Seastar

Features

seastar is a dependency-free, non-generic implementation of the A* pathfinding algorithm. It is specifically designed to operate over a 2D grid of tiles in cardinal directions (North, East, South, West).

You can check out the library in action at seastar.sombia.com.

I can't necessarily recommend using this over the pathfinding crate, but I wanted a different API for my own use-case, as well as a deeper understanding of the algorithm.

Usage

cargo add seastar

use seastar::{astar, Point};

fn main() {
    // A grid needs to be a 2D vector of `Option`s. `None` represents an
    // empty tile, while `Some(())` represents a blocked tile.
    let grid = vec![
        vec![None, None, Some(())],
        vec![Some(()), None, None],
        vec![None, None, None],
    ];

    let start = Point { x: 0, y: 0 }; // top left corner
    let end = Point { x: 2, y: 2 }; // bottom right corner

    // Assuming a path is found, `path` will be a `Vec<Point>` where each point is
    // a step in the path from `start` to `end`.
    if let Some(path) = astar(&grid, start, end) {
        // ...do whatever you want with the path!
    }
}

Examples

If you have cloned the seastar repository, you can run an example with the command cargo run --example <example_name>.

Benchmarks

You can run benchmarks with the command cargo bench.

NOTE: A word of caution about benchmarks here: because the maps are randomly generated in the bench tests, the results will vary greatly from run to run. Maps without valid paths are often outliers that can skew the results heavily, especially on larger grids.

License

Seastar is dual-licensed under either

• MIT License
• Apache License, Version 2.0

at your option.