Skybuck's ConvexifyMe Programming Contest

Hello everybody,

Skybuck is back with a new programming contest oh yeah ! ;) :)

For this programming contest the mission is as follows:

A bitmap has to be "convexified" which means the following:

Convex polygons have to be made which describe the boundaries of the red pixels of the bitmap.

The polygons must be convex.

Further hints:

Each pixel of the bitmap can be considered a box.

This means the pixel's coordinate is actually turned into two x coordinates 0 and 1.

The pixel shares these coordinates with it's neighbours.

So a simply polygon for a single pixel would look like:

(0,0) -----------(1,0)

|             |

(0,1)-------------(1,1)

The order of the points can be clock-wise or counter-clock-wise.

The goal is to keep the number of convex polygons as low as possible.

The goal is also to keep the number of edges as low as possible.

I am not yet sure which goal should get priority. Maybe goal1 automatically leads to goal2, or perhaps not.

To get this contest started the same bitmap as the "BoxifyMe" contest will be used:

The output and thus the entries for this contest should look as follows:

X, Y (starting point)

X, Y

X, Y

X, Y

X, Y (starting point one more time to indicate it's closed.)

X, Y ( starting point of second polygon )

X, Y

X, Y

X, Y ( starting point of second polygon again to indicate it's closed. )

Example:

0,0

1,0

1,1

1,0

0,0

Good luck and may the convex polygons have mercy on your soul ! ;)

Entries can be sent to skybuck2000@hotmail.com

The best entry will become the King of the Contest.

Will you be sitting in this chair ?

This is your chance to become a King ! ;) :) Even if it's only for a few seconds, minutes or days ! ;) :)

Hurry up and get that code cracking some output ! ;) :)

Entries/solutions will be made publicly available for further study and analysis to make sure it's valid.

Overlapping convex polygons are allowed. Though non-overlapping polygon entries are also welcomed.

I will also be entering the contest.

"Pixel based" polygons input might be allowed as well, stay tuned for further details

I think it might be possible to describe a simple "pixel" based polygon and then later expand it to a "boundary" polygon (more suited for opengl and physics based stuff...),

So I might consider changing the competition a little bit to make it possible to simply submit a "pixel based" polygon" instead of a "boundary based" polygon.

(Pixel based polygons would also be more compression friendly and thus require less points in the text files).
 
However first I would need to make sure that I have a "pixel" to "boundary" polygon converter to make sure that it is indeed possible.
 
So stay tuned for more details coming in the next days/weeks/months.

Christmas and New year is coming up so I understand it might be a busy weak for some folks out there...

with all this family related stuff going on... so these contests will run for a long time... maybe even forever...
 
I can understand if people enter later on in january or so ;) :)

If you do want to enter early make sure you state what type the input/output/entry is either:

1. Boundary based.

2. Pixel based.

Probably gonna delete this contest ;)

 Hmmm...

Bitmaps can probably not be converted to convex polygons because as soon as a pixel is one line lower it becomes concave lol ?! ;) :)

So I am thinking about deleting this contest again...

I will wait one day to see if anybody disgrees and then I will delete it again ;) :)

Or maybe I will just let this website be... as a testimony of the stupidity of this idea LOL.

(I was a bit tired when I thought of it lol ;) :))

Maybe a concave contest ;) Neh too easy lol ;) :)

Ok so perhaps convex polygons a stupid dumb idea...

But concave polygons would probably still be interesting.

Unfortunately the box2d engine can't handle it well... so it wouldn't be of much use for it.

However these concave polygons could still be usefull for compression algorithms.

So maybe I will hold a concave polygon contest lol :)

Or maybe not... maybe I don't need a contest... because I would probably be pretty good at it anyway ! ;) :P

It probably requires zero skills to do a concave polygon so... it's probably a stupid idea for a contest as well..

because it's too easy ! LOL.

So it looks like this contest is going straight into the TOILET.. like a big fat nasty brown submarine LOL.

See here for a better/real contest in case you don't know about it:

http://www.skybuck.org/BoxifyMe/

Bye,

 Skybuck ;) :)