Pathfinder allows you to upload a text file (i.e. .txt, .asc) containing topographic data, generate an elevation map as a .png file, and chart optimal paths across. Each optimal path will be drawn in purple. A green line is drawn highlighting the path with the 'least' amount of elevation change. This project is an extension to a lab assignement called Mountain Paths, which was adapted from this project. The concepts utilize a "greedy" algorithm that follows the problem solving heuristic of making the locally optimal choice at each stage with the intent of finding a global optimum, i.e. the green line.
- Navigate to the website
- Download the test data by clicking the link
- Click the "Choose File" button and select the test data file
- Click "Generate map"
- Behold the algorithmic glory
To try out other data sets, you can go to the NOAA Grid Extract tool and follow these steps to select any region on the globe.
- Select an area using the box selector button.
- Download the data in "ArcGIS ASCII Grid" format.
- Remove the metadata at the top of the file, leaving just the numbers.
- Upload the file in the same way as above.