New world record: computer vision solves 400-piece jigsaw puzzle

Submitted by Sek Chai

Researchers from Taeg Sang Cho (MIT), Shai Avidan (Tel Aviv University), William T. Freeman (Adobe System) has set a world record for a computer based jigsaw-puzzle solving software. According to a Popular Science article, it can solve a 400-piece puzzle compared to the previous record of 320 pieces, set by a Danish team in 2008 for puzzles with simple shapes and limited colors. The algorithm analyzes color at the boundaries of each jigsaw piece and then uses a probabilistic approach to find similar values on pieces. Details of this research will be presented at CVPR 2010, in a paper entitled "A Probabilistic Image Jigsaw Puzzle Solver".