Tangram puzzle application

Question

I am trying to create a WPF application using C# to run on Pixelsense that is basic version of the tangram puzzle. I am able to draw my 7 shapes and translate and rotate them all around the screen.

Could anyone give me advise regarding how I should go about saving the pattern (with shapes in specific positions and orientations) so that when a user creates the pattern next time, the application can match it to the saved one and tell the user if it's correct.

It's a pattern matching and recognition problem that I am trying to solve.

I have been stuck on this for a while now :(

Answer 1

You can use ObservableCollection or List of a custom class. That class can consist of various values such as position, orientation etc as properties. When a new pattern is drawn or when the pattern change its position you can update that particular object stored in the collection. As you have all the details of the pattern(positions and orientation) you can iterate the for loop and check the position of the new pattern when added.

Answer 2

Define the solution as a collection of objects with shapeType, position, and orientation properties. Have the solution include one shape at position 0, 0 and an orientation of 0. Now loop over all the shapes the user has actually placed to find the ones with a shapeType that matches the shape your solution has at 0,0,0. Calculate the position and orientation of every other shape relative to where the user put this one. Compare those values to the rest of your solution. You'll need to experiment with how much tolerance to allow because this stuff is not precise - to make the game fun, err on the side of having high tolerances. If needed, you can follow this up with some performance optimizations to only re-evaluate pieces that moved.

Hopefully you are using physical shape prices with tags on them instead of this purely a virtual game. I always wanted to build this when I was on the Surface team but it never happened. One challenge you will run into is defining how the tag's position/orientation relates to the actual shape. If you'll be putting tag stickers on multiple tangram sets, you almost certainly won't get the on precisely the same each time so you may need to add a "calibration" mode to your app (have the user place each piece in a specific spot and then push a button so you can record where the tag is relative to those spots). The TagVisualizer WPF control should help a lot for building your UI - definitely look into using it (this scenario was top of mind when we designed that API). The default behavior of that control (if you tell it the ID of a tag to look for but not how to visualize it) is a "crosshair" that can help you find tune your offset values.

Good luck! If you wouldn't mind recording a YouTube video when you are done and posting a comment here linking to it, I'd really appreciate that