An apparatus for automatically identifying a surgical instrument, the apparatus comprising a capture module, an attribute database, a comparison module, and an exporting module, the capture module comprising hardware operable to capture multiple attributes of the surgical instrument, the attribute database comprising multiple stored attributes of a plurality of reference surgical instruments, the comparison module programmed to generate a comparison score for the surgical instrument, wherein the comparison module is programmed to generate the comparison score by receiving multiple attributes captured by the capture module and comparing it to the multiple attributes stored in the attribute database, and the exporting module configured to receive and export the comparison score generated by the comparison module.