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.
FrakOut 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: d= logN/ log2^z, where N is the number of cells that cover the shape, and z is the zoom factor.
The FrakOut application is written entirely in C++ and Qt.
Note: FrakOut is cross-platform and it works both on Mac and Windows.