This paper attempts to explore the solving of Sudoku puzzles (as commonly found in newspapers and mobile games) using image processing, machine learning algorithms for OCR, and an efficient solving algorithm to compute the correct answer. We use various image processing techniques, such as Image Thresholding, Erosion and Dilation, etc. to convert a high-resolution and colored camera-generated image of the physical Sudoku puzzle into a format that can be digitally operated upon, in order to isolate the contents of the 9 × 9 puzzle grid correctly. We then use our custom Optical Character Reader (OCR), which is based on the k-NN machine learning algorithm, in order to correctly identify the digits contained in the grid and place them in the respective positions in a digital copy of the Sudoku grid, which is then processed by an efficient Sudoku solving algorithm, to compute the correct solution.

Kshitij Gupta

Papers

A Novel Automated Solver for Sudoku Images