I dusted off an old project today. It's a browser based CHIP-8 emulator with a built in editor.

https://chip8.dotslashdan.com/

I added the ability to import/export ROMs and finally added some of documentation.

...Plenty bugs left to fix

Thanks for the feedback!

I've recently made a change to try to improve results (Specifically the thresholding step when it's processing the image).

For me it's now finding the grid a bit more consistently, though your mileage may vary.

I've noticed the digit recognition still struggles a bit when looking at a screen though. Perhaps I need to get a bit more data for training the model.

I tried the blur threshold approach you mention in your post, and it's giving much better results!

Great post btw, very detailed.

Nice! Yeah the puzzle detection works really well in your one. I'll need to have a read through your write up to get some pointers.

I've uploaded a quick recording here (Seems Youtube forced it to be a "Short"): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rdZ25pyqqmA

So ideally it should "solve" a sudoku puzzle when there's one in the frame. Then you can use the snapshot button (taking you to /image) to save and download the solution.

Though if it's not solving it (Which is definitely not uncommon in less than perfect lighting etc), I can see the workflow being unclear.

Great, thanks!

I was probably not stable enough showing it to the webcam and had more luck with the sudoku lying on the table and moving the webcam.

The lightning was also quite important in getting the grid recognized.

Nice job :)

Yeah that's good idea, thanks for the suggestion. I even went out and bought a puzzle book while building this, so it's definitely not something most people have around.

Just FWIW, if you need a supply of sudoku puzzles, the wonderful Simon G. Tatham's (PuTTY author, for Windows users) Puzzles page has a lot of algorithmically-generated, guaranteed-solvable puzzles, including sudoku (called "Solo" on his page).

I'm partial to "Patterns" myself, though it definitely needs a mouse or trackpad (preferably the former).