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"Universal Jigsaw Puzzle" Hits Stores In Japan
Riktov writes "I came across this at a Tokyo toy store last week, and it's one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Jigazo Puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle, but you can make anything with it. It has just 300 pieces which are all just varying shades of a single color, though a few have gradations across the piece; i.e., each piece is a generic pixel. Out of the box, you can make Mona Lisa, JFK, etc, arranging it according to symbols printed on the reverse side. But here's the amazing thing: take a photo (for example, of yourself) with a cell-phone, e-mail it to the company, and they will send you back a pattern that will recreate that photo.
This article is in Japanese, but as they say, a few pictures are worth a million words. And 300 pixels are worth an infinite number of pictures."
The puzzle version of ascii art?
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
More like 300! I'd say.
Now tell me the pattern for creating an image of unspeakable evil; like the Great Cthulhu.
Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia! Ia! Ia! The sleeper awakens!
The Long Now Foundation
It's a puzzle when you have a specific image you're recreating. If you aren't, it is then just a toy... or perhaps an artistic medium.
And 300 pixels are worth 3.060575122 * 10^614 pictures
Fixed that for you.
Seems remarkably similar to how JPEG compression works. Not surprisingly, the resulting pictures look a lot like overcompressed JPEGs.
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
a few pictures are worth a million words
Especially when the accompanying text is in Japanese and I can't read it
It appears to be monochromatic and it also used nearest-approximation algorithms... Which means that the extra pieces are inserted as "random noise" once the general shapes are mapped out. Clever, but... low resolution.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You can even make a 404 error out of it!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Puzzles require thinking and solving.
This is a cardboard version of pixelblocks.
http://www.pixelblocks.com/
I had something similar as a kid, but there were two colors of varying saturation. Grey (from black to white), and gold (from almost white to intensely saturated). The pieces were different shapes, though, so there was a puzzle aspect to it, though all the pieces were some number of squares in different configurations (like tetris pieces, but more shapes in different sizes of 1 to 10 or so squares).
It came with a few patterns to copy from (tiger, city landscape, I can't recall the others, since I never did them).
Unfortunately, there was no www at the time, so no website to submit pictures to for patterns. One of my brothers did make some nice pictures based on photographs.
The memory is a bit hazy, but I know the company that made it was asian (I remember there were pictograms and poorly translate English on the box).
I know, I know -- cool story bro.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Is this really any different than using Legos to make pixel art?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I would seem that the word "anything" to you means "any monochromatic, low-resolution image".
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I saw this at Tokyu Hands a couple days ago. Now I know what it was. The picture is only just barely similar to whatever photo you send them when you look up close. You have to view it from far away to have it appear to have the detail of the photo.
The maximum number of ways you can arrange 300 things is 300!, or about 3.06 X 10^614. Granted a very large number, but definitely not infinite.
Okay but what if there were 301 pixels, would that be infinite?
And anyway, since pedantry loves company, I'll point out that 300! is the maximum number of orderings of 300 things, not necessarily the maximum number of arrangements. How many arrangements there are depends on what you consider the "rules" for a free-form puzzle like this. Since the pieces do have interlocking teeth I'm going to say that minimally the pieces have to be interlocked (otherwise the possible arrangements truly would be infinite to the extent the universe is), but beyond that does it have to have a specific geometry like 15x20? Does it even have to be rectangular, or can it more resemble a game of dominoes?
The enemies of Democracy are
300! (factorial) ~= 3.06 x 10^614
That's how many combinations there are, if each piece is unique and is used in the same 15x20 grid each time.
To put that in perspective, there are only about 10^80 atoms in the universe. You would need 2042 bits to represent that number in binary.
So yeah. For all intents and purposes, that's limitless.
but you can make anything with it. That's like saying you can convert any picture to a 15 by 20 pixel JPEG; technically you can, but the usually the result isn't worth looking at. That said, I'm sure a lot of people will send in pr0n to convert into patterns, just to see what it looks like in ultra-low resolution monochrome.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I think it would be (more) interesting if you could also order a set where the pieces are whatever size you want, ..., so that if you want to *sorta* recreate the mona lisa, but on a wall surface that's 4 feet wide by 5 feet tall; those (larger) pieces will be much easier to apply/fix to a wall, than a bunch of printed pages of paper.
This is the opposite of a jigsaw puzzle, so I call it a wasgij puzzle. Jigsaw puzzles only fit one way and you use the picture to aid you in fitting the pieces. This wasgij puzzle fit any way you want and you fit them together to form the picture you desire.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Sounds much like oil painting. Up close it looks like crap, but stand a few feet back and it looks great.
Sure that isn't infinite. But our solar system will be long gone before all 3.06 x 10^614 different arrangements could possibly be all worked through.
It essentially has a fixed histogram. I wonder what you'd get back from them if you sent them an image specifically designed to be hard to fit into that histogram...
A squad comprised of a Ninja, a gradeschool girl with magical superpowers, a vampire, and a giant robot. On your doorstep. With a note that politely says, "Do not taunt happy fun puzzle."
Please help metamoderate.
Not quite. Many of the "pixels" are a solid shade, but quite a few of them are various (still monochrome) gradients at variety of angles. By rotating the gradients and putting them next to certain shades or other gradient tiles, all sorts of interesting (if blurry) features can be (re)created.
you know, the pic. with the puzzle pattern.
I liked these better when they were called PixelBlocks.
I have a FF1 Fighter and a DQ1 Slime on my desk. :)
Not colorblind friendly for sure! One box of blank pieces please!
I love the name Jigazo Puzzle. It sounds like a Japanese guy saying "jigsaw" but with a thick Japanese accent.
This guy's the limit!
Seems an awful lot like the Lego mosaics that people make. Lego also did a mosaic product for a while where you could upload an image and they would send you parts and instructions for making the image with 1x1 Lego plates.
I believe there is even software now to make the 'maps' yourself, much like cross-stitch, etc.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Mod parent up.
It's the gradients on the pieces, and the principles of human vision that JPEG takes advantage of, that give this puzzle its cool effect, creating the appearance of a much higher resolution than the 15x20 "pixels" everyone else is referring to.
You can't make a (easily) recognizable Mona Lisa in 15x20 pixels. You can in 15x20 cosine gradients.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Even then, you'd probably get something basically recognizable -- I'd imagine the error diffusion just puts a lot of noise in a black area that's too big. Heck, it may even run an unsharp mask over the image to exaggerate details when the predicted output noise reaches a certain threshold.
I bet the algorithms for this bear a number of similarities to photomosaic systems as they're both working with a known set of "subpixel units."
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I'd swear that it almost looks like a tool to teach someone about basic JPEG encoding.
Given that the pieces tile exactly as if they were squares, I'm not that impressed.
I'm much more impressed by what Ken Knowlton manages to do with seashells.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
which we can encode in 2042 bits, or 64 words (assuming 32 bit word size.)
(Adjust answer as needed to account for rotations, duplicate pixels etc etc.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Just a minor quibble, but 300 pixels are not worth an infinite number of pictures. They are actually only worth 300! (or 306 057 512 216 440 636 035 370 461 297 268 629 388 588 804 173 576 999 416 776 741 259 476 533 176 716 867 465 515 291 422 477 573 349 939 147 888 701 726 368 864 263 907 759 003 154 226 842 927 906 974 559 841 225 476 930 271 954 604 008 012 215 776 252 176 854 255 965 356 903 506 788 725 264 321 896 264 299 365 204 576 448 830 388 909 753 943 489 625 436 053 225 980 776 521 270 822 437 639 449 120 128 678 675 368 305 712 293 681 943 649 956 460 498 166 450 227 716 500 185 176 546 469 340 112 226 034 729 724 066 333 258 583 506 870 150 169 794 168 850 353 752 137 554 910 289 126 407 157 154 830 282 284 937 952 636 580 145 235 233 156 936 482 233 436 799 254 594 095 276 820 608 062 232 812 387 383 880 817 049 600 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) pictures.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Or does the product sound like Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's saying "Jigsaw Puzzle".
It's a "jigazo puzzle".
Why does everyone write about "Oh, its only 300! images! Oh noes!11"? It's not 300! combination, it's actually a lot more. Keep in mind that each piece can be rotated four ways which gives you
300! * 4^300
combinations.
That would be interesting, but these don't look much like DCT blocks used in JPEGs. here's an example. It works in a similar way though, presenting enough of the right cues to allow our eyes and brains to fill in the gaps.
And anyway, since pedantry loves company
And on that note:
Plus, some of the pieces are identical, so swapping them doesn't create two unique images. Some of the pieces are gradients, so that they can be rotated in any of four directions to create a unique image. Others, on the other hand, are a solid color, and since the pieces are both vertically and horizontally symmetrical, the rotation doesn't matter. Both of those need to be taken into account to figure out how many permutations there are that create distinct images.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I would like to buy one! I think it's unique and cool. I probably would buy a couple for friends. Unfortunately, i coul not get babel fish to translate for an address. :-(
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
If you combine multiple sets, do you get better resolution or just a larger picture?
... or squint
I just entered fac(300) and before I could release the calc button I got 16 significant digits. And this is using a java app on my 200mhz phone with music playing in the background and slashdot open in opera mini. Can anyone tell me if it really multiplied 300 times or is it some neat trick?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
There are no differing nipples and holes anymore, so you can’t fail anymore. Which means that you can put it together in a wrong way without noticing. Oh, wait, there is a list of how to put it together, killing the whole point of putting a puzzle together.
I don’t think that that way it will have any chances, after this little hype is over.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This is madness!
I see you spoiled one of the best scenario I used as game-master to break in blazed wannabee Call Of Cthulhu RPG investigator.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Instead, get yourself an arrangement of colored tiles, create a custom palette based on them, then convert the image of your choice to your palette colors. Et voila! Set grid to 1px, Zoom in, and get to tilin'. Then you can glue it all down to a coffee table when you're done and have a work of art that some idiot will pay you money for.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not only that, but that example just shows how the individual frequencies look. In a nutshell, the actual blocks in the picture are composed of sums of several of those little ones, so in order to make a puzzle like that you'd have to stack transparent pieces. Which would be pretty cool now that I think of it.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
There is some combination of bits that will give us a picture of life on another planet, or Cleopatra giving Elvis a hummer. Maybe even me holding a lottery ticket with winning numbers. A combination of bits might give us a #1 pop song sung by no one.
Fun to think about.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Sounds a lot like glorified real-life Paint to me.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
FWIW it says take a photo with your cell phone, send it in and the response arrives.
They have variations in sepia, wine red, midnight blue, and a puzzle game -- but all are sold out.
By the way JIGAZO actually is how you read the three character name, which means "your own image" or maybe "self portrait image".
Here is what the separate white panel looks like:
here
And here is a blog, showing the process: "I made the Jigazo puzzle!" ;)
I'm not going to translate it entirely, but he says the pieces are nice and thick, and well formed. Also there is a guide image on the back of each piece and also, a light version of it is shown on the front of the piece as well so it's easy to understand.
It comes out looking quite good, the key is to look at it as if looking far away, with squinty eyes.
It took him 90 minutes to make his first one, then the second time he got faster.
Translation..
Use the 300 pieces in the box and you can make anybody's face.
First in the World, a jigsaw puzzle that can do your face!
Jigazo Puzzle
Can you believe it?!
All the sample images shown here were made with the same 300 pieces.
In order to make your own face...
When you send a photo by cell phone email a response image will be sent back immediately.
Just put the pieces together the way it shows and voila!
By repositioning the same 300 pieces you can make images as varied as these!
1. Send your image to the email address printed in the included instruction manual
2. A response image with the answer arrives in your cell phone
3. When you line up the 300 pieces according to that, then your face is complete. You can use anyone's face!
(small print)
Sending your photo, and receiving the response image will incur packet communications charges according to your cell phone service provider's contract.
If you are going to be using it repeatedly, we recommend you use your service provider's fixed price unlimited packet plan.
Note that the creation of the response image by our company is without cost no matter how many times you use it.
Set contents
300 piece puzzle. Color of pieces differs depending on the set type.
Piece set-up tray
Starch adhesive and applicator spatula (or something like that)
Manual. Includes instruction images for the Mona Lisa, Girl with Pearl Earrings, Natsume Soseki (the author), Kennedy (JFK), President Obama, Beethoven's face. You can immediately start playing with these faces without using a cell phone.
Other things you need:
A cell phone with camera functionality, from NTT DoCoMo, AU, Softbank Mobile (Disney Mobile and iPhone also included).
* When displaying your finished puzzle, please use separately sold 300 piece (white) panel specially for JIGAZO puzzles.
Price is 1890 yen, a bit over 20 bucks.
JIGAZO FAQ
Q1. When I send in a portrait photo with my cell phone, do you mail me back a finished puzzle?
A. No, that is incorrect. Your face is created only out of the 300 pieces in the box.
Q2. How do you do that?
A. There are 300 pieces in the box with slightly different tones.A program finds the tones closest to those of your face and sends back to your cell phone a response image specially for your face.
Q3. How quickly does the response image get sent back?
A. It depends on the state of the communications network, but in about 10 seconds it should be sent back and then you can immediately start playing.
Q4. How do you put the puzzle together?
A. Each of the pieces has a hint image on it, so you position the pieces as shown by the response animation. Enjoy watching your face gradually start to appear.
Q5. Can I only put the pieces together once?
A. No, you can redo it any number of times, and make anyone's face.You can pl
Or a high res version of a tangram.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."