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Identify a minifigure from a photo

Since 0.5.0.

Part Spotter (was Part to Inventory) is the Workbench workflow that identifies pieces by photo.

Do this when you hold a minifigure and want to know which one it is and whether you already own it.

Brick Work asks Brickognize, an outside recognition service. It sends only the photo you choose, resized to at most 1600 pixels; nothing from your collection goes with it. Each photo uses one request from the daily budget.

Identify the figure

  1. Open the jump search (Jump to a set, copy, figure or part, or ⌘K) and choose What is this? · identify a part by photo.
  2. Under Recognise, choose Minifigure.
  3. Press Enable camera and allow camera access. Place the figure inside the guide and press Take picture (or Space). Or press Choose a saved photo.
  4. Brick Work lists the matches, best first. Each card shows the figure's number, its match score (0 to 1) and what you already have of it, or Not in your collection.

The camera needs a secure page (HTTPS or localhost); elsewhere only the saved photo is offered. A photo must be smaller than 8 MB.

Brick Work shows only matches it finds in the local BrickLink catalogue. If nothing matches, it says Nothing identified · try another photo.

Accept a result

What is this? saves nothing. On the card that shows your figure, choose:

  • Open minifigure opens the figure's page in your collection.
  • Add to stock opens Manage → Add with the figure filled in as loose stock.
  • Fill a missing part appears when copies of your sets are missing this figure. It opens the Matchmaker.

Identify several figures and add them

  1. Open Workbench → Part Spotter and set Identify to Figures.
  2. Take a picture of each figure (up to 6 in the queue).
  3. For each one, check Reference · best match, or pick one of the Other possibilities (keys 1 to 9). Choose a colour and press Confirm.
  4. On Results, press Review inventory batch, choose Add to, Condition and Keep photos, and save the batch.

The notice after saving offers Undo, which takes the figures out of stock and archives their identifications.

Add from a photo

Manage → Add also takes a photo: choose Photo, choose a picture and press Review. Brick Work lists the matches (sets, minifigures and parts, best first) and adds nothing until you choose one. Tick Keep photo to save your picture as the new item's own photo; without it nothing is saved. Undo after adding takes the photo back with the item.

A match whose number names more than one catalogue item is not guessed: it is listed under Unresolved with the reason.

Look back at saved identifications

Open Manage → Tools & Admin → Identify history. It lists saved identifications, newest first, with the candidates Brickognize offered and their match scores.

Only Part Spotter batches and API identifications are saved; What is this? results are not. Archived ones are hidden.

The daily budget

Brick Work allows 100 Brickognize requests a day by default. Change it with BW_BRICKOGNIZE_DAILY_BUDGET. Every photo counts, whether you keep the result or not; Undo does not give requests back.

Manage → Tools & Admin → Catalogues & keys shows Brickognize's Budget today. When it is used up, Brick Work sends no more photos until it resets at 00:00 UTC.

Through the API

POST /api/v1/identifications takes one photo as the multipart field file and needs a token with the write scope. It returns the candidates with what you own of each and saves the result to the Identify history, with a 256-pixel thumbnail that keeps no photo metadata. DELETE /api/v1/identifications/{id} archives a result; its Undo restores it.

What next

A part under a sticker: turn on Has a sticker on its review step; see Mark a sticker.