Rectangular Skylines (RectSky)

WHAT IT IS:

This is an application that rotates the skyline formed by vertical rectangles into the same skyline formed by the minimum number of horizontal rectangles.

REQUIREMENTS:

RectSky requires:

• Mac-OSx
• Python2.7
• PIP (Python's tools)
• Tkinter (Python's de-facto standard GUI)

WHY?

• Application was developed using my personal computer.
• Some packages need to be installed manually as they need user consent and admin privileges, like PIP.
• And PIP is a dependency installer that we would use to install the needed dependencies, like Tkinter.

DISCLAIMER:

• The application was developed and verified using Mac-OSx, therefore I ensure it works in that environment.
• Probably the application might work in other OSes like Linux or Windows. Application was neither developed nor tested in such environments. BUT it might run having the listed python dependencies installed.

HOW TO RUN IT:

Usually Tkinter comes as default in most of Python distributions. In case it is missing you would need to do the following:

1. Clone the sources using git clone https://github.com/jmcruz1983/RectSky.git
2. Install Python2.7 using Mac-OSx installer python-2.7.14-macosx10.6.pkg. See instructions.
3. Download get-pip.py for PIP installation. See instructions.
4. Install PIP using command python get-pip.py
5. Install Tkinter using pip install python-tk
6. Run the application using python ./RectSky/RectSky.py
   • You can run the application in DEBUG mode using python ./RectSky/RectSky.py --verbose
   • You can check the command line options offered using python ./RectSky/RectSky.py --help that will print following message:

   usage: RectSky.py [-h] [-v]
   
   optional arguments:
     -h, --help     show this help message and exit
     -v, --verbose  Enables verbose logging
   

NOTES:

• The application is a GUI-based consisting of a plot area, a text input and action buttons.
• Please have a look to the RectSky.mp4 video in the repository where usage is explained visually.
• The application plots vertical skyline in BLUE doted lines and the horizontal skyline in RED doted lines.
• Hovering over the plot the coordinates are displayed helping to verify the skyline.
• In case of providing wrong JSON input a popup will appear showing a parsing error and no solution would be provided.

HOW TO USE IT:

Having the application up running:

• Initial plot and text input show the example given in the challenge.
• You can find FOUR buttons:
  • CLEAR : It cleans-up the plot and text inserted.
  • RANDOM : It generates a random vertical skyline providing valid JSON input.
  • SOLVE : Having a valid JSON input, it computes a solution and plots it.
  • COPY : It copies the JSON input to the clipboard.
• You can generate a RANDOM skyline and compute the solution using SOLVE button.
• Another option is to paste-in a valid JSON and compute a solution pressing SOLVE button.

EXAMPLE OF USAGE:

1. Run the application.
2. Example JSON input is shown in the startup.
3. Press SOLVE and find a solution.
4. Press CLEAR for clean-up.
5. Press RANDOM to generate a random vertical skyline.
6. Press SOLVE to find a solution providing a horizontal skyline.
7. Press COPY to copy into clipboard the expected OUTPUT.