pic: A Star Path Planning

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

A quick note on terminology: In discussions of path planning "shortest path" tends to be treated as if one were saying "optimal path" rather than as literally the shortest distance. Shortest is usually described as minimizing some objective function. Some common choices for the objective function include distance moved, time taken, and fuel used.

If he wants fewer turns one way he can adjust his algorithm is make the objective function minimize time instead of distance and then say that turns cost time.

Sorry, I was going with the definition any reasonably astute observer would use for shortest which implies distance, I'll be more clear in the future.

I'd still like to see various simulation runs with differing paths as generated by objective functions tuned for various variables (distance travelled, time taken, energy consumed) and various weightings of all of those.