Interactive Evaluation of Shortest Path Methods

Client: Goce Trajcevski; Advisor: Mengxuan Zhang

Project Overview

Algorithm research has come up with different variations for shortest-path calculations that have their own limitations, proficiencies, and intended use cases. Efficiency is always a major consideration for them and it is often complicated to explain just how efficient one is relative to the other. Because there is not a clear way to compare or visualize these algorithms, it impedes researchers from explaining their work, educators from teaching students, and the general audience from understanding the purpose of their existence. The nature of this problem is twofold:

1. How do you share your understanding without practical examples or comparisons?
2. How do you allow various people to verify these claims at any time, regardless of knowledge-level?

Our project consists of addressing these needs by creating an application with various algorithms and datasets available for testing, and outputting detailed comparisons and reports between them. This knowledge is of great importance to researchers, engineers, and designers alike whose focus is on understanding and implementing the optimal algorithms for a given situation.