Body Labs was founded in New York in March 2013, and Amazon acquired the company four years later.
The idea of typing in numbers and seeing a 3D body began as university research. The Perceiving Systems department of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems published a BMI visualizer whose about page, dated 2013, calls the tool "an outgrowth of our research on human body shape modeling."
Research at Max Planck and Brown University
The department's BMI visualizer used a statistical model of body shape. The about page says the model was built from thousands of detailed laser range scans of people. The page adds that part of the research was done at Brown University, with support from a grant of the US National Science Foundation.
A statistical body model of this kind learns from scans how real bodies vary. Given a few numbers, such as height and weight, the model returns the body shape that best matches them.
SMPL, the body model that followed
SMPL is a 3D model of the human body from the same institute. The SMPL site describes a model based on skinning and blend shapes that is learned from thousands of 3D body scans, and gives 2015 as the year of the paper.
The SMPL license allows free use for non-commercial scientific research, education and artistic projects. The license page states that any use for commercial purposes is prohibited under that license. Commercial licenses are handled separately.
Body Labs
Body Labs was founded in New York in March 2013. TechCrunch reported that the company's body modeling work grew out of research at Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, and named Bill O'Farrell and Michael Black as co-founders. Its products included an interface that estimated a 3D body shape from one image, for sizing and apparel.
TechCrunch reported on 3 October 2017 that Amazon had acquired Body Labs. The report estimated the price at 50 million to 70 million US dollars.
Meshcapade
Meshcapade was founded in 2018 as a spin-off of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, according to the Max Planck Society. The company builds tools to create and animate digital humans, and its technology rests on SMPL. Meshcapade's own site says the Max Planck Society owns SMPL and that Meshcapade holds an exclusive license to use and sublicense the model.
The Max Planck Society reported on 18 February 2026 that Epic Games is acquiring Meshcapade. On 14 November 2026 the address bodyvisualizer.com led to Meshcapade's website.
| Year | Event | Reported by |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | The Perceiving Systems department dates its BMI visualizer page | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems |
| 2013 | Body Labs is founded in New York | TechCrunch |
| 2015 | The SMPL body model paper is published | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems |
| 2017 | Amazon acquires Body Labs | TechCrunch |
| 2018 | Meshcapade is founded in Tübingen | Max Planck Society |
| 2026 | Epic Games is acquiring Meshcapade | Max Planck Society |
How this site's body model differs
This site is independent of the Max Planck Institute, Body Labs, Meshcapade and Amazon, and its figure does not use SMPL. The 3D body visualizer is built on the mesh of the MakeHuman project, whose core assets are released under CC0. The code that measures the mesh like a tape, fits it to the numbers and draws it was written for this site.
A model learned from scans and a model fitted by rules answer the same question in different ways. The guide on how a 3D body model is made sets out the steps, and the guide on what a 3D body scan is covers the scanners that the research began with.