New ShortestWalk for Grasshopper

Hi,

the new version 1.4 of ShortestWalk for Grasshopper is now available.
It has an improved and more extensible Grasshopper component and it fixes a bug in calculating the topology with overlapping edge curves. The source code is available as usual on GitHub, https://github.com/mcneeleurope/ShortestWalk.

Here some examples of walks on predefined and custom grids.

With equilateral grids (1, 2, 3), the shortest walk on the network is the same both counting the edge length and the number of links. With these types of grids, there are often several solutions, one of which is selected by the ShortestWalk component. If the automatic search is used (no lengths are specified), then the A* algorithm is used and this will result in a path that departs "not much" (there are more rigorous definitions) from the straight path.

With the square grid (2), the geometry is called taxicab or Manhattan, and results in the total distance being the sum between the number of vertical steps and the number of horizontal steps.

The circular grid (4, 6) shows a case in which curve distance and "link distance" (number of edges that are walked, uses Dijkstra's algorithm) results is completely different paths. This example here selects the tangential road (4) or the "city center" (6).

Finally, Voronoi diagrams (5), Delauney triangulations (7) and random mazes or labyrinths (8) can be walked, searched and solved quickly, if a solution is possible, now even if there are multiple overlapping curves.

These examples show two-dimensional grids, but it is possible to also compute (weighted) walks on three-dimensional networks.

The compiled Grasshopper assembly (.gha) and the examples can be downloaded from Food4Rhino. Join the group if you want to get updates for new releases.

- Giulio
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giulio@mcneel.com
McNeel Europe, Barcelona