Generate Rubik's Cube Images Without Using Editors

Rubik's cubes! The Sun will turn into a white dwarf before I can solve one. I know there are many people out there in a similar situation, and their cubes are gathering dust in some corner of the house. The web has given rise to different services and tricks to "cheat" and solve Rubik's cubes with relative ease, but today's idea is to generate images of them. That's where VisualCube comes in, a portal that creates Rubik's cubes by turning the URL into a line of code. Would you like to know how it works?

A couple of months ago we learned that the Rubik's cube no longer needs human players. With a good dose of robotics and code, we have Rubik's cubes that solve themselves. On the other hand, anyone frustrated by the natural difficulty of the puzzle can always access a portal like Cubr, let its software record the state of the cube through a webcam, and without any doubt... cheat. That said, what happens when we want to draw a Rubik's cube? Do we open a graphics editor and struggle for a good while until we reach the desired goal, or do we simply cheat again and take an image from the web? Today I'd like to present a third option: generate Rubik's cubes.

Generating Rubik's Cube Images with VisualCube

The required software comes thanks to the VisualCube portal. There's no interface, no classic fields to fill in data. In fact, all the generation of Rubik's cubes is done by editing the URL. Understanding its format isn't so complicated once we absorb the basic elements. For example, fmt determines the image format. Pzl is the puzzle type (a value of 3 here creates a standard Rubik), size sets the image size (maximum 1,024 by 1,024 pixels), and alg applies the algorithm for the moves (UDLRFB are the six faces of the cube, lowercase letters equal the inverse move, and xyz rotate the whole cube).

Personally, the best way to use VisualCube is to take the examples from the site and modify the values. The URL configuration can get so advanced that among the final results we have transparencies, arrows, and even smileys drawn on one of the faces. Copy a URL into a new tab, change its numbers, and experiment from there. VisualCube is a very effective resource for generating Rubik's cube images, and at least, it deserves a place among your favorites.

Official site: VisualCube