Mars Pathfinder

A web application developed to navigate a Mars rover as a part of Microsoft Mars Colonisation Programme. Various pathfinding algorithms are used to find the shortest path between two points while avoiding obstacles on the way.

Live demo !!

This provides insight into the behaviour of popular traversal algorithms, such as Depth-First Search (DFS), Breadth-First Search (BFS), Greedy Best First Search, Dijkstra's Algorithm and A* Search. This visualisation tool was built using Vanilla Javascript, HTML5 Canvas and CSS.

Algorithms

This pathfinding algorithm visualizer uses the following algorithms to find a path on Mars

• A* Search
• Dijkstra Algorithm
• Greedy Best First Search
• Breadth First Search
• Depth First Search

Features

These are additional ways to explore Mars while travelling to your destination

• Random Obstacles - Generates random obstacles on the surface of Mars
• Create Maze - Uses Recursive Maze division to generate a maze
• Via Point - Traverse through a via point before reaching your destination
• Create Terrain - Simulates craters and mountains on Mars, manoeuvre your rover through them
• Add Multiple Destinations - Creates multiple destination points for the rover
• Add Multiple Start points - Creates multiple start points for the rover
• Closest Node
  • Finds the closest destination when multiple destinations are present
  • Chooses one start point among many to reach the destination as quick as possible (simulating a multi agent system)
• Travelling Salesman Problem with multiple destinations
  • Finds the optimal path to follow when there are multiple destinations

Instructions

• Change the start and destination node positions by dragging
• To draw walls, use left click
• To delete walls, use right click
• Normal Pathfinding
  • Toggle Closest Path to OFF
  • Select the algorithm by using the dropdown list
  • Click on Find Path for visualising the path followed by the rover
• Complex Pathfinding
  • Add multiple destinations or start nodes with via points for complex pathfinding
  • Click on Add Via point, drag it to a suitable point and click Find Path
  • Click on Add Nodes, then click on the surface to create an extra start or destination node. The user can click to add as many start or destination nodes as possible
  • Toggle the Closest Node button to GREEN for finding the closest path and to RED for TSP with multiple destinations
    • (ON) Travel to your closest destination on Mars either with multiple start or destination nodes
      • With multiple destination nodes, finds the closest destination
      • With multiple start nodes, chooses the closest start point to the destination
    • (OFF) Travel through all destinations optimally with the help of Travelling Salesman Problem
  • Click Create Terrain for simulating the Martian surface (paths with cost)
  • In the presence of TERAIN nodes, rover follows an optimal path to reach the destination minimising the cost
  • Select the algorithm by using the dropdown list
  • Finally, click on Find Path for visualising the path followed by the rover

Working

• Basic Pathfinding
  
  
• Pathfinding with Terrain
  
  
• Via Point for the rover to pass through
  
  
• MultiAgent for choosing closest start node
  
  
• Travelling Salesman Problem with multiple Destinations
  
  
• Finding closet destination among the multiple
  
  

Team Martians

• Gowri Lekshmy
• Shivani Chepuri
• Samhita Kanaparthy