Startup Idea: Crowd-sourced Artifact Identification Application

Startup idea to develop a crowd-sourced application serving as a tool for archaeologists and antiquers. It's said software would use photographs and dimension input to identify and categorize objects like ancient ceramics, coins or stamps. PHOTO recognition and size measurements would fuel cross-referencing within a database of expert-verified images to aid in object identification.

I am an archaeologist who studies ancient Roman ceramics. Although I specifically study pottery, some of the ideas I mention below could be applicable to a wide range of areas of study, including antiquing/"picking", other archaeological disciplines, shape identifications, etc.

Essentially, pottery is studied with respect to three basic things: form or shape, fabric or clay (every clay and pottery workshop uses chemically and [mostly] visibly distinct clay), and size.

It would be wonderful to have a crowd-sourced app that would allow an archaeologist to take a photograph of the clay, input the dimensions, and either photograph or upload a drawing of the dimensions.

While I am very aware that this sort of thing would be very specific, the same kind of software could be used in any number of disciplines, including numismatics (coin studies), philately (stamp-collecting), general antiquing, etc., so that people could snap a picture and instantly sort through expert-created databases to find potential matches for the objects in front of them.

Most importantly would be shape and color-matching software -- if users were able to upload their own verified images, that would be amazing.

I've searched for a solution but nothing like this exists.

Submitter: Jennifer Black - (view contact info).