When it comes to finding the right bra, even the most proficient shoppers often despair.

With so many options on the market in differing shapes, styles and sizes, and fitting services rather hit and miss, it comes as no surprise that a recent study found that 85 per cent of women are wearing the wrong size bras.

But a new app - researched by a NASA scientist - claims to solve the problem once and for all by calculating a woman's bra size all in the flash of an iPhone.

ThirdLove promises to give women accurate bra measurements by measuring their diameters when they take two selfies- and then directs you to their store to buy one

ThirdLove, a start-up app that has already raised $5.6m (£3.61m) from investors, works by taking two pictures of a user wearing a tight vest top.

The app then renders three-dimensional data from the two-dimensional photos you have snapped of yourself and calculates your precise measurements.



Featuring a female's tutorial voice, the app then suggest bras and underwear that you should buy (from their own store) which they claim should fit you like a glove.

The app was founded by Dave Spector, a former partner at Sequoia Capital, and Ara Nefian, a senior scientist with the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center, is also involved.



Ara Nefian explained the technicalities behind the app to Fastcompany.com saying that the back end 'involves several methods of advanced computer vision, body modelling, and machine learning'.

The tool is able to e stimate the parameters of the camera, making the iPhone a calibration object.



With 85 per cent of women in the UK wearing the wrong bra size, the new app- which was research by a NASA scientist- wants to change that

When it has calculated those parameters, it is then possible to accurately give predicted measurements of a 3-D object - in the case of this app the human body - using 2-D images.



ThirdLove already has big plans for the future and eventually wants to expand its intelligent fitting service to encompass other types of clothing.



A Communications executive at the NASA Ames Research Center contacted Fastcompany.com to reiterate that Ara Nefian is a contracted researcher and that 'No NASA software, technology, equipment or facilities were used in Mr. Nefian's consulting to Third Love.'