Microsoft Corp.’s experimental Garage Project team has unveiled a new application that aims to bring to life all of those wonderful ideas that are first jotted down on a scrap of paper.

The app, called Ink to Code, is designed to help developers export rough sketches of their ideas into its Visual Studio platform. From there, the ideas can be transformed into working applications.

Ink to Code is designed to expedite the process of prototyping Universal Windows Platform and Android user interfaces, Lainie Huston, a program manager at the Microsoft Garage Project, said in a blog post Thursday.

Rather than using scraps of paper, developers are required to use a stylus to sketch out their ideas on a touchscreen device. Those sketches can then be fed into Ink to Code, which automatically resizes them and cleans them up so they form straight, symmetrical boxes that will become elements of the new user interface.

From there, the app helps transform those sketches into code for Visual Studio and also Microsoft’s Xamarin tool for mobile app developers.

Ink to Code doesn’t go as far as to build a complete working app, but the prototype UIs it builds can be used to speed up the early phase of app development. It works by translating design symbols into code for things such as labels, text fields and paragraphs, images and buttons.

Developers at the Garage Project used machine learning teachnology for object recognition that was first built by Microsoft to create the app. The idea is that developers can use Ink to Code to build an early iteration of whatever app they have in mind. Huston said that it also has potential as a collaboration tool for people with minimal design and coding experience, or as a productivity tool for developing rough ideas.

Microsoft’s Xamarin team, which sponsors the project, said it’s making Ink to Code publicly available so it can get more feedback and see if it’s worthy of further development.

Huston described Ink to Code as a “prototype for prototypes.” She said Microsoft’s Xamarin team, which sponsors the project, is making Ink to Code publicly available so it can get more feedback and see if it’s worthy of further development.

Image: Microsoft