SOMA News

13 Jan 2000 E-Mail.

Bob has created a series of Windows programs that will all be extremely usefull for SOMA puzzle players.
These programs all run on Windows, and allow the solving of Single or Double set soma figures, as well as a scanning of your whole file collection, to see if your newest creation is already made by someone else.

Write to Bob Nungester at: bnungest@tycoelectronics.com

Bob also examined some of the stranger figures, and here are Bob's 9 tall Hexominoes.
Some of the Unsolvable Nonominoes may even be solved at double hight using two SOMA sets in
The Double Nonominoes.

And if you want to know more, then this is The creation story of WIN-SOMA.

The complete program is rather large ( 1.7 MB ), AND must be installed to run, get it here:
Version 1.1 SOMAW.ZIP . Denmark - Europe.
Sorry, Due to server space you should get this from Courtney.
Version 1.1 http://www.geocities.com/abcmcfarren/soma/Somaw.zip Courtney's site - Ohio USA.

If you have trouble installing, then maybe you need one of these (COMDLG32.OCX, OLEAUT32.DLL):
Windows System Files SOMAWS.ZIP . Denmark - Europe.
Sorry, Due to server space it's not here. Mail me if you need them.

If you already have installed this package once, then the newest upgrade is here, Just copy it to the SOMA folder:
Version 1.4 SOMA14.ZIP . Denmark - Europe.
Version 1.4 http://www.geocities.com/abcmcfarren/soma/Soma14.zip Courtney's site - Ohio USA.

What it does.

The program allows you to scroll through and solve any of the figures in the .HTM files. It will view any figure up to 16 x 9 x 7 and solve figures containing up to 27 cubes.
It will also solve partial figures, using less than 7 pieces.
In addition, it is easy to create your own figures or edit existing ones by selecting a level in a figure (1-7) and then clicking on a grid of 16 x 9 cells to fill or remove any particular space. The display shows the progress of the solution as pieces are placed in a wireframe model, or you can choose to only see the final solution, which requires less than a second. Once the solution is complete you can cycle through the pieces to display each one individually in the wireframe model.
Figures can be saved by appending them to .HTM files, so you can create your own figure sets.
The display allows full rotation about the X, Y and Z axes at any time."

PS: The program is freeware.

• It is FAST, and will solve most figures in less than 1/4 second.
• The program MUST be installed in order to run.
• The program is unfortunately rather large ( 1.7 MB ), Well maybe not by Windows standards, but sizes over 0.5 MB is large for this kind of software. The reason is probably the use of Visual Basic.

Copy this to the same folder as the Single set SOMA program, then it will use the same library files.
Get the Double Solver here:
Version 1.2 DSOMA12.ZIP . Denmark - Europe.
Version 1.2 http://www.geocities.com/abcmcfarren/soma/Dsoma12.zip Courtney's site - Ohio USA.

What it does.

The program allows you to scroll through and solve any of the Double set figures in the .HTM files.
Otherwise it operates as its smaller Single-Set brother.

PS: The program is freeware.

• It is FAST, and will solve most Double-Set figures in seconds or minutes.
• The program MUST be installed in order to run.

Now in V1.3

This program will run on ALL Windows 3.11 / 95 / 98.
Just copy the files of this zip into the appropriate folder, and run the SOMACOMP.EXE program.
The newest version is here:
Version 1.3 SOMACP13.ZIP . Denmark - Europe.

What it does.

This program will check files for duplicate Soma figures. The interface allows the user to select one file and then the program checks all other files in the same directory against each figure in the selected file.
It works for any figure size up to 54 cubes.
It checks each of the 48 possible orientations (same as symmetries) The symmetry number listed for each figure shows the transformation that will make the duplicate figure the same as this figure.

Each symmetry maps points from X, Y, Z to some other value. For example, a 90 degree clockwise rotation about the X axis maps each X, Y, Z to X, -Z, Y (symmetry #11). Listed below are the 48 symmetries:

1  X, Y, Z   9  X, Z, Y  17  Y, X, Z  25  Y, Z, X  33  Z, X, Y  41  Z, Y, X
2  X, Y,-Z  10  X, Z,-Y  18  Y, X,-Z  26  Y, Z,-X  34  Z, X,-Y  42  Z, Y,-X
3  X,-Y, Z  11  X,-Z, Y  19  Y,-X, Z  27  Y,-Z, X  35  Z,-X, Y  43  Z,-Y, X
4  X,-Y,-Z  12  X,-Z,-Y  20  Y,-X,-Z  28  Y,-Z,-X  36  Z,-X,-Y  44  Z,-Y,-X
5 -X, Y, Z  13 -X, Z, Y  21 -Y, X, Z  29 -Y, Z, X  37 -Z, X, Y  45 -Z, Y, X
6 -X, Y,-Z  14 -X, Z,-Y  22 -Y, X,-Z  30 -Y, Z,-X  38 -Z, X,-Y  46 -Z, Y,-X
7 -X,-Y, Z  15 -X,-Z, Y  23 -Y,-X, Z  31 -Y,-Z, X  39 -Z,-X, Y  47 -Z,-Y, X
8 -X,-Y,-Z  16 -X,-Z,-Y  24 -Y,-X,-Z  32 -Y,-Z,-X  40 -Z,-X,-Y  48 -Z,-Y,-X

This one's written in VB3, so it will run in Windows 3.1 or later.
SOMACOMP.EXE is the program file. In order to run, it requires CMDIALOG.VBX, COMMDLG.DLL (common dialog box custom control files) and VBRUN300.DLL (needed for any VB3 program). These must be located in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, OR they can be put in the same directory as the .EXE.
You might already have the VBX and DLL files, but I zipped them all together in case you don't have them.
Once again, VB has a large DLL needed to run any VB program, but at least the one for VB3 is "only" 400K instead of 1.5MB.

Bob did almost everything possible to make the program fast. Comparing a typical file with 25 figures against all the 1,069 nonominoes takes less than 4 seconds!
That works out to over 350,000 figure comparisons per second.
The worst case example is comparing the large nonomino file against all other figure files available from Thorleif's site. That took about 7 minutes and found over 100 duplicates in various files.

PS: The program is freeware.

• It is FAST, and will find all dublicates in seconds.
• The program works in Windows 3.11 / 95 / 98.
• The program does NOT need installation