PathAI

A unique approach to solving mazes in Java utilizing rudimentary artificial intelligence.

How PathAI Works

PathAI solves mazes by using the following steps

• The original worker finds the first intersection of the maze
• Workers are then sent in each available direction of the intersection, with additional instantiation of workers if the original statement is met
• An ArrayList of coordinates is then printed to the console

What is a worker?

A worker is the term for each instance of the PathAISplit class created by PathAI. Every time PathAI runs into an intersection, it creates a new worker that goes to all areas until it does one of 3 things.

• Hits a dead end
• Runs into another intersection
• Finds the end point

For each of these results, one of the following will happen:

• If the worker hits a dead end, then nothing happens
• If the worker finds the end point, it tells the parent worker the path it found
• If it runs into another intersection, it creates sub workers for each open direction

All of the workers send the pathway data (in form of ArrayLists) to their parent workers. in recursion until it reaches the origin worker.

Usage

PathAI works through the following steps

• Create ImageReaderAI Object
• Get Maze Array From ImageReaderAI Object
• Reference PathAIMaze Instance
• Call PathAIMaze's setMaze() Method
• Create new PathAI Object

First, we want to create a new ImageReaderAI Object, passing in our maze image

ImageReaderAI imageAI = new ImageReaderAI(File file);

Note: you pass in the maze image as file

Second, we want to get the maze array from the ImageReaderAI Object

int[][] mazeArray = imageAI.getMazeArray();

Third, we want to create a reference to a PathAIMaze instance, but we can't create a new object because it is a singleton class

PathAIMaze maze = PathAIMaze.getInstance( );

Then, we want to call the setMaze() method, passing in the image of our maze

maze.setMaze(mazeArray);

Finally, we want to create the PathAIObject

PathAI pathAI = new PathAI(maze);

Authors

• Reagan McFarland - PathAI - Reagan's Github Page
• Robbie Sunbury - ImageReaderAI - Robbie's Github Page