From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Tue Aug 19 13:29:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: from sun30.aic.nrl.navy.mil by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.1/mc) with SMTP id NAA07342; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:29:01 -0400 (EDT) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Mail-from: From jbryan@pstcc.cc.tn.us Tue Aug 19 13:17:24 1997 Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:13:34 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) From: Jerry Bryan Subject: Re: isoglyphs In-Reply-To: <199708190550.BAA21896@life.ai.mit.edu> To: michael reid Cc: cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: On Tue, 19 Aug 1997, michael reid wrote: > > > With the pattern generator it's indeed very easy to find the isoglyphs. > > i'm still unclear about what your pattern generator does. could you > describe what it does, for the benefit of those who haven't seen your > program? > I'll take a crack at this one. (The program is great, by the way.) The basic mode of the pattern generator allows you to specify a pattern for one of the 3x3 faces of the cube, and the program finds all the positions (unique up to symmetry) where each of the six 3x3 faces has this same pattern. It doesn't really matter which colors you specify in your one face, since you are really only specifying a pattern. For example, I have played with corner facelets and center facelet all one color and edge facelets all another color, or center facelet one color and all the edge and corner facelets another color (yields the 6-spot), etc. The patterns I have played with have very few (or sometimes, no) solutions. I don't know what happens if you choose a pattern with many, many solutions (maybe there really aren't all that many such positions, given that all six 3x3 faces have to have the same pattern). There is an expanded mode which I haven't played with much yet where you can give up to four 3x3 patterns. Each of the six faces on the cube then has to have a pattern that matches any one of the (up to) four which you specified. The so-called pattern editor I have described seems to operate essentially instantaneously. But having generated the position, you can then ask the program to find a near-optimal solution using the Kociemba algorithm. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Robert G. Bryan (Jerry Bryan) jbryan@pstcc.cc.tn.us Pellissippi State (423) 539-7198 10915 Hardin Valley Road (423) 694-6435 (fax) P.O. Box 22990 Knoxville, TN 37933-0990