For a (very) brief tech summary, both frontend / backend are deployed on an AWS EC2 instance. Initial training data was sourced from my own records and supplemented with web scraped images. The backend model is a convolutional neural network. The domain knowledge is provided by me. Although this may be some way from a commercial application, it does highlight the potential in property management for computer vision applications. There may even be scope to perform a visual search function (the timber weatherboarding label is included for demonstration of this), perhaps coupled with an augmented reality interface. I also prepared a business model canvas that envisages this concept as part of a wider property maintenance service offering (serving commercial and residential sectors).

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For a bit more on my background, I’ve been working in this field for nearly 10 years. There’s a few things I’m tired of seeing; business friction, inconsistency of service and consumer misinformation. That’s partly due to the fragmented nature of contractors and advisors, partly due to the snails pace of innovation in property maintenance. Now that I have my own practice, I’m looking to reinvest my cashflow from traditional activities into concepts such as this, and try to help the sector evolve.

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One thing I lack however is a deep network of tech / machine learning expertise, mentors and business advisors, particularly those who are crossing the chasm between property maintenance and software. That’s one reason why I’ve been lurking on these forums; it gives me a glimpse into the tech startup ecosystem and helps my understanding of software / MVP development.

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So, to roundup, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I’m very keen to develop a relationship with this community; to both further my software understanding, and continue the discussion with any interested parties. If this intrigues you (or you think it’s a terrible idea!) then please get in touch!

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Thanks for reading,

Steven