How HeightViz sources heights and never guesses

Most height-comparison sites hold thousands of figures with no way to check any of them. HeightViz holds fewer and links every one. This is how that works in practice.

One rule: a figure exists only if a source states it

A record in the catalog needs four things before it appears anywhere: the name of the source, a link to the page the figure was read from, the date it was checked, and a note saying what exactly was measured. A record missing any of these does not load. Nothing is averaged from several sites, and nothing is estimated from a photo.

Who counts as a source

For people it is the official profile of a league, club or federation: NBA.com, NFL.com, the WTA, MLS, club squad pages and the Premier League's player records. Those profiles publish the listed height, sometimes with a metric figure and sometimes only in feet and inches; when only imperial is given, it is converted exactly at 2.54 cm to the inch and the listed figure is quoted in the note. Athletes whose official profile could not be read, Cristiano Ronaldo among them today, are not on the site yet.

For animals it is a zoo or museum reference such as San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Smithsonian's National Zoo or the Field Museum, which keeps SUE the T. rex. For sports equipment it is the rulebook of the sport. For buildings and vehicles it is the operator, the manufacturer, a standards body or the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Average adults come from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

What "height" means changes from subject to subject

A giraffe is listed by its full standing height. An elephant, a lion and a polar bear are listed at the shoulder, because that is what zoos measure. SUE is listed at the hip, because that is what the Field Museum publishes. A basketball hoop is listed at the rim, which is the number in the rulebook. The board honours the note: where a drawing rises above its measured point, the animal is drawn so the measured point sits at the stated height, and a dashed mark shows where that is.

Why this is worth the smaller catalog

A comparison is only as good as its worst figure. A board that puts a sourced 206 cm next to a guessed 180 cm is a guess. Keeping every number checkable means the site can grow only as fast as sources can be read, and that is the trade HeightViz makes on purpose. If you know an official source for a figure that is missing or out of date, the contact page is the way to send it.