About Pathfinding Visualizer
Drop walls onto a grid, pick a start point and a destination, then watch an algorithm carve its way through the maze in real time. Pathfinding Visualizer lets you switch between A*, Dijkstra, BFS, DFS, and several other algorithms and compare how each one explores — some fan out in every direction, others race straight for the goal. Colored cells show exactly which nodes were visited and in what order, making the logic tangible in a way that textbook diagrams rarely manage.
It's a practical tool for anyone studying computer science education — whether you're preparing for a technical interview, working through an algorithms course, or just curious why GPS routing behaves the way it does. You can add weighted tiles to show how Dijkstra and A* factor in cost, while BFS and DFS ignore them entirely.
Everything runs in the browser with mouse clicks and drags — no setup, no login. It works best on a larger screen where the full grid is visible at once.
How to use
This tool demonstrates different pathfinding algorithms by showing how they search for routes on a grid. • Click and drag on the white grid to draw black obstacles/walls • Drag the green node to set your starting position • Drag the red node to set your destination • Select an algorithm from the right panel (A*, Dijkstra, Breadth-First, etc.) • Adjust algorithm options like allowing diagonal movement or choosing heuristics • Click "Start Search" to watch the algorithm find a path in real-time • Use "Pause Search" to stop the animation • Click "Clear Walls" to remove all obstacles The visualization shows: - White cells: walkable spaces - Black cells: obstacles/walls - Green cell: start position - Red cell: end position - Colored cells during search: areas being explored - Final colored line: the discovered path Different algorithms will search in different patterns and may find different routes. Some guarantee the shortest path while others prioritize speed.
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