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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
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.
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.
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.
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
I'd swear that it almost looks like a tool to teach someone about basic JPEG encoding.
"Jigazo" means "self-portrait" in Japanese. Clever naming.
What makes this different from Legos, pixelblocks, ASCII art, or even a JPEG image, is that the selection of pixels/pieces is predetermined, limited, and they must all be used to make the image. For all those other forms you're allowed to pick the closest color value for each pixel.
With this puzzle, supposing you did it manually, scanning row by row, and picking the best-fitting piece for each pixel. It'll look great at first, but soon you'll be running out of good matches and having to choose less and less optimal pieces; you can't say "give me a 45% with a sideways gradient" when you've used them all up. So the algorithm has to consider how to distribute all the pieces throughout the image for the optimum match.
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.
No, this is Sparta
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