A* Pathfinding Visualizer

Introduction

This program is a visualizer for the A* pathfinding algorithm. The GUI is produced using the pygame library.
The algorithm is similar to Dijkstra's algorithm but uses a heuristic, the distance between the nodes, to better explore.
The algorithm can travel diagonally or in a straight direction by 1 square at a time.

Controls

• Left click on a tile to place an obstacle
• Right click on an obstacle to remove it
• Scroll wheel click to place the start block
• Scroll wheel click a second time to place the end block
• Scroll wheel click on a start/end block to remove it
• Press backspace to clear the grid
• Press spacebar to begin the pathfinding process (then click it again after it has finished to continue)
• Grid dimensions, size, and colors as well as delay can be changed in the code

Types of Blocks

• Black - Obstacle
• White - Empty
• Red - Start
• Blue - End
• Yellow - Explored Nodes
• Green - Path

Preview