I need to choose a Grasshopper plugin capable of performing spatial path calculations. It should be able to compute the shortest path from one point in space to another while avoiding obstacles. Are there any related plugins or algorithms available for use?
This is a broad topic really with a plethora of ways to tackle it.
One approach could be grid- or graph-based pathfinding, using Breadth-first search, Dijkstrak’s or the sightly more optimized A* algorithm. Those are famous and there’s a bunch of material online on how to implement them.
Another method could be to simply sample random points along the way to the target point, and ignore those that collide with the obstacles, connecting and jumping exclusively to points that constitute a clear path. Here the A* algorithm will also play a role.
You could also implement this with fields, I imagine. Obstacles could be repelling forces and the target an attracting one. The path would then emerge from the gradient (vector) field. The results might be unpredictable though.
I don’t know about relevant plug-ins.
Hello
like said by @bvr “Shortest Walk” is one of the simplest, but you’ll have to make the various paths and the tool will calculate the shortest
https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/shortest-walk-gh
This tool seems also interesting if you deal with people
https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/flow
and if you want something like
you can look at that, but it could be quite long and it is just on a Mesh