---------------------------- original order (8 meshes) ----------------------------
============= N = 9 =============
......... approximation algo via shortest path (16 secs) .........
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path isometric distortion) & (over ALL isometric distort
ions): 0.0646651 & 0.0743823
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path ground-truth distortion) & (over ALL ground-truth d
istortions): 0.397354 & 0.343074
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path # symmetric flips) & (over ALL # symmetric flips):
6 / 7 & 19 / 28


......... approximation algo via dynamic programming (16 secs) .........
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path isometric distortion) & (over ALL isometric distort
ions): 0.0670518 & 0.0643627
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path ground-truth distortion) & (over ALL ground-truth d
istortions): 0.25445 & 0.208182
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path # symmetric flips) & (over ALL # symmetric flips):
5 / 7 & 15 / 28

(+ 20 secs for this dense interpolation; so all in 36 secs for both 16 and 20 the dynamic programming time is negligible, i.e. all time spent on samplings)
results on interpolated dense maps:
>>>>>> SUMMARY for interp-dense (over ALL isometric distortions): 0.0439633
>>>>>> SUMMARY for interp-dense (over ALL ground-truth distortions): 0.12139
>>>>>> SUMMARY for interp-dense (over ALL # symmetric flips): 2 / 28


......... optimal algo via exponential search (14424 secs) ............
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path isometric distortion) & (over ALL isometric distort
ions): 0.0670518 & 0.0643627
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path ground-truth distortion) & (over ALL ground-truth d
istortions): 0.25445 & 0.208182
>>>>>> SUMMARY (optimal path # symmetric flips) & (over ALL # symmetric flips):
5 / 7 & 15 / 28

so, our dynamic programming based approximation did a perfect job here by achieving the same overall isometric distortion as exponential algo, only 901.5 times faster :)
