We present a novel formulation for B-spline snakes that can be used as a tool for fast and intuitive contour outlining. The theory is implemented in a platform independent JAVA interface, which allows real time computation of the snake curve. In this paper, our main focus is on two points. First, we propose a novel B-spline snake formulation, where the intrinsic scale of the spline model is adjusted a priori. It leads to a reduction of the number of parameters to be optimized and eliminates the need for internal energies. The approach solves the two main drawbacks of traditional snakes (slow convergence speed and difficult to adjust weighting factors for internal energy terms). Second, we comment on our experience using JAVA for the implementation of the snake and for the design of the graphical user interface. Our technique provides a very intuitive, user-friendly, and platform independent tool for contour outlining, generally applicable to a vast range of images. Several biomedical examples of applications are included to illustrate the versatility of the method.