RubikTwoPhase 1.0.0

A package to solve Rubik's cube in less than 20 moves on average with the two-phase algorithm.

RubiksCube-TwophaseSolver

Overview

This project implements the two-phase-algorithm in its fully developed form to solve Rubik's cube in Python. Though Python is much slower than for example C++ or even Java the implementation is sufficiently fast to solve random cubes in less than 20 moves on average on slow hardware like the Raspberry Pi3 within a few seconds.

If you just want to solve Rubik's cube and play around with its patterns Cube Explorer may be the better choice. But if you want to get a better understanding of the two-phase-algorithm details or you work on a project to build a cube solving robot which solves the cube almost optimal this this may be the right place to look.

Usage

The package is published on PyPI and can be installed with

$ pip install RubikTwophase

$ pip install numpy is necessary too if the numpy package is not installed in your environment.

Once installed, you can import the module twophase.solver into your code:

>>> import twophase.solver  as sv

There are several tables which must be created, but only on the first run. These need about 80 MB disk space and it takes from about 1/2 to 6 hours to create them, depending on the hardware.

A cube is defined by its cube definition string. A solved cube has the string 'UUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFFDDDDDDDDDLLLLLLLLLBBBBBBBBB'.

>>> cubestring = 'DUUBULDBFRBFRRULLLBRDFFFBLURDBFDFDRFRULBLUFDURRBLBDUDL'

See https://github.com/hkociemba/RubiksCube-TwophaseSolver/blob/master/enums.py for the exact format.

>>> sv.solve(cubestring,19,2)

This solves the cube desribed by the defintion string with a desired maximum length of 19 moves and a timeout of 2 seconds. If the timeout is reached, the shortest solution computed so far is returned even if it is longer than the desired maximum length.

'L3 U1 B1 R2 F3 L1 F3 U2 L1 U3 B3 U2 B1 L2 F1 U2 R2 L2 B2 (19f)'

U, R, F, D, L and B denote the Up, Right, Front, Down, Left and Back face of the cube. 1, 2, and 3 denote a 90°, 180° and 270° clockwise rotation of the corresponding face.

Another possibility is to locally start a server which listens on a port of your choice and which accepts the cube definition string and returns the solution.

>>> import twophase.server as srv
>>> srv.start(8080,20,2)

If you get a
Server socket created
Server now listening... message everything seems to work fine. In this example the server listens on port 8080, the desired maximum length is 20 moves and the timeout is 2 seconds.

You can access the server - which may run also on a remote machine - by several methods.

http://localhost:8080/DUUBULDBFRBFRRULLLBRDFFFBLURDBFDFDRFRULBLUFDURRBLBDUDL
with a webbrowser if the server runs on the same machine on port 8080.

http://myserver.com:8081/DUUBULDBFRBFRRULLLBRDFFFBLURDBFDFDRFRULBLUFDURRBLBDUDL
with a webbrowser if the server runs on the remote machine myserver.com, port 8081.

echo DUUBULDBFRBFRRULLLBRDFFFBLURDBFDFDRFRULBLUFDURRBLBDUDL | nc localhost 8080
with netcat, if the server runs on the same machine on port 8080.

You also can communicate with the server with a little GUI program which allows to enter the cube definition string interactively.

import twophase.client_gui

The following module is experimental. It uses the OpenCV package which eventually has be installed with $ pip install opencv-python.

import twophase.computer_vision

You have the possibility to enter the facelet colors with a webcam. There are several parameters which have an influence on the facelet detection quality. If you use a Raspberry Pi with the Raspberry Pi Camera Module and not an USB-webcam make sure you do "sudo modprobe bcm2835-v4l2" first.

You can find some more information how to set the parameters here: Computer vision and Rubik's cube