README

SoftCube

Rubik's Cube simulator and solver written with Lazarus and Free Pascal. Supports any cube size from 2x2 and up with 3D visualization, keyboard controls, and webcam scanning.

Features

• Interactive 3D cube with mouse and keyboard controls for any size (2x2 and up)
• Full solver for all cube sizes — solved a 50x50 in ~9 hours (2330 moves)
• Real-time solver progress in the terminal output window
• Manual color entry and webcam-based color scanning (up to 5x5)
• Solve quality presets (Fast / Balanced / Optimal)
• BGRABitmap-based rendering with lighting effects

Solving a 6x6

50x50 scrambled

Credits & Acknowledgments

Herbert Kociemba

The NxN solver is based on Herbert Kociemba's RubikNxNxNSolver (Pascal/Lazarus). It uses a reduction-based approach that solves NxN cubes by reducing them to 3x3 and then applying the two-phase algorithm.

The built-in 3x3 two-phase solver is based on Kociemba's two-phase algorithm from CubeExplorer. His pioneering work on optimal and near-optimal Rubik's Cube solving algorithms is the foundation of the solver used here.

Original 3D Rendering

The original 3D cube rendering code was obtained from CodeS-SourceS.CommentCaMarche.net and has been substantially modified and extended to support NxN cubes.

Building

Requires Lazarus IDE with Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) and the BGRABitmap package.

lazbuild RubiksCube.lpi --build-all

The NxN solver CLI tool can be built separately:

cd nxn-solver
fpc nxn_solver.lpr