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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."

2 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.
  2. 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.