Patent ID: 7324691

Claim:
A computer system for recognizing a hand-drawn shape, comprising: a shape recognizer for receiving from a user, a hand-drawn ink input representing a diagram, flow chart, or both; a container recognizer operably coupled to the shape recognizer for performing container recognition that identifies a plurality of closed containers within ink input; and a connector recognizer operably coupled to the shape recognizer for identifying a connector within ink input that connects the plurality of closed containers, wherein the identifying of the connector includes identifying a skeleton stroke, an arrowhead stroke, or both, by breaking the connector into pieces at cusps, which are points of high curvature within the connector; and a grouper operably coupled to the shape recognizer for grouping the plurality of containers with the connector by automatically adjusting one or more properties of at least one of the plurality of containers, the connector, or both, such that the plurality of containers and the connector are considered joined, thus allowing the user to create the diagram, flow chart, or both without concern for a stroke input order, a number of strokes used, or both.