--- title: Estimating the heights of New Yorkers from their scuff marks description: A fun data project that analyzes scuff marks on a Brooklyn subway station wall to estimate the height distribution of New Yorkers. Using a photo of the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/estimating-the-heights-of-new-yorkers-from-their-scuff-marks-ivav1kzhs twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Estimating the heights of New Yorkers from their scuff marks | daily.dev og:description: A fun data project that analyzes scuff marks on a Brooklyn subway station wall to estimate the height distribution of New Yorkers. Using a photo of the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/estimating-the-heights-of-new-yorkers-from-their-scuff-marks-ivav1kzhs og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ivAV1kzhS.png og:image:alt: Estimating the heights of New Yorkers from their scuff marks og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Estimating the heights of New Yorkers from their scuff marks **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A fun data project that analyzes scuff marks on a Brooklyn subway station wall to estimate the height distribution of New Yorkers. Using a photo of the Smith–Ninth Streets station, the author calibrates pixel coordinates to real-world measurements via a known-height keypad, computes relative luminance to identify the darkened scuff band, and plots wall darkness against height from the floor. A personal experiment establishes that scuff marks land at roughly 27% of body height, allowing a rough height distribution estimate. The author notes the model's limitations — leg angle variation inflates variance — and proposes Bayesian correction as future work. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I’m walking here\! 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