Downloads

• Executable JAR of the offline tester
• Source code of the offline tester
• Example data

In order to use the offline tester / visualizer tool for testing your solution locally, you'll have to modify your solution by adding the main method that interacts with the tester / visualizer via reading data from standard input and writing data to standard output. As long as you do not change the implementation of the deskew method, this doesn't affect the way your solution works when being submitted to our server.

To simulate a single test case, your program should implement the following protocol (each integer / string is to be read from / printed in a separate line):

• Read integer numRows.
• Read integer numCols.
• Read integers imageData[0], imageData[1], ..., imageData[numRows*numCols*3-1].
• Call ret = deskew(imageData, numRows, numCols). Let ret be the return value.
• Print integers ret[0], ret[1], ..., ret[numRows*numCols*3-1]. Flush standard output stream.

In other words, you should implement the following pseudocode in the main method of your solution:

    numRows = parseInt(readLine())    
    numCols = parseInt(readLine())    
    for (i=0; i < numRows*numCols*3; i++)
    {
        imageData[i] = parseInt(readLine())
    }
    ret = deskew(imageData, numRows, numCols);
    for (i=0; i < numRows*numCols*3; i++)
    {
        printLine(ret[i])
    }
    flush(stdout)

In order to run the tester / visualizer, you should use the following command:

java -jar tester.jar -folder <folder> -testcase <testcase file> -key <API Key> -exec "<command>" -seed <seed number>

<command> is the command you would use to execute your solution. If your compiled solution is an executable file, the command will just be the full path to it, for example, "C:\TopCoder\solution.exe" or "~/topcoder/solution". In case your compiled solution is to be run with the help of an interpreter, for example, if you program in Java, the command will be something like "java -cp C:\TopCoder Solution".

The Example data must be downloaded and extracted so that the "examples.txt" file is located at the same path from which you run the visualizer.

Additionally you can use the following parameters:

• -seed <seed>. Sets the seed used for test case generation. Default value is 1.
• -key <API Key>. Your HP IDOL OnDemand API Key, this parameter is required.
• -testcase <testcase file>. The testcase file contains a list of images and ground truth text files, you can use the examples.txt file in order to replicate the example tests. Optional, default value is examples.txt.
• -folder <path to data folder>. Location of the example data images and ground truth text folder. Required, unless all the data is located at the same path from which you run the visualizer.
• -o <output prefix>. The output prefix that will be used when saving your deskewed image before performing OCR. Optional, default value is "your".

You can print any debug information of your solution to the standard error stream and it will be forwarded to the standard output of the tester.

Sample usage

java -jar tester.jar -folder data/ -testcase examples.txt -seed 12 -exec "solution[.exe]" -o deskewed -key HP_IDOL_API_KEY

This will execute your solution using the example test case data. Example test number 12 will be executed and the deskewed image will be saved as deskewed.jpg.

For more information on using visualizers, please check the following recipe draft from TopCoder Cookbook. Note that this is not a troubleshooting thread, please use the match forum for questions instead.