Polypath

Using a physarum polycephalum inspired algorithm, Polypath highlights optimized transportation routes to economise route alteration & planning costs building the foundation of a more efficient city.

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Inspiration

We stumbled upon a news article talking about how brainless slime agents called Physarum could perfectly recreate the Japanese public transport network and solve the travelling salesman problem in linear time. Inspired by the article, we decided to create "Polypath" an application aimed at urban developers that can map out an entire public transport network for any city/country around the world using this fully optimized slime algorithm.

What it does

polypath is a program that mimics the growth of physarum polycephalum to highlight the most optimized and efficient route of buses and trains.

How we built it

We used Unity and Google Maps API to generate the 3D model, then spawned slime game objects and restricted them to the roads and streets. We then created a trail effect, mapping out the slime's path and the optimized routes. Then we created a 2D simulation of over 1 million slime particles to demonstrate the slime's behaviour and how it creates these webs.

Challenges we ran into

  • modelling the slime shortest path algorithm on the 3D model (placing multiple 2D matrices on ground level)
  • making the trail/other non-optimal paths disappear
  • making it easier for users to navigate the model and see the paths (user interface)
  • adding a 2D option to see the path from a bird's eye view

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • implementing the 3D model on unity
  • spawning slime agents and restricting them to streets & roads
  • creating trails behind them
  • creating a 2D simulation of a slime's behaviour & algorithm
  • spawning 1 million slimes and seeing how they would form paths in the 2D space

What we learned

From Google Maps' suspicious billing system to the Unity game engine and an entirely new language (c#) the most important things we learned were: keep trying, don't be afraid to reach out, and have fun!

What's next for Polypath

Building the actual program of course and pitching to investors! Firstly: Integrating the slime algorithm with the 3d google maps API. Secondly: testing with various maps. Thirdly: implementing a more user-friendly interface. Lastly: pitching to investors.

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