Last year the Dayan crazy 3x3x3 plus cubes were released. Recently the crazy plus megaminx's were also released. In these puzzles there are two types of faces. On a type-0 face the pieces inside the circle turn with the pieces outside. In a type-1 face the inside pieces do not go with the outside ones. All the faces in the normal circle cube are type-0. Although the normal circle cube has been simulated, for example by Gelatinbrain, I couldn't find a simulator for crazy plus puzzles for a long time.

Recently I found a simulator designed by Mr. Bo Hu (胡波) from the mf8 forum (ID: hubo5563). His simulator is very powerful in that it allows you to customize which faces are type-0 and which are type-1. It has the circle 3x3x3, 4x4x4, 5x5x5, kilominx, megaminx, master kilominx (order-4-minx), gigaminx, pyraminx crystal, etc. It even has puzzles with two circles. For the double circle puzzles, there are more ways to bandage. On each face there are two regions in the circles: (1) the disk inside the inner circle and (2) the ring between the inner and outer circles. There are also three layers in terms of turning on each side (think of the 5x5x5). The simulator allows you to customize which region is bandaged to which layer. You can define different bandaging patterns for different faces.

Yesterday I got Mr. Hu's permission to share his powerful simulator with you. It is originally in Chinese and I translated the interface from Chinese to English. Please find attached the package (CirclePuzzles_2_27.zip). One needs to open index.htm (or CircleCubes.htm, CircleDodecahedra.htm and DoubleCircle.htm) in order to play.

The simulator is pretty intuitive to use, except for customizing the bandaging pattern. Let me explain it in details.

For circle cubes, the default setting is that all faces are type-0 (normal circle cube). To change some faces to type-1, one should write down the type-1 faces in "Bandaging pattern" and then click Scramble or Reset. For example, to make the Dayan Mercury cube, write F and reset. To make the Jupiter cube, write ULRBD and reset. The customization is not applicable to 4x4x4, because there is no center pieces as reference points. For 5x5x5, type-0 means that the circle pieces are bandaged to the second layer; type-1 means that the circle pieces are bandaged to the first layer.

Complete list of Dayan Crazy Plus Cubes and the corresponding bandaging patterns:

• Mercury: F
• Venus: FB
• Earth: FR
• Mars: FRB
• Jupiter: ULRBD
• Saturn: ULRD
• Uranus: ULBD
• Neptune: LBD

For circle dodecahedra, the method is the same. The only thing to note is the symbols for the faces. See the following figure for the notations:

For example, the Mercury megaminx is UD, Jupiter is BJLFRVWXYZ. For the puzzles with no center pieces like pyraminx crystals, the customization function doesn't work.

Complete list of Dayan Crazy Plus Megaminx's and the corresponding bandaging patterns:

• Mercury: UD
• Venus: UVY
• Earth: UFDY
• Mars: UFRDYZ
• Jupiter: LFRBJVWXYZ
• Saturn: LFRBJD
• Uranus: LJBRZVWX
• Neptune: LJBVWX

For double circle puzzles, things are complicated, because there are more types rather than only 0 and 1. Mr. Hu defined nine types. In order to describe the types, we need a little bit of notations first: The "disk" is the region inside the small circle. The "ring" is the region between two circles. The "first layer" is the outmost layer, turned by left/right clicking. The "second layer" is the inner layer, turned by shift+left/right clicking. The "third layer" is the layer that does not turn at all. The nine types are:

Type-0--------both disk and ring bandaged to the 3rd layer
Type-1--------disk -> 2nd layer, ring -> 3rd layer
Type-2--------disk -> 1st layer, ring -> 3rd layer
Type-3--------disk -> 3rd layer, ring -> 2nd layer
Type-4--------both disk and ring -> 2nd layer
Type-5--------disk -> 1st layer, ring -> 2nd layer
Type-6--------disk -> 3rd layer, ring -> 1st layer
Type-7--------disk -> 2nd layer, ring -> 1st layer
Type-8--------both disk and ring -> 1st layer

The default setting is that all faces are type-3. The format of the bandaging pattern is "face-symbol followed by type-number". As an example, in order to make UP type-5, FRONT type-1, LEFT type-4 and all the others type-3, just enter U5F1L4 and reset. There is a face-symbol "A" for all faces. Enter "A1" to make all faces from type-3 to type-1. Unlike the single-circle applets, for those puzzles without center pieces, for example circle master kilominx, one can still change the bandaging pattern, but only setting all faces to the same type with the "A" symbol.

Twist speed: the larger the number is, the slower the puzzle turns.

I would like to acknowledge Mr Bo Hu for his hard work, and his help during my translation.

So this is it. Have fun! If there is any problem please let me know. I am not sure if anything is messed up during translation. If the applets loads well, you should see the puzzles as in the screenshots. Feedbacks and suggestions are very welcome. I can forward them to the author, Mr. Bo Hu.


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update:

Bish from Twistypuzzles.com put a lot of efforts into cleaning the code. Thanks to his work, now the simulator works with:
WinXP/Win7 with
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13
Opera 11.01 build 1190
Google Chrome 9.0.597.98
Internet Explorer 8.0.7601.17514 and also IE versions (5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9).
According to Katja's testing, it also works under Mac OS X.

Bish also added an index page, which contains links to all three simulators. This change makes the simulator more user-friendly.

Mr. Hu also fixed the "number of colors" bug for the Double Circle Simulator.

I would also like to thank Termite for his suggestions.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update (7/21/2011):

Crazy tetrahedra are added. Enjoy!

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
2011-08-22
Update by bish:

- Regular Crazy Octahedron I and II added.
- changed default color scheme for CircleCube (to western color scheme)
- some HTML/JavaScript code cleanup

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update 2011-08-24

Crazy Octahedron with face-turning, vertex-turning, face-vertex-turning, and all pre-defined planets added.
Bermuda cubes added.
Dayan Gem III series added.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update 2011-08-25
A minor bug fixed.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update 2011-11-04
A bug in double circle puzzles fixed.

This is so cool, I've wasted half of my time on my job because of this

Thank you for this post and to mr. Bo Hu for making this simulator!

I've just updated this post. Now the simulator should work in many browsers under several OS, although not perfectly.

Update:

Bish from Twistypuzzles.com put a lot of efforts into cleaning the code. Thanks to his work, now the simulator works with:
WinXP/Win7 with
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13
Opera 11.01 build 1190
Google Chrome 9.0.597.98
Internet Explorer 8.0.7601.17514 and also IE versions (5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9).
According to Katja's testing, it also works under Mac OS X.

Bish also added an index page, which contains links to all three simulators. This change makes the simulator more user-friendly.

Mr. Hu also fixed the "number of colors" bug for the Double Circle Simulator.

I would also like to thank Termite for his suggestions.

Hey Schuma, thanks for keeping this up-to-date. I just tested and it works on my 32 bit Linux system too. Unfortunately the twist speed is too slow to be usable. Upping the speed to 20 has no visible side-effect. I think Java on my slow laptop just can't keep up.

speed = 20 is the slowest. speed = 3 is the fastest ...... Were you confused by this assumption?

Haha, oops, I feel dumb. Yes, I was confused. I would think "delay" would be a better term than speed.

3 is faster but it is still too slow but it's almost usable now.

Okay so I found an issue that probably has to do with the browser <-> Java interaction. When I hit scramble / reset and the whole page refreshes I can interact with the applet and shift+click to turn a layer. If I click outside of the applet to any of the form elements, change tabs, etc, then I can still make normal twists on the applet but I can no longer make slice twists with shift+click.

I suspect the applet is losing focus when I click on some other web page element and it can no longer receive keyboard input but mouse input still works. Clicking on the applet doesn't seem to give it focus again though.

Oh yeah. I also found some of other Mr. Hu's applets having the same glitch. He also explained that the reason is indeed loss of focus. I found that IE doesn't have this bug but firefox has it. He is thinking about it. Thanks.

Google says the routine he wants is requestFocusInWindow(). The documentation is at http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/focus.html. I'm not sure if that is Swing specific or not. Hopefully that helps!

Thanks. I've forwarded this suggestion to Mr. Hu.

will it work with w7 64 bit or does it need 32 bit?
thanks

Konrad wrote:



Konrad's post is here:

viewtopic.php?p=249914#p249914

Thanks for the updated simulator, it works nice now.
I have only added a few lines to make the colors adjustable for each side for the 3 and 6-sided cubes.
Attached is the changed CircleCubes.htm.

Cheers,
Michael

I think this is the reason why "start/stop timer with space key" wasn't working in Firefox, and I've replaced it with big button

another two ideas for the simulator (there's no java source, so I cannot patch it):

a) change unwanted pieces to colorless (or grey... whatever). If I'm looking for some alg which scrambles edge pieces, I'm not interested in the corner pieces. So it would be nice, if the corner pieces could be "turned off", i.e. set the color to black or gray so that they don't disturb my looking at the edges pieces. And vice versa too of course
This can be extended to turn all but a specific set of pieces off, say I want to see only the four edge pieces of the top face...
Shouldn't be difficult to implement.

b) Make the thing scriptable. That means I want to be able to define an alg with a name (button) and then just click the button to execute the alg. This just save time


cheers,
Michael

They are good suggestions. I told them to Mr. Hu and he said that he had already implemented them in a different version.

Mr. Hu has made two versions of the simulator:

The first version is an applet that can be embedded into webpages in the mf8 forum. Its purpose is to demonstrate algorithms to facilitate discussions. In this version, one can (a) customize colors for individual pieces including using the grey color, and (b) use scripts. But this version doesn't seem to have a "scramble" button, because it is not needed for a demonstration purpose.

The second version is a standalone applet derived from the first version. It is the one I translated and posted here. The purpose is to let people play the puzzles.

Since Mr. Hu's primary interest is still in the first version, I really doubt he would implement those two functions in the second version. But if he does, I will certainly update the package here.

Bump!

New crazy tetrahedra series are added. You can find it in the index page.

That double circle dodecahedron is scary

Is it possible to make a circle skewb? The circles would have to be around the corners...

There are circle skewbs on Gelatinbrain's page. <http://users.skynet.be/gelatinbrain/Applets/Magic%20Polyhedra/index.htm>, 3.2.9, 3.2.10 etc.

Thanks for the update schuma!
As the earlier version, it works fine with Opera on my W7 64bit notebook. IE V9 does not show a picture.

Crazy Circle Octahedra added!

Have fun!



Do you see the picture now? Or do you mean simulator?

Thanks for the update, bish!
I mean the following:
I download the zip file, extract everything and click onto the .htm file.
By default, IE V9 gets started (I run W7 on my notebook), but the simulator does show no picture of the puzzle.

With Opera, everything works fine!

IE9 doesn't want to open it (I mean ActiveX or similar components) without your permission. You should see confirmation bar similar to the one on this picture in bottom of IE9 window. If you don't see the bar, it is probably turned off somewhere in security preferences. I will check which one, but later today when I arrive home.

The IE9 opens it and I can see buttons like "Puzzle:" and I can click on them and see a reaction, but there is no picture of the puzzle and I cannot play with it.
This is not a problem for me, because I just use Opera. It was just meant as an information for others.
This happens quite often, that specific stuff does not run on IE / W7 x64.
E.g. the Gelatinbrain downloadable does not run at all on two different Notebooks with W7 x64 in my house.
(The Gelatinbrain applet runs on IE9, though.)

It works fine with my IE8 & Firefox3.6.(java&javascript authorized).

Too see if the problem is in the applet itself,
I recommend you to test by a html file reduced to minimum like this:


Indeed, IE security policy becomes more and more complicated and not a bit efficient,
while the solution for most of the security problems is quite easy...

謝謝, 胡先生

bish, thank you for adding the circle octahedral series. Recently Mr. Hu made several other simulators, including:

Bermuda cubes like this one:

Variations include triangular centers on one face, two faces, ... up to four faces.

Dayan Gem III like this one:


Even for octahedron, there are more variations: the ones with centers/without centers; with circles/without circles; face-turning, vertex-turning, face-vertex-turning. The following screenshot shows a face-vertex-turning one, with a vertex-turn.


For the Dayan Gem III and octahedra, all the faces can be customized into stationary circle/moving circle/no circle. So there's very large number of combinations.

By the way, the stationary circles are labeled by a "+" sign at the center. Moving circles do not have this sign.

I haven't include these simulators here because I really don't know how many ppl are playing or want to play them? Let me know if you want them.

Actually, this reduced script shows me a playable puzzle.
What does this tell me?
Again, it is not a problem for me, because with Opera or Firefox it works fine.
I guess, this had made it clear already, that the problem is not in the applet itself?
It is more curiosity, that I would like to understand the IE9 problem.

I think you are not allowing the execution of JAVASCRIPT.
JAVA and JAVASCRIPT are two different things.
You are only allowing the execution of JAVA but not JAVACRIPT.
Choose from the menu
[tools] -> [internet option] -> [security] -> [internet] -> [activate javascript].

And everything will go OK, I hope...

It's very interesting! Please add them!

Hi everyone, I've just added all the new puzzles I promised, including the Bermuda cubes and the Circle Dayan Gems. The octahedron is also expanded to include all different variations. Please go to the first post in this thread to download the latest package (2011-08-24).

It's virtually impossible to solve all of them.

I just fixed a bug in the last version. The planets of octahedron couldn't be correctly selected. Now it's fixed.

Hi Friends,

I have downloaded the latest version of this, but unfortunately I have never been able to get it to work . I don't think my browser recognises some of the files. I have IE v9. I get everything except the puzzle. I will add a screenshot of what I get. If anybody could help me out any help is appreciated.

Cheers,
Burgo.

PS I started solving a few Gelatinbrain puzzles yesterday, just the Circle Megaminx and the Circle 2x2 to get used to the controls. There is too much choice!!

Hi Burgo, I see the same screen when using IE V9. I have never figured out how I should change my IE configuration, I just use Opera or Firefox. No problem with these.
Download and installation should be trivial: E.g.
http://www.opera.com/download/
Right click on the appropriate .htm file and "open with" Opera.

Thanks Konrad,
I tried it in Firefox before but it failed,
And I just tried Opra and I got a java console error message.

EDIT: I have been successful! I downloaded it at work onto a flash drive and I am running it off that presently. I may have forgot to unpack the Zip Files? At work I had that prompt and the file `looked like` a Zip file. At home I got no such prompts and the file looked like a normal file. I think it's the differnce between W7 and XP.

Thanks for the help. And THANKS MR HU, and all involved, this is awesome to try out some of those fantastic puzzles !!

Cheers,
Burgo.

Hi Schuma and others,

I have been working on some of the double circle cubes recently, and they are a LOT of fun, especially with bandaging (Incredible)!!. But I am beginning to need more than one sitting and have to find a way to save my progress. I can't find how to do it? Is it simple and I am missing it, or is there currently no way to save?

Also, on a side note, the bandaging patterns on the planets are `very handy` to copy and paste into the `bandaging pattern box`(a nice feature), but they are not the standard colours, for example: Jupiter is ULRBD but should be FLRBD. This is a minor detail, but would be easy to fix in the next upgrade (if you keep upgrading ).

Great work everybody involved,
Cheers,
Burgo.

Hi Burgo,

There is no "save" function in this version yet. Bo Hu does have another type of interface that can export and import a sequence of moves. The purpose of that interface is for demonstration in the mf8 forum but not for solving. So it is not intuitive to use for the purpose of saving progress. Like, one has to do a lot of messy copy&paste&edit to save progress. Because of this reason I'm not yet preparing to make the English version of that interface. Sorry about that.

Hello schuma,

2 questions:
1) Which 3d engine uses the java program ?

2) Is it possible to create a interface that textual input, copy and paste makes possible ?

I think, there is no other program that simulate Bermuda Cubes.

Cheers,
Andrea

1) Sorry I don't know.
2) I think it is possible. As I said before, Bo Hu has another version that supports copy and paste, but one cannot easily combine mouse clicking and pasting. I do think it's possible to make a third version like gelatinbrain. Maybe I'll learn some java and make it at some point.

schuma

Hi Schuma
please update you applet
1. new bermuda cubes - 42


2. new circle puzzles:
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87085
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=86759
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87415
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87636
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87919
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87540
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=88667
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=88925 + http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=89542
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/forum.php?mod= ... &tid=89930











3. other puzzle
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=87177
http://bbs.mf8-china.com/viewthread.php?tid=88814

Bo Hu recently made a simulator for face turning icosahedral puzzles, which supports jumbles. I know that I've skipped many great simulators he made because my time constraint, and the fact that each simulator has a huge number of variations. But when the jumble-able FTIs comes out, I think I shouldn't skip any more. Please find attached the zip file that contains the .jar and an html page.

Enjoy jumbling!

Yay for simulated jumbling!
Also, at grigr. This applet seems to be the go-to place for ridiculously big (3D) twisty puzzles! Can't wait to play around and not solve them!

Bo Hu just made the edge-turning version of icosahedron, which also supports jumble moves. Please find attached the simulator.

The interesting thing is about the 90 degree turns (which are nontrivial only when depth >= 9). Note that you can select six edges out of the thirty edges, which are in the directions of the faces of a cube. If you only turn these six edges by 90 degrees and 180 degrees, the puzzle is equivalent to the Rubik's cube (3x3x3). So the Rubik's cube group is a subgroup of the group of the edge-turning icosahedron with jumbles. I didn't realize it until Bo Hu pointed it out in the MF8 forum.

Very interest. Thank You