You can help the H-Unique project at Lancaster by contributing photographs of your hands to our project database. We are collecting two core datasets, the first is via our ‘citizen science’ web app from which we hope to achieve a minimum of 5,000 unique contributors.
The second dataset will be our high quality ‘control’ dataset, photographed at Lancaster University with a target of 500 contributors.
Anybody over the age of 18 can contribute to either dataset, but an individual can only contribute once.
Dataset 1 – online contribution
You can contribute online by using our web-app from any smartphone browser or by taking photos with a digital camera and uploading from a desktop or laptop PC.
The app will guide you through a short questionnaire and the process of photographing your hands in a number of set poses. Contributing normally takes around ten minutes.
All contributions are anonymous and will not be shared without prior consent.
To contribute online, simply scan the QR code or click on your smartphone to be taken to our contribution app, where you will be guided through the contribution process.
Dataset 2 – in person contribution
If you are located close to the main Lancaster University campus, we would welcome your contribution to our high quality ‘control’ database, which we photograph in Infolab21 on campus.
For this dataset we collect extremely high resolution colour photographs in the same poses as dataset 1 under controlled conditions along with a corresponding infra-red image of the hand (the infra red images provide additional data about the location of veins – which can aid in training AI models to recognise veins in the colour images). A separate set of images are also taken with a mobile phone camera in the same manner as for dataset 1.
If you would like to contribute to the control dataset, please use our contact page to let us know and we will arrange a time for you to visit and contribute.