Shapecatcher: draw to explore Unicode characters
November 11, 2011 2:42 PM   Subscribe

Shapecatcher let's you draw a picture to find the matching Unicode characters. via
posted by Foci for Analysis (33 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
"rightwards double arrow"
posted by the mad poster! at 2:48 PM on November 11, 2011


Before using Shapecatcher, I never knew a CAT FACE WITH WRY SMILE unicode character existed.

Thanks, Shapecatcher. ๐Ÿ˜ผ
posted by defenestration at 2:59 PM on November 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


This is good.
posted by hypersloth at 3:06 PM on November 11, 2011


It didn't recognize Unicode Snowman, so it's dead to me, just like my writing skills.
posted by msbutah at 3:07 PM on November 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh. That's cool!
posted by eyeballkid at 3:17 PM on November 11, 2011


โ‡ญ
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:22 PM on November 11, 2011


I was able to find the snowman, with my awesome art skilz
posted by delmoi at 3:32 PM on November 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Defenestration, That was the character recognized when I drew a portrait of Bill Cosby.
posted by munchingzombie at 3:36 PM on November 11, 2011


Curse you delmoi.
posted by msbutah at 3:37 PM on November 11, 2011


It's like Detexify for normal people!
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:38 PM on November 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


It would be nice if you could specify 'where' in the character space the character could go. Right now there's no way to distinguish between _ and โ–”
posted by delmoi at 3:39 PM on November 11, 2011


I drew the German double S, it gave me Vai syllable hin. I drew Pi and I got Latin small ligature long s t: ๏ฌ….

needs a bit of work.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:01 PM on November 11, 2011


How does one go about beefing up their unicode library? Cause I really want these โ€” ๐Ÿ˜˜๐Ÿฑ โ€” instead of the squares with code-numbers.
posted by not_on_display at 4:08 PM on November 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Graffiti meets Emoji.
posted by schmod at 4:09 PM on November 11, 2011


โŸฝ

I guess but it's totally missing the balls.
posted by 2bucksplus at 5:02 PM on November 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


โ„‘๐”ฃ ๐”ซ๐”ฌ๐”ฑ ๐”ฃ๐”ฌ๐”ฏ ๐”ฑ๐”ฅ๐”ข ๐”ฃ๐”ž๐” ๐”ฑ ๐”ฑ๐”ฅ๐”ž๐”ฑ โ„‘ ๐”จ๐”ซ๐”ฌ๐”ด ๐”ฐ๐”ฌ๐”ช๐”ข ๐”ฌ๐”ฃ ๐”ถ๐”ฌ๐”ฒ ๐” ๐”ž๐”ซ'๐”ฑ ๐”ฏ๐”ข๐”ž๐”ก ๐”ฑ๐”ฅ๐”ฆ๐”ฐ, โ„‘'๐”ก ๐”ญ๐”ฏ๐”ฌ๐”Ÿ๐”ž๐”Ÿ๐”ฉ๐”ถ ๐”ซ๐”ข๐”ณ๐”ข๐”ฏ ๐”ฐ๐”ฑ๐”ฌ๐”ญ ๐”ด๐”ฏ๐”ฆ๐”ฑ๐”ฆ๐”ซ๐”ค ๐”ฑ๐”ฅ๐”ฆ๐”ฐ ๐”ด๐”ž๐”ถ.
posted by JHarris at 5:29 PM on November 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


๐”ฆ๐”’๐”– ๐”๐”ž๐” ๐”ฅ๐”ฆ๐”ซ-- Sorry. iOS machines have access to the awesome Emoji characters not_on_display is using, but they don't have the fancy-pants gothic lettering I use above (which dunkadunc introduced me to). (No version of Safari does, it seems.)
posted by JHarris at 5:32 PM on November 11, 2011


I guess but it's totally missing the balls.

that was the first thing you drew too???
posted by indubitable at 6:14 PM on November 11, 2011


๐Ÿ˜’
posted by LogicalDash at 6:17 PM on November 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Solid.
posted by safetyfork at 6:44 PM on November 11, 2011


JHarris: "Sorry. iOS machines have access to the awesome Emoji characters not_on_display is using, but they don't have the fancy-pants gothic lettering I use above (which dunkadunc introduced me to). (No version of Safari does, it seems.)"

I am using FF 7 on a Mac OS 10.6.8. I see only the squares in the example I used, and in all of JHarris's (claimed) gothic stuff (except the letter โ„‘).

Again, any clue what I can put in my Library folder so that I can see the whole panopoly of funstuff?
posted by not_on_display at 7:07 PM on November 11, 2011


Huh. In that case I expect it's the font that is being used to render the text. I'm using Trebuchet MS on Firefox 8 and seeing the gothic lettering but not the Emoji. (PC Safari isn't showing the Emoji either -- I think it's only Mobile Safari that's displaying it.)
posted by JHarris at 8:13 PM on November 11, 2011


(You can change the font Metafilter uses for its text in the site's preferences.)
posted by JHarris at 8:13 PM on November 11, 2011


Nice find!
posted by rmmcclay at 8:50 PM on November 11, 2011


Better than I expected.
posted by ymgve at 6:46 AM on November 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wow. I got three hundred twelve responses for drawing a question mark backward, including Braille.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 7:20 AM on November 12, 2011


Some finds:

The Legendary Snowman: โ˜ƒ
Interrobang: โ€ฝ
Upside-down Ampersand: โ…‹
White Right Pointing Index: โ˜ž
Writing Hand: โœ
Pencil: โœ
Lots of dominoes (most font don't have 'em though I think): ๐Ÿ–๐Ÿ‰๐ŸŽ๐Ÿก๐Ÿ€ฑ๐Ÿ ๐Ÿท๐Ÿฏ๐Ÿฆ
White Telephone: โ˜
White Rectangle: โ–ญ
Lots of asterisks and stars: โœณโœตโˆโ‹โŠโœดโƒโœผโœปโœฏโ‡โœทโ‰โœฝโœขโโ‘โ‚โŠ›
"Reference Mark": โ€ป
Regular Snowflake: โ„
Tight Trifolate Snowflake: โ…
Wheel of Dharma: โ˜ธ
White Sun with Rays: โ˜ผ
Watch: โŒš
Atom Symbol: โš› (doesn't display in my Metafilter body font, Trebuchet MS)
Lots of squares: โ˜โ–กโ‘โŽ•โ—ปโ’โ–ซโ–ขโ–ฃโฌšโ—ณโ—ซโ–ฉโŒ—
Lots of circles: โ—ฏโ—‹โโ—ฆโ˜‰โ—‰โ—”
Triangles: โ–ณโ—ฌโˆ†โ–ตโ—ฎโ–ฝโŸโงโง‹โงŠ (less represented in Trebuchet)
Some Scissors: โœโœ„โœ‚
Arrows: โžณโ‡ฝโ‡ โ‡œโ†ผโ‡โฌโ‡–โ‡ฐโค‡โ‡บโ‡นโ†‘โฌ‚โฌโ†˜โฌƒโžซโฌˆโ‡ญโ‡ฌโ‡ซโŸฟโŸน
Per Ten Thousand Sign: โ€ฑ
Moons: โ˜พโ˜ฝ
"Sector": โŒ”
Crosses: โœžโ˜ฆโ™ฑ
Double-struck Italic 'D': โ…†
Mahjong tiles: ๐Ÿ€†๐Ÿ€ฅ๐Ÿ€ข๐Ÿ€ฃ (not showing up in Trebuchet MS either)
Draughts Men: โ›‚โ›€ (now showing, games seem to be underrepresented)
Chess Pieces: โ™”โ™™โ™˜โ™ (unless the game is chess)
Unnatural Acts of Punctuation: โ”โ“โ•โ (some not showing)
Crossed Circle ("Not Allowed"): โƒ  (not showing)
Staff of Hermes: โšš (not showing, no Zoidberg)
Gender Signs: โ™‚โ™€โšฆโšขโšฒโšง (less common ones not showing)
Roman Numeral 100,000: โ†ˆ (not showing)
Die faces: โš€โš (not showing)
Playing Card Back: ๐Ÿ‚  (not showing)
Playing Card Knight of Spades: ๐Ÿ‚ฌ (not showing)
White hexagon: โฌก (not showing)
I have no mouth but I must kern: ๐Ÿ˜ถ (not showing)
More emotes: ๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜ƒ๐Ÿ˜ท๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜š๐Ÿ˜Œ๐Ÿ˜˜๐Ÿ˜†โ˜บ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜ฃ๐Ÿ˜“๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜ช๐Ÿ˜–๐Ÿ˜ฑโ˜น๐Ÿ˜‹๐Ÿ˜ฒ๐Ÿ˜‡ (most not showing, may be some duplicates)
Animal emotes: ๐Ÿญ๐Ÿฑ๐Ÿ˜ฟ๐Ÿ˜ผ๐Ÿ™€๐Ÿ˜บ๐Ÿ˜น๐Ÿ˜ฟ๐Ÿ˜ธ๐Ÿ˜พ (not showing)
Emphasis symbol: โŽƒ (not showing)
Helm symbol: โŽˆ (not showing)
Wheelchair Symbol: โ™ฟ (not showing, that's not very accessible-friendly, Trebuchet!)
Recycling Symbols: โ™ฒโ™บ (and not environmentally-minded either)

Notably absent: Stick men, Pac-Man
posted by JHarris at 11:28 AM on November 12, 2011


On iOS, every asterisk, square, circle and scissors are showing. Many of the arrows are not. The unusual gender signs are, as are the chessmen, dice, wheelchair and recycling symbols. The atom is showing too. Most of the emotes and the large question marks and exclamation point are showing as emoji (colored symbols popularized as Japanese cell phone emoticons). The double-stroked italic 'd' is showing too.
posted by JHarris at 11:36 AM on November 12, 2011


Again, any clue what I can put in my Library folder so that I can see the whole panopoly of funstuff?

I have CODE2000 and CODE2001 installed as backstop fonts. They're not the prettiest fonts but they're comprehensive. (The author, James Kass, and his website seem to have disappeared. Not sure what's up with that, but the fonts are freeware so I've linked to other places they can be found.)

The Unicode website also has a list of font resources.
posted by hattifattener at 9:07 PM on November 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


(Ah, and if I add Quivera, I only have two missing characters on this pageโ€” a couple of the cat emoticons.)
posted by hattifattener at 9:21 PM on November 12, 2011


Ah! I will look into those, thanks! I notice that every cat emoticon above shows up on the iPad -- two of them (well, one's a mouse) as emoji.
posted by JHarris at 10:55 PM on November 12, 2011


Oh neat, the crossed circle is actually a combining mark: โ˜ƒโƒ  NO SNOWMANS
posted by hattifattener at 11:57 PM on November 12, 2011


GNU Freefont is pretty comprehensive.
posted by LogicalDash at 5:47 AM on November 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


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