simple shape recognition

Question

I wanna achieve something that looks like the wizard's ability in the game Trine.

I want to create a game where the player uses the mouse to create certain objects, so i will need to compare the shape the player drew to a predefined shape of my own and check if its close.

I have no idea how to achieve this and where to look for, I assume it has something to do with shape recognition like in image processing and computer vision but it should be much simpler and work in real time.

does anyone have a clue how this can be done or where can i look for something like that?

Answer 1

Is this what you're going for? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zh79q_xvZw

I would start by researching gesture recognition. I think that's the phrase you need to get good info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture_recognition

Also, sketch recognition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_recognition