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https://github.com/jamis/theseus

A very flexible random maze generator, solver, and renderer for Ruby
https://github.com/jamis/theseus

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A very flexible random maze generator, solver, and renderer for Ruby

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= Theseus



Theseus is a library for generating and solving mazes. It also includes

routines for rendering mazes (and their solutions) to both ASCII art,

and to PNG image files.



There is also an included utility for generating mazes from the command-line.



Note that Theseus requires Ruby 1.9.2 or higher.



== Overview



Theseus supports the following types of mazes:



* *Orthogonal*. This is the traditional maze layout of rectangular passages.

* *Delta*. This maze type tesselates the field into triangles.

* *Sigma*. The field is tesselated into hexagons.

* *Upsilon*. The maze field consists of tiled octogons and squares.



Mazes may be generated using any of the following features:



* *Symmetry*. The maze may be reflected in x, y, x and y, or radially. (Not

  all maze types support symmetry yet.)

* *Randomness*.  A maze with low randomness will result in many long, straight

  corridors. Higher randomness gives a maze with more twists and turns.

* *Weave*. Mazes with high weave will frequently pass over or under existing

  passages. Low weave mazes will prefer to remain on the same plane.

* *Braid*. Mazes with high braid will trade dead-ends for circular loops in

  the maze. Thus, braided mazes will tend to have multiple possible solutions.

* *Wrap*. Mazes may wrap in x, y, or x and y together. A maze that wraps in

  any of its dimensions will allow the passages to go from one side

  of the maze to the other, by moving beyond the far edge of the

  maze. Another way to think of it is that a maze that wraps in one

  dimension may be mapped onto a cylinder, and a maze that wraps in

  both dimensions may be mapped onto a torus.

* *Masks*. Mazes may be constrained with masks, which are basically boolean

  grids that define where a passage is allowed to exist. With masks,

  you can create mazes that fit pre-defined geometry, or wrap around text.



Theseus supports the following output types:



* *ASCII*. Using the ASCII output, you can simply print a maze to the console

  to see what it looks like. Not all features can be displayed well

  in ASCII mode, but it works well enough to see what the maze will be like.

* *PNG*. Mazes that are rendered to PNG may be highly customized, and even

  allow you to specify custom paths to be rendered.



Theseus supports the following solution algorithms:



* Recursive Backtracking. This is a fast, efficient algorithm for solving

  mazes that have no circular loops (e.g. unbraided mazes).

* A* Search. The A* search algorithm really shines with mazes that

  are highly braided, and is guaranteed to provide you with the shortest

  path through the maze.



Orthogonal mazes may be converted to their _unicursal_ equivalent. A unicursal

maze is one which has only a single path that covers every cell in the field

exactly once. This style is maze is often called a "labyrinth". See

Theseus::OrthogonalMaze#to_unicursal for more information.



Theseus is also designed to allow you to step through both the generation of

the maze, as well as the computation of the solution. This lets you (for instance)

animate the construction (and solution) of the maze by drawing individual PNG

frames for each step! And since Theseus includes an implementation of A* Search,

this gives you an interesting way to visualize (among other things) how that

algorithm works.



Lastly, Theseus can be used to manually build mazes (or any other grid-based

structure) by hand. See Theseus::Maze for more information.



== Usage



Theseus is designed to be super simple to use. Here are some examples:



  require 'theseus'



  # generate a 10x10 orthogonal maze and print it to the console

  maze = Theseus::OrthogonalMaze.generate(width: 10)

  puts maze



  # render a triangular delta maze to a PNG file

  maze = Theseus::DeltaMaze.generate(mask: Theseus::TriangleMask.new(10))

  File.open("triangle.png", "w") { |f| f.write(maze.to(:png)) }



  # render a highly braided, hexagonally-tiled maze, with its solution

  maze = Theseus::SigmaMaze.generate(width: 20, height: 20, braid: 100)

  File.open("sigma.png", "w") do |f|

    f.write(maze.to(:png, solution: true))

  end



  # poor-man's animation of the generation of an octogon/square-tiled maze

  maze = Theseus::UpsilonMaze.new(width: 10)

  while maze.step

    puts maze

    sleep 0.05

  end

  puts maze



  # emit animation frames showing the solution of a maze

  maze = Theseus::OrthogonalMaze.generate(width: 10)

  solver = maze.new_solver

  step = 0

  solver.each do

    File.open("frame-%04d.png" % step, "w") do |f|

      path = solver.to_path(color: 0xff0000ff)

      f.write(maze.to(:png, paths:[path]))

    end

    step += 1

  end



See the documentation for Theseus::Maze for information on all of these

features.



To use the command-line utility, simply pass the -h flag to the "theseus"

utility on the command-line:



  $ theseus -h



== Requirements



Theseus requires Ruby 1.9.2, and the ChunkyPNG library.



== Installation



To install, simply type:



  gem install theseus



This will install both the library, as well as the command-line "theseus"

tool.



== License



Theseus is created by Jamis Buck. It is made available in the public domain,

completely unencumbered by rules, restrictions, or any other nonsense.



Please prefer good over evil.