Got Digital Images That You'd Like to Do Something Fun and Interesting With?

Why not turn them into digital jigsaw puzzles that your friends and family can enjoy? The Jigsaw Foundry jigsaw puzzle generator software lets you quickly turn your holiday snaps and family photos into jigsaw puzzle software packages that you can run on your computer and share with anyone you wish. You can also add information pages to the puzzle software to provide details about the images used for the jigsaw puzzles, giving you a great fun way to share your photos with your friends while updating them on what's been going on in your life.

You can use Jigsaw Foundry to turn your family photos or holiday snaps into jigsaw puzzles and send copies out to your friends and relatives. You can turn photos of your kids or pets into jigsaw puzzles. You can turn your wedding photos into jigsaw puzzles and share them with your wedding guests. You can create puzzles from and for your events, sports, or hobbies. You can turn photos from your nature walks or urban explorations into puzzles. You can create promotional puzzles for your business, company, or organization and give them out to all your customers.

You are free to distribute the jigsaw puzzle software packages that you create with Jigsaw Foundry to whoever you wish, however you wish. You can also sell them or use Jigsaw Foundry to make puzzle packages for other people. There are no restrictions imposed on commercial usage.

How to Use Jigsaw Foundry

The process of turning your images into standalone jigsaw puzzle packages is broken up into several steps spread over several tabbed pages that are displayed in the program. You can work on these steps in any order you wish and omit several of the steps entirely.

You'll start off by creating your project on the 'Select Puzzle Project' tab page. You can also configure the title-bar text, user files save location, and other package functionality on this page.

Once you have your project created you'll want to go to the 'Add Source Images' page to add your puzzle images. You can add images using drag-and-drop, copy-and-paste, or via a file requester. You can add additional images at any time.

When you have your images added to your project you can go to the 'Sort Puzzle Images' page to easily sort them into the order you want them in.

The 'Create Image Descriptions' page lets you create optional description files for each puzzle image. These will show up in the 'Image Info' tab page on the puzzle client. If the images you are using are from a holiday adventure, for example, then this page lets you add more information about each puzzle image to share that adventure with the person completing the puzzle.

If you have more general information that you want to share then the 'Create More Info Pages' page lets you optionally create multiple info pages that will appear on the puzzle client's 'More Info' tab page. This page has a navigation sidebar that allows the user to browse the information files that you have provided.

Once your puzzle project is ready for testing you can go to the 'Create Jigsaw Puzzles' page and create a puzzle package with the single press of a button. You can create a package that is organized into a file and folder structure, or you can create a zipped puzzle package that is ready to be sent to your friends. The generated packages can be easily tested from inside the 'Output' folder they are generated in, so if the project needs more work just delete the package and try again.

You can easily find all the information you need to use the program on the 'Instructions' tab page in the program. Most controls also have nearby help '?' buttons that provide contextual information in a pop-up window.

Features of the Jigsaw Puzzle Client Supplied With Your Generated Puzzle Packages

The jigsaw puzzle client software supplied in puzzles generated by Jigsaw Foundry is highly customizable, and allows users to configure the puzzles to be solved in many different and interesting ways.

Multiple settings profiles can be created, saved, and loaded to allow users to easily create their own puzzle game-modes.
Puzzles can be saved and reloaded allowing larger puzzles to be saved and resumed if the user does not have enough time available to finish them. Once a save file exists for a puzzle the program will auto-save the puzzle state when needed.
The number of puzzle pieces can be set from 24 pieces up to 216 pieces.
Different degrees of random variance can be set for the puzzle piece shapes.
You have two workspaces that you can solve the puzzle in. Easily switch between them using the right-mouse button.
Manual and dynamic puzzle piece rotation can be enabled, along with dynamic puzzle piece movement with optional mouse pointer evasion.
Puzzle piece forcefields can be enabled (with optional rotation) which require the user to navigate the mouse pointer through an opening in the forcefield in order to be able to click on the piece.
A customizable health meter ring for the mouse pointer can be enabled. The health will go down while a puzzle segment is being held.
A configurable timer can optionally be set to add a time challenge to solving the puzzle (with an optional forcefield detection penalty).
A faint copy of the completed puzzle can also be set to display in the background to use as a reference when solving a puzzle.

Bill Stanbrook

Bill Stanbrook