route planning

[Andre Meyer]

Hi all

Just a very simple question: where can I find a module for route planning?

I have looked around and found some implementations of graph theory, e.g.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pynetwork/. But, what I need is not an
abstract graph, but one where nodes/vertices have locations (2D), are
connected (to follow a path, respecting distance among nodes) and where I
can easily find the closest edge and vertex from any point in space.

your links are much appreciated
thanks
André

[Jon Clements]

Re: route planning

It's not really what you're after, but I hope it might give some ideas
(useful or not, I don't know).

How about considering a vertex as a point in space (most libraries will
allow you to decorate a vertex with additonal information), then
creating an edge between vertices, which will be your 'path'. You can
then decorate the edge with information such as distance/maximum speed
etc...

Then all you need to do is use an A* path algorithm or shortest path
search to get the shortest / most efficient route.... You might need a
custom visitor to suit the 'weight'/'score' of how efficient the path
is.

I know this probably isn't of much help, but I hope it comes in useful;
I've only ever used Boost.Graph (which is C++, but I believe it has a
Python binding) and that was for something else -- although I do recall
it had examples involving Kevin Bacon and dependency tracking etc... so
a good old Google might do you some good -- ie, it's not completely
related, but it might give you a few extra things to search on...

All the best with the search.

Jon.

PS. If you do find a library, can you let me know? I'd be interested in
having a play with it...