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Single-page web app for learning about graph search algorithms, such as Depth-First Search and A* Search

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N-Puzzle

N-Puzzle is a web app for learning about graph-based search algorithms.

We use the 8-puzzle, which is an instance of the Sliding Puzzle problem, where eight tiles are placed on a 3x3 grid. The remaining position is an empty space. Tiles adjacent to the empty space may be moved into that space. The puzzle is solved by finding a sequence of moves (state transitions) that will allow us to move from the initial state to the goal state.

An example initial state and goal state are given below:

Initial state:

2 3 -
4 5 1
6 7 8

Goal state:

2 5 3
4 7 -
6 8 1

N-Puzzle provides five algorithms that can be used to solve the problem:

  • Breadth-first Search (BFS)
  • Depth-first Search (DFS)
  • Iterative Deepening DFS (ID-DFS)
  • Greedy Search
  • A* Search

Since Greedy Search and A* Search are informed search algorithms, three heuristic functions are also provided:

  • Euclidean distance heuristic
  • Manhattan distance heuristic
  • Tiles-out heuristic

Demo

A live demo is available here.

Development

N-Puzzle has been built using Vue.js, using Vue Single File Components.

No additional tools are required for development - this means there is no need to install Webpack, or any other bundler. You can simply host the code in /src using a local web server. MDN has a page that describes several ways to set up a local web server: How do you set up a local testing server?

Using Python as an example, getting the code and hosting N-Puzzle locally could be as simple as:

git clone https://github.com/tristanpenman/n-puzzle.git
cd n-puzzle/src
python3 -m http.server

You would then be able to go to the URL http://localhost:8000 in your browser to use the app. If you change any of the code, simply refresh the page to see your changes.

Alternatively, you could use NPM:

npm -g install http-server
git clone https://github.com/tristanpenman/n-puzzle.git
cd n-puzzle/src
http-server -c-1

Acknowledgements

N-Puzzle is based on the AI-Search Java applet developed at RMIT University by Vic Ciesielski, James Harland and Peter McDonald. The original applet can found at: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/AI-Search/

License

N-Puzzle is distributed under the 3-Clause BSD License. See the LICENSE file for more information.

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Single-page web app for learning about graph search algorithms, such as Depth-First Search and A* Search

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