New Introduction to A* page

From Red Blob Games's Blog

I've been working on updating my pathfinding articles with interactive diagrams. While doing so, I realized that I don't like the way I've presented information in my pathfinding articles. Instead of just updating them in-place, I'm writing new tutorials and will eventually figure out how to stitch everything together.

A big one I've been working on is the introduction to A*. I started writing these notes in 1997 and have updated them over the years. The past few months I've been working on a replacement for this page. The page compares Breadth First Search, Dijsktra's Algorithm, Greedy Best First Search, and A*. Differences from the old page:

• All the diagrams are interactive (of course)
• I mention non-grids a little more (still not enough)
• I use contour lines to compare the algorithms (not sure if this will make sense to people)
• I show working Python code for each of the algorithms
• I have supplemental material that includes the helper functions and classes needed for the search algorithms
• I give some guidance on which algorithm to use

There are lots of little things (smoother animations, touch screen support, better code highlighting, better contour line visualization) that remain, but I decided to publish it 90% complete instead of delaying it to polish all those little details. Take a look at the new introduction and let me know what you think. Is it understandable? Do the contour lines help? Is it enough to help you implement A* yourself?

Labels: pathfinding