path: root/README

           ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
                                 FORNAX
             Collection of tools to visualize Path Finding
                               Algorithms

                                Andinus
           ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━


Table of Contents
─────────────────

1. Demo
2. Usage
3. Installation
.. 1. Release
.. 2. From Source
4. Documentation
.. 1. Options
.. 2. Fornax Format
.. 3. Project Structure
5. Bugs
6. News
.. 1. v0.1.1 - 2021-11-16
.. 2. v0.1.0 - 2021-11-03


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Website          <https://andinus.unfla.me/projects/fornax>
 Source           <https://git.unfla.me/fornax>
 GitHub (mirror)  <https://github.com/andinus/fornax>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This collection includes:
• `fornax': Program that parses /Fornax Format/ and outputs video
  solution.
• Algorithms: Various algorithms solved in several programming
  languages.

Writings:
• Fornax: Generating 4.8 million frames:
  <https://andinus.unfla.me/writings/2021/fornax-generating-4.8-million-frames.html>


1 Demo
══════

  Solution for DFS-60, generated on 2021-11-16 (click to play):

  [https://andinus.unfla.me/resources/projects/fornax/2021-11-16-DFS-60-00000436.png]
  • Mirror: <https://diode.zone/w/u6tuoktG1ZZWCQFZodKqyu>

  Fornax v0.1.0:
  • Solution for /DFS-33/, generated on /2021-11-03/:
    <https://andinus.unfla.me/resources/projects/fornax/2021-11-03-DFS-33.mp4>
  • DFS-51-incomplete (upto 187,628 frames; 120 fps):
    <https://diode.zone/w/4RSFatXPL3GrkUucnFdxVS>
  • DFS-51-incomplete (upto 4,000 frames; 120 fps):
    <https://diode.zone/w/hWWaw8uKHCP5weUP5WWArD>


[https://andinus.unfla.me/resources/projects/fornax/2021-11-16-DFS-60-00000436.png]
<https://andinus.unfla.me/resources/projects/fornax/2021-11-16-DFS-60.mp4>


2 Usage
═══════

  ┌────
  │ # Solve the maze.
  │ raku algorithms/raku/DFS.raku resources/input/06 > /tmp/solution.fornax
  │
  │ # Visualize the solution.
  │ raku -Ilib bin/fornax /tmp/solution.fornax
  └────


3 Installation
══════════════

  `fornax' is written in Raku, it can be installed with `zef'. You can
  also run it without `zef', just run `raku -Ilib bin/fornax' from
  within the source directory.

  • *Note*: `Cairo' module & `ffmpeg' program is required.


3.1 Release
───────────

  1. Run `zef install 'fornax:auth<zef:andinus>''

  Fornax should be installed, try running `fornax --version' to confirm.

  • Solving programs / solutions are not included in the distribution,
    get them from this repository.


3.2 From Source
───────────────

  You can either download the release archive generated by cgit/GitHub
  or clone the project if you have `git' installed.


3.2.1 Without `git'
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  1. Download the release:
     • <https://git.unfla.me/fornax>
     • <https://github.com/andinus/fornax/releases>
  2. Extract the file.
  3. Run `zef install .' in source directory.


3.2.2 With `git'
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  All commits by /Andinus/ will be signed by this [PGP Key].

  ┌────
  │ # Clone the project.
  │ git clone https://git.tilde.institute/andinus/fornax
  │ cd fornax
  │
  │ # Install fornax.
  │ zef install .
  └────


[PGP Key]
<https://andinus.nand.sh/static/D9AE4AEEE1F1B3598E81D9DFB67D55D482A799FD.asc>


4 Documentation
═══════════════

  Fornax parses /Fornax format/, generates a `PNG' for each iteration
  which is later converted to a slideshow with `ffmpeg'.

  • Solved paths are highlighted if the iteration is preceded by `|'.
  • Illegal paths are highlighted if the iteration is preceded by `!'.


4.1 Options
───────────

  • `input': This takes solved input file in the /Fornax/ format.
  • `fps': Frame rate for the video solution.
  • `skip-video': Skip generating the video solution.
  • `batch': Number of iterations to process at once.


4.2 Fornax Format
─────────────────

  Fornax format defines 2 formats:
  • Maze (input)
  • Solution (output)


4.2.1 Grids
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  A grid is printed for every iteration. Grids are composed of cells.

  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
   Cell              Symbol
  ──────────────────────────
   Path              `.'
   Blocked           `#'
   Start             `^'
   Destination       `$'
  ──────────────────────────
   Visited           `-'
   Current Path      `~'
   Current Position  `@'
  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━


4.2.2 Maze (input)
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  Maze input must be in this format:
  ┌────
  │ ...rows
  └────

  It is upto the program to infer the number of rows & columns from the
  input file or it ask the user.


4.2.3 Solution (output)
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  Fornax solution format is an intermediate output file generated after
  solving the maze. Algorithms must output the solution in this format:
  ┌────
  │ rows:<number of rows> cols:<number of columns>
  │
  │ ...iterations
  └────

  `...iterations' is to be replaced by the resulting grid in each
  iteration that is to be included in the final video. Since the number
  of rows and columns is known, the whole grid should be printed in a
  single line.

  • Every iteration should be separated by a newline.

  • If the iteration cells is not equal to `rows * columns' or `(rows *
      columns) + 1' then it may be ignored by the program that parses
      the file.

  • Solved iteration can be preceded by `|' character.

  • Iteration that tries to walk on a blocked path can be preceded by
    `!' character.

  • First iteration is assumed to be the maze.


4.3 Project Structure
─────────────────────

  • Algorithms are located in `algorithms/' directory, sub-directory
    needs to be created for programming languages which will hold the
    actual source.

  • Sample solutions can be found in `resources/solutions/' directory.

    • *Note*: Some solutions might output illegal moves (like walking
      over blocked path), this error is only in visualization, the
      solution is correct.

      This has been fixed in commit
      `8cef86f0eb8b46b0ed2d7c37fa216890300249f6'.


5 Bugs
══════

  • If the number of iterations are greater than an 8 digit number then
    the slideshow might be incorrect.

  • `/tmp' is assumed to exist.

  • Might panic with: `MoarVM oops: MVM_str_hash_entry_size called with
      a stale hashtable pointer'. This has been fixed:
      <https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/pull/4634>.


6 News
══════

6.1 v0.1.1 - 2021-11-16
───────────────────────

  ⁃ Add option to skip generating slideshow.
  ⁃ Use random directory to store solutions.
  ⁃ Process iterations in parallel.
  ⁃ Wait 4s on solution frame.
  ⁃ Add incomplete BFS program.
  ⁃ Add demo videos.
  ⁃ Upgrade to latest Fornax Format.
  ⁃ Add more solutions.


6.2 v0.1.0 - 2021-11-03
───────────────────────

  ⁃ Initial implementation:

    • Includes DFS solver in Java and a tool to visualize the solution.