Given a set of objects O in the plane, the corresponding intersection graph is defined as follows. A vertex is created for each object and an edge joins two vertices whenever the corresponding objects intersect. We study here the case of unit segments and polylines with exactly k bends. In the recognition problem, we are given a graph and want to decide whether the graph can be represented as the intersection graph of certain geometric objects. In previous work it was shown that various recognition problems are \(\exists \mathbb {R} \) -complete, leaving unit segments and polylines as few remaining natural cases. We show that recognition for both families of objects is \(\exists \mathbb {R} \) -complete.