Finding the shortest path between points in a grid

Dxter · 2017-04-15T23:58:56

I'm trying to build a game where a person needs to start from a point 1 and clear his path to point 2. I researched this and found that the A* algorithm will do fine here. The problem with it comes is that I need to have multiple targets and find the smallest number of nodes to be cleared in order to connect all of the targets. Below is a simple grid to represent what I mean with 'o' being the uncleared fields, 'x' the unclearable fields, '1-4' are the points I need to connect and '.' are the cleared fields. Considering you can go back and use already cleared fields, the total count of fields to be cleared is 13. I checked out the topic on A* algorithm with multiple goals, but I'm not sure that it can work for me, especially in the case that some of the fields can be cleared before the algorithm starts, which will change the final result. If someone has done something similar or can just point me in the right direction. Here the fields needed to be cleared changes to 11 and also the path between 1-2. The whole thing is a project for my university studies and the part with the multiple points is not mandatory, but I want to solve it.

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Started by Dxter April 09, 2017 08:35 AM

19 comments, last by Nypyren 7 years ago

Nypyren

12,313

April 15, 2017 11:58 PM

After some further research I believe I've found the name for this concept: Steiner tree.

One of the algorithms for finding a Steiner tree goes by the name "Dreyfus-Wagner algorithm".

http://www.imsc.res.in/~vraman/exact/suchy.pdf

Finding the shortest path between points in a grid

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Finding the shortest path between points in a grid

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