Counting tilings of a rectangle - logic

Question

I am trying to solve this problem but I can't find a solution:
A board consisting of squares arranged into N rows and M columns is given. A tiling of this board is a pattern of tiles that covers it. A tiling is interesting if:
only tiles of size 1x1 and/or 2x2 are used;
each tile of size 1x1 covers exactly one whole square;
each tile of size 2x2 covers exactly four whole squares;
each square of the board is covered by exactly one tile.
For example, the following images show a few interesting tilings of a board of size 4 rows and 3 columns:
http://dabi.altervista.org/images/task.img.4x3_tilings_example.gif
Two interesting tilings of a board are different if there exists at least one square on the board that is covered with a tile of size 1x1 in one tiling and with a tile of size 2x2 in the other. For example, all tilings shown in the images above are different.
Write a function
int count_tilings(int N, int M);
that, given two integers N and M, returns the remainder modulo 10,000,007 of the number of different interesting tilings of a board of size N rows and M columns.
Assume that:
N is an integer within the range [1..1,000,000];
M is an integer within the range [1..7].
For example, given N = 4 and M = 3, the function should return 11, because there are 11 different interesting tilings of a board of size 4 rows and 3 columns:
http://dabi.altervista.org/images/task.img.4x3_tilings_all.gif
for (4,3) the result is 11, for (6,5) the result is 1213.
I tried the following but it doesn't work:
static public int count_tilings ( int N,int M ) {
int result=1;
if ((N==1)||(M==1)) return 1;
result=result+(N-1)*(M-1);
int max_tiling= (int) ((int)(Math.ceil(N/2))*(Math.ceil(M/2)));
System.out.println(max_tiling);
for (int i=2; i<=(max_tiling);i++){
if (N>=2*i){
int n=i+(N-i);
int k=i;
//System.out.println("M-1->"+(M-1) +"i->"+i);
System.out.println("(M-1)^i)->"+(Math.pow((M-1),i)));
System.out.println( "n="+n+ " k="+k);
System.out.println(combinations(n, k));
if (N-i*2>0){
result+= Math.pow((M-1),i)*combinations(n, k);
}else{
result+= Math.pow((M-1),i);
}
}
if (M>=2*i){
int n=i+(M-i);
int k=i;
System.out.println("(N-1)^i)->"+(Math.pow((N-1),i)));
System.out.println( "n="+n+ " k="+k);
System.out.println(combinations(n, k));
if (M-i*2>0){
result+= Math.pow((N-1),i)*combinations(n, k);
}else{
result+= Math.pow((N-1),i);
}
}
}
return result;
}
static long combinations(int n, int k) {
/*binomial coefficient*/
long coeff = 1;
for (int i = n - k + 1; i <= n; i++) {
coeff *= i;
}
for (int i = 1; i <= k; i++) {
coeff /= i;
}
return coeff;
}

Answer 1

Since this is homework I won't give a full solution, but I'll give you some hints.
First here's a recursive solution:
class Program
{
// Important note:
// The value of masks given here is hard-coded for m == 5.
// In a complete solution, you need to calculate the masks for the
// actual value of m given. See explanation in answer for more details.
int[] masks = { 0, 3, 6, 12, 15, 24, 27, 30 };
int CountTilings(int n, int m, int s = 0)
{
if (n == 1) { return 1; }
int result = 0;
foreach (int mask in masks)
{
if ((mask & s) == 0)
{
result += CountTilings(n - 1, m, mask);
}
}
return result;
}
public static void Main()
{
Program p = new Program();
int result = p.CountTilings(6, 5);
Console.WriteLine(result);
}
}
See it working online: ideone
Note that I've added an extra parameter s. This stores the contents of the first column. If the first column is empty, s = 0. If the first column contains some filled squares the corresponding bits in s are set. Initially s = 0, but when a 2 x 2 tile is placed, this fills up some squares in the next column, and that will mean that s will be non-zero in the recursive call.
The masks variable is hard-coded but in a complete solution it needs to be calculated based on the actual value of m. The values stored in masks make more sense if you look at their binary representations:
00000
00011
00110
01100
01111
11000
11011
11110
In other words, it's all the ways of setting pairs of bits in a binary number with m bits. You can write some code to generate all these possiblities. Or since there are only 7 possible values of m, you could also just hard-code all seven possibilities for masks.
There are however two serious problems with the recursive solution.
It will overflow the stack for large values of N.
It requires exponential time to calculate. It is incredibly slow even for small values of N
Both these problems can be solved by rewriting the algorithm to be iterative. Keep m constant and initalize the result for n = 1 for all possible values of s to be 1. This is because if you only have one column you must use only 1x1 tiles, and there is only one way to do this.
Now you can calculate n = 2 for all possible values of s by using the results from n = 1. This can be repeated until you reach n = N. This algorithm completes in linear time with respect to N, and requires constant space.

Answer 2

Here is a recursive solution:
// time used : 27 min
#include <set>
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void placement(int n, set< vector <int> > & p){
for (int i = 0; i < n -1 ; i ++){
for (set<vector<int> > :: iterator j = p.begin(); j != p.end(); j ++){
vector <int> temp = *j;
if (temp[i] == 1 || temp[i+1] == 1) continue;
temp[i] = 1; temp[i+1] = 1;
p.insert(temp);
}
}
}
vector<vector<int> > placement( int n){
if (n > 7) throw "error";
set <vector <int> > p;
vector <int> temp (n,0);
p.insert (temp);
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i ++) placement(n, p);
vector <vector <int> > s;
s.assign (p.begin(), p.end());
return s;
}
bool tryput(vector <vector <int> > &board, int current, vector<int> & comb){
for (int i = 0; i < comb.size(); i ++){
if ((board[current][i] == 1 || board[current+1][i]) && comb[i] == 1) return false;
}
return true;
}
void put(vector <vector <int> > &board, int current, vector<int> & comb){
for (int i = 0; i < comb.size(); i ++){
if (comb[i] == 1){
board[current][i] = 1;
board[current+1][i] = 1;
}
}
return;
}
void undo(vector <vector <int> > &board, int current, vector<int> & comb){
for (int i = 0; i < comb.size(); i ++){
if (comb[i] == 1){
board[current][i] = 0;
board[current+1][i] = 0;
}
}
return;
}
int place (vector <vector <int> > &board, int current, vector < vector <int> > & all_comb){
int m = board.size();
if (current >= m) throw "error";
if (current == m - 1) return 1;
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < all_comb.size(); i ++){
if (tryput(board, current, all_comb[i])){
put(board, current, all_comb[i]);
count += place(board, current+1, all_comb) % 10000007;
undo(board, current, all_comb[i]);
}
}
return count;
}
int place (int m, int n){
if (m == 0) return 0;
if (m == 1) return 1;
vector < vector <int> > all_comb = placement(n);
vector <vector <int> > board(m, vector<int>(n, 0));
return place (board, 0, all_comb);
}
int main(){
cout << place(3, 4) << endl;
return 0;
}
time complexity O(n^3 * exp(m))
to reduce the space usage try bit vector.
to reduce the time complexity to O(m*(n^3)), try dynamic programming.
to reduce the time complexity to O(log(m) * n^3) try divide and conquer + dynamic programming.
good luck