FrakOut! is a desktop application for calculating the fractal dimension of a shape e.g. the coastline of a country, using the box counting method. It can be used to answer the following question:

Are there shapes that have a dimension that lies between 1D and 2D?

The mental model used in this application is directly inspired from the section entitled How can a shape be 1.26-dimensional? in the book The Number My5teries by Marcus du Sautoy: it uses the idea of overlaying transparent sheets of graph paper over a shape, colouring in the cells that cover part of the shape and counting the number of coloured cells. The fractal dimension can then be calculated using the following expression:

where N is the number of cells that cover the shape, and z is the zoom factor.

The application is written entirely in C++ and Qt, and is available for the Apple Mac and Windows computers.