CircuitBoardExample.cs

This example shows how to use the Pathfinding.ITraversalProvider interface to generate paths like on a circuit-board.I.e paths that do not share any node. The image below shows a test case when using the script to calculate 4 paths on a small grid. The visualization of the paths has been improved manually using an external photo-editing application.

The code has intentionally been left simple, so very little error checking and special case handling is done.

Note that finding paths on a circuit-board in an optimal way is a very hard problem (NP-Complete). For further information about that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-commodity_flow_problem.

Attach this script to any GameObject and fill in the 'items' array with the start end endpoints of each path.

See Also

Utilities for turn-based games

Pathfinding.ITraversalProvider

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Pathfinding;

public class CircuitBoardExample : MonoBehaviour {
    [System.Serializable]
    public class Item {
        public Transform start;
        public Transform end;
    }

    public Item[] items;

    class Blocker : ITraversalProvider {
        public HashSet<GraphNode> blockedNodes = new HashSet<GraphNode>();

        public bool CanTraverse (Path path, GraphNode node) {
            // Override the default logic of which nodes can be traversed
            return DefaultITraversalProvider.CanTraverse(path, node) && !blockedNodes.Contains(node);
        }

        public uint GetTraversalCost (Path path, GraphNode node) {
            // Use the default costs
            return DefaultITraversalProvider.GetTraversalCost(path, node);
        }
    }

    void Update () {
        var traversalProvider = new Blocker();

        // Calculate all paths in sequence.
        // It is important that they are not calculated in parallel
        // as we need to make sure that the paths do not visit the same nodes.
        // The result may vary significantly depending on the order in which
        // the paths are calculated.
        for (int index = 0; index < items.Length; index++) {
            var item = items[index];

            // Create new path object
            ABPath path = ABPath.Construct(item.start.position, item.end.position);
            path.traversalProvider = traversalProvider;
            // Start calculating the path and put the path at the front of the queue
            AstarPath.StartPath(path, true);

            // Calculate the path immediately
            path.BlockUntilCalculated();

            // Make sure the remaining paths do not use the same nodes as this one
            foreach (var node in path.path) {
                traversalProvider.blockedNodes.Add(node);
            }

            // Draw the path in the scene view
            Color color = AstarMath.IntToColor(index, 0.5f);
            for (int i = 0; i < path.vectorPath.Count - 1; i++) {
                Debug.DrawLine(path.vectorPath[i], path.vectorPath[i+1], color);
            }
        }
    }
}