Hey everyone! I'm on the hunt for an imperfect maze solving algorithm. I've browsed around online but haven't had much luck finding anything useful. Can anyone share some insights or resources?
4 Answers
This is definitely a graph problem! They can be tricky, though not many people publish solutions focused on graphs. But if you break down your maze into nodes and paths, you should be able to work it out just fine!
Check out Trémaux's algorithm! It’s a pretty neat way to navigate mazes, though it involves marking paths as you go. It guarantees you'll find a way out, but it won’t promise the shortest route. If you’re more into finding the shortest paths, look into breadth-first search or the A* algorithm—great for those multiple solution scenarios!
When you say 'imperfect', do you mean a pathfinding algorithm that isn't very efficient? Just curious!
I've got an idea for a general algorithm: start by defining your maze as a grid where walls are zeros and possible steps are higher values. Then, use a flood fill-like approach. Mark your entry point as 1, find all neighboring points, mark them as 2, and keep going from there recursively. You can backtrack to find the optimal route if there's a solution. Should work fine without too much overhead, but just keep in mind that it’d involve accessing each cell at least once.
Yeah, I was thinking of mazes that have loops and might not always offer the shortest path.