Rocket123 wrote:
...
- As I put together the non-edges, I look for patterns in how the pieces are cut. Do they have 1 tab and 3 blanks
or 2 tabs and 2 blanks
or 3 tabs and 1 blank. For a description of tab and blanks see:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questi ... in-english. If I get stuck, I will do full scans of
all the pieces, to find the exact piece I am looking for. It’s a bit slow, but eventually I will find my piece...
As I was reading other responses, I realized that the "full scan" procedure I described above is a bit more involved.
Below is a puzzle piece, with tabs and blanks:
I look at:
- the sizes and shapes of the tabs and blanks as they are rarely uniform
- the angles of the tabs and blanks, because they typically are not at 90 degrees angles
- where the tabs and blanks are positioned (sometimes they are in the middle of the puzzle piece, but not always)
In college, I wrote a computer program to insert complex virtual 3-D puzzle pieces into a cube. I used a recursive algorithm that started with the first piece, tried the second piece and if it fit, then tried the third piece. If the third piece didn't fit, I would rotate the second piece and then try the third piece again. I use the same systematic approach for doing puzzles. It works, but it is slow (and a bit plodding) and takes lots of concentration.