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A computer is a pretty powerful multifunctional tool. More than that, advancements in technology and programming made it possible for applications to aid in recognition of real-life object, or custom input. A suitable example here is ShapeRecognition, which, as the name suggests, tells you what shapes you draw.

Before you can see what the application is all about, you might want to make sure that Java Runtime Environment is on your computer. On the other hand, ShapeRecognition doesn’t come packed inside an installer, so you can easily carry it around on a thumb drive in case you want to use it on other computers.

The interface might not really strike you as appealing, being a simple representation of a black canvas, on which you need to draw your shapes. Before you begin, the status bar shows instructions on how to draw, and what needs to be done for the recognition process to come into effect.

There are no drawing tools other than a simple pen. Although this isn’t necessarily an inconvenience, it would have used at least a magnifier, since some objects aren’t properly recognized if too small. What’s more, your drawing needs to be composed of a single, continuous stroke, with no option to add other details.

Detection is automatically triggered once you release the left mouse button, which is used to draw. There’s the possibility to set the time before detection kicks in, with the result shown in the status bar under the form of text. Unfortunately, it’s not quite accurate, or varied. In fact, it’s only capable of telling apart circles, arcs, and triangles, mixing them up in some situations, or if complex shapes are drawn.

ShapeRecognition comes with good intentions, and wants to show proof that a computer can tell things apart, even based on custom input. Sadly, it doesn’t really serve as a neat example, mostly because of the small amount of shapes it can detect.