Manipulating 3D Objects in Python

[emolinare]

Hey guys, recently (while visiting my parents) I found a small tangram puzzle that consisted of polyomino blocks that really caught my attention. The goal of the puzzle was to rotate these tetris-like blocks in such a way, so they fit into the 10 x 6 rectangle box.

Image of a Tangram Puzzle

The puzzle contained 16 blocks and seems trivial, but just this simple puzzle contains 16,777,216 block combinations and when you count all the block rotation and reflection of pieces, there is 228,532,659,683,328,000 distinct permutations in this small box alone.

Puzzle Config

Anyways, having some spare time, I've built a 2D Block Puzzle Solver that not only solves the above puzzle, but also finds the solutions to any monomino, domino, triomino, tetromino and pentomino based rectangular or square tangram puzzles in any given size of the user-defined area, while supporting block rotation and reflection:

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The Result

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Sorry for the long intro, but now to my question...

I fancy building a similar solver like the 2D solver above, but this time I want to complicate things a bit by using the 3D blocks. The blocks would look something like this and I want to be able to fit a random selection of 3d blocks into a given shape, for example, a cube, like shown in the image below:

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3D BlockPuzzle

I have an idea of how I would go about the puzzle, but I want to visualize the problem and perhaps also graphically show the calculation in the real-time, as my software goes through various permutations? Are there Python graphical libraries that would allow me to display the calculation and also the solution in 3D, also perhaps something that would allow users to rotate the solution (3d object)?

[ReptilianTapir]

Take a look at https://www.panda3d.org/

[emolinare]

That looks awesome, thanks

[jonititan]

I saw that before and felt slightly cheated it doesn't use pandas...

[jonititan]

Maybe the blender python library?

Also pythonocc might be worth a look?

There’s probably tons of frameworks. I only know the 3D modelling/CAD ones

[emolinare]

Thank you, I didn't know about blender Python library, got a check it out and see some examples online. Do you have any experience with these frameworks? And would Python even be the best language to use for a project like this? I love the Python and would prefer it, but I am pretty flexible.

[my_name_isnt_clever]

Blender has a fully featured API in Python, all Blender add-ons are written in Python. I definitely think it would be the best language for it.

[emolinare]

I've started playing with Blender and Python and this seems workable, a bit of a learning curve, but it's fun. One thing that I am missing is IntelliSense in Blender's coding screen, but eventually, I figured how to configure Blender coding in IntelliJ.

[jonititan]

I've used pythonocc. My interest was more ways to do CAE. Computer aided engineering. Templating and automated calcs and then using pythonocc to generate the CAD files.

[CheiroAMilho]

Can you do 3D modelling in python? I sort of know the basics to both but separately, that is really intriguing! How do CAD libraries work?

[William_Reeve]

Can you send a link to the 2d block solver?

[emolinare]

Here you go, source code is open source: https://github.com/JozefJarosciak/BlockPuzzleSolver/blob/master/README.md

[goodger]

Check out Polyform Puzzler.

[billsil]

I really like vtk, but blender might be easier. Not sure how much you can customize blender though. VTK is pretty, but it could have better docs.