Category Archives: Algorithms

All articles in which an algorithm is introduced to solve a specific problem.

Juggling with Trees – How to Layout Hierarchical Information Compactly

Hierarchical information is everywhere: Family trees, organizational charts, taxonomies or product breakdown structures. A good graphical representation can convey a lot of information very quickly. However, creating such a drawing manually is cumbersome. This article will show how such a task can be performed automatically.

Backtracking in The Nursery – How to Solve Scramble Squares

I recently stumbled upon a game that is not uncommon here in Germany. It is called Scramble Squares (in German “Legespiel”). The specific type of tile-based game, this post will be about, has quadratic cards with pictures on them. These pictures must be arranged to a square in such a way that the pictures on each card fit together with the pictures of the cards around it. I will show how complex this problem is and also present an algorithm to solve it.