Serpentile Screen Saver

Serpentiles are hexagonal puzzle pieces with colored segments joining the sides of the hexagon (see Serpentiles)


003

300

102

021

120

The different segment patterns on a serpentile may be used to designate the tile type.   A three digit number (serpentile descriptor) is used to describe each unique segment pattern. 

I have developed a screen saver program which tiles the screen with serpentiles and then colors the segments by propagation.

Screen Saver Configuration

The colors used to paint the serpentile segments may be selected using the "Colors and Shapes" property sheet.


The allowed serpentile types, and their relative proportion are entered in the "Tile Types" edit box.  In the example above, only serpentile300 types are allowed.  An example display is shown below:


300

 


A totally different display results from allowing only serpentile003 types.


003


The result of allowing only serpentile102 types.


102


Here, two serpentile types are allowed; serpentile102 and serpentile003.


102


003


The relative proportions of the serpentile types is specified by following the serpentile descriptor with a colon and an integer weight factor.  A one to one ratio of serpentile300 to serpentile003 results in:


300:1


003:1

A five to one ratio of serpentile300 to serpentile003 results in:


300:5


003:1


The screen saver tiles the screen with serpentiles having a background color of black and segment colors of black.  This results in a totally black screen.  One by one, paths (a sequence of connected segments), are selected and painted non black.   After all paths are painted, the screen is cleared and a new pattern is generated.

The Serpentile screen saver may be downloaded from the following:

No dependencies: SerpentileSaver
Dependant on Microsoft MFC libraries (smaller version): SerpentileSaver