1. Maarten Löffler, Günter Rote, Soeren Terziadis, and Alexandra
Weinberger:
On solving simple curved nonograms
In: 36th International Workshop on Combinatorial Algorithms (IWOCA
2025), Bozeman, Montana, July 2025.
Editors: Henning Fernau and Binhai Zhu,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, 2025.
pp. 302–315. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-98740-3_22
Extended version in arXiv:2505.01554 [cs.CG]
→BibTeX
2. Soeren Terziadis, Alexandra Weinberger, Maarten Löffler, and Günter
Rote:
Solving simple curved nonograms
to appear in Acta Informatica (2026),
24 pages,
special
issue for the 36th International Workshop on Combinatorial
Algorithms (IWOCA 2025), Bozeman, Montana, doi:10.1007/s00236-026-00536-z,
arXiv:2505.01554 [cs.CG]
→BibTeX
Abstract
Nonograms are a popular type of puzzle, where an arrangement of curves in
the plane (in the classic version, a rectangular grid) is given together with
a series of hints, indicating which cells of the subdivision are to be
colored. The colored cells yield an image. Curved nonograms use a curve
arrangement rather than a grid, leading to a closer approximation of an
arbitrary solution image. While there is a considerable amount of previous
work on the natural question of the hardness of solving a classic nonogram,
research on curved nonograms has so far focused on their creation, which is
already highly non-trivial. We address this gap by providing algorithmic and
hardness results for curved nonograms of varying complexity.
Python programs
Last update: January 23, 2026.