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Webcam Jigsaw Solver in 200 Lines of Python

Posted by timothy on from the not-lines-of-coke dept.

leighklotz writes "Jeff Breidenbach and 200 lines of Python code have brought us the Glyphsaw Puzzle solver. Hold a puzzle piece up to a webcam, and the display sgiws exactly where in the puzzle the piece belongs. The solver uses the Python Imaging Library (PIL), Numerical Python, and the PARC DataGlyph Toolkit. By the way, you can make your own DataGlyphs."

12 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Needs DataGlyphs by commonchaos · · Score: 5, Informative
    This code will only work if the puzzle pieces are printed using DataGlyphs


    A Glyphsaw Puzzle starts out as a computer graphics file generated by the PARC DataGlyph Toolkit. The image is sent to a professional jigsaw puzzle manufacturing company, which creates cardboard puzzle pieces. From a distance, the pieces look similar to those from any other jigsaw puzzle. Up close, one can see individual glyphmarks.
    1. Re:Needs DataGlyphs by oliverthered · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's an advert for DataGlyphs, showing how:

      "PARC DataGlyphs are a robust and unobtrusive method of embedding computer-readable data on surfaces such as paper, labels, plastic, glass, or metal.

      Basic DataGlyphs are a pattern of forward and backward slashes representing ones and zeroes. This pattern forms an evenly textured field.

      Unlike most barcodes, DataGlyphs are flexible in shape and size. Their structure and robust error correction also make them suitable for curved surfaces and other situations where barcodes fail.
      "

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  2. slow already by Zenophran · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mirrordot to the rescue http://mirrordot.org/stories/df4be4026318903e35238 c9e48d22bff/index.html

  3. Not really, sadly. by Yobgod+Ababua · · Score: 4, Informative

    The technology is that they can embed arbitrary digital information into arbitrary images, and do it in such a way that it's resistant to errors, damage, blurriness and other rigors of the real world.

    If you have a jigsaw made using this technology where the embedded data indicates the location within the original image, you can use this software to decode that data and display where the piece should go. It doesn't look at the actual image at all, and thus wouldn't help you solve any 'normal' jigsaws, or do any sort of general image recognition.

    It does use some similar techniques to facial recognition to identify the intersection points and enable the glyph decoding, but that's all.

  4. Coral link to this by Announcer · · Score: 2, Informative

    For when the server melts down, here it is...

    http://www2.parc.com.nyud.net:8090/istl/members/jb reiden/glyphsaw/

    Interesting article, but it's using a special digitally encoded pattern to "help" the software identify the pieces. You can't just input the picture from a puzzle box, then start showing it pieces, and have it solve them for you.

    --
    Willie...
  5. Didn't they just... by Chuckstar · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...overlay a two-dimensional bar code over the image?

    Tell me if I'm mistaken, but didn't the summary imply that it was identifying the puzzle piece by the picture on it? Now that would be cool.

    So much for using this to make a face-scanner, unless we tattoo bar codes on everyone's faces.

    I guess this is an interesting academic exercise, but I don't see how they've really done anything new.

  6. Re:sgiws? by Shut+the+fuck+up! · · Score: 0, Informative

    r;r,rmystu. ,u frst Esydpm///

    elementary, my dear Watson...

  7. Re:External libraries by lcracker · · Score: 3, Informative

    The "15-line" P2P program didn't use any libraries that don't ship with the Python interpreter. This uses several 3rd party packages.

  8. Re:Google knows all by EverStoned · · Score: 2, Informative

    Look at your keyboard, it makes sense.

  9. You mean like this? by jab · · Score: 3, Informative

    PARC (and others) have already tackled that problem. Here's my favorite research paper on the topic.

    Goldberg, D.; Malon, C.; Bern, M. W. A global approach to automatic solution of jigsaw puzzles. Computational Geometry. 2004 June; 28 (2): 165-174.

  10. Re:Puzzle by m50d · · Score: 2, Informative

    The challenge is being able to be read the adress by using an ordinary webcam, with no need to carefully line up the piece. No, it's not as good as solving an arbitrary puzzle, but it's still pretty good.

    --
    I am trolling
  11. Re:closed source, proprietary, and astroturf by leighklotz · · Score: 2, Informative

    >The article is one giant piece of astroturf. The submitter's website
    >plainly lists his address in Palo Alto, which just happens to be
    >the site of PARC, the Xerox research center that developed the
    >technology. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it.

    Except I don't work for PARC. I do work for Xerox, and Xerox is the sole stockholder in PARC, though PARC is a separate company with its own business deals. I happen to have the privilege of wandering around and finding neat stuff (under non-disclosure), and when it becomes public I can tell other people about it. Jeff mentioned to me in the PARC cafeteria that he'd done this thing, so I posted it, becacuse I thought slashdot readers would be interested.