Generating Boards with Shuffling Technique

mmdnazar

Hi,
I am generating boards from some predifined boards with solution by 3 techniques.

Predifined Boards are having below properties.
1.The Value itself idicates whether it should be displayed on board or not.

Example :
1 2 3 14 15 16 7 8 9
Here if value existion above 10 then it shlould be displayed on board(Givens) rest all hidden.

Techniques used to generat unique boards from a single board.
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1.Swapping Row

2.Swapping Col

3.Swapping Value.

1.Swapping Column is to shuffle the first 3 columns, then next 3 and so on.
Ex.
Input 123 456 789
Output 231 564 987

2.Swapping Row is to shuffle the first 3 rows, then next 3 and so on.
Ex.
Input 1 Output 2
2 1
3 3

4 5
5 6
6 4

7 8
8 7
9 9

3.Swapping Value: is to shuffle the values in a row according to set of generated index nos.
Ex :
input: 123 456 789

GENERATED INDEX (RANDOM)
a[0] = 4
a[1] = 5
a[2] = 6
a[3] = 8
a[4] = 3
a[5] = 2
a[6] = 9
a[7] = 1
a[8] = 7

output: 456 832 917

Question

My queries are,

1.If I implement this technique then will the difficulty mode be changed? e.g an easy puzzle becomes 'hard' after shuffling

2.Is the difficulty level of a puzzle based on no. of givens or based on the arrangement of numbers.

So Any one please tell me if the techniques which I implemented is correct for my expectation or what? Laughing

Ruud · Site Admin

Hi,

Your method does not change the difficulty level of the puzzle. You are creating a Mathematically Equivalent puzzle each time.

In my SudoCue program, the Scramble function does the same thing.

There are 2 permutation operations you missed:

Swap 2 chutes (group of 3x9 cells)

Swap rows and columns (reflect on a diagonal)

As for your second question:

The difficulty level is not related to the number of givens. It depends on the following aspects:

The number of alternative moves available (search time)

Visibility of the move (complex patterns are harder to spot)

Solving techniques required

Flow (presence of moves that logically follow each other)

Ruud
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mmdnazar · Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:43 am Post subject:

Thank you so much Ruud.