Campus Router
Walking routes and reachable areas across the UIC campus, and a lab that races four pathfinding algorithms.
What it does
The quickest way between two buildings, with a walking time and turn by turn directions.
Avoids stairs completely and favors smooth paths over rough ground like gravel where possible. Relies on OpenStreetMap, where stairs are mapped much more reliably than ramps, so it’s a strong guide rather than a guarantee.
Factors in the current weather, avoiding paths slowed by ice and snow. Based on walking speeds measured in a peer-reviewed study of winter pedestrians (see Sources below).
Shades everywhere reachable on foot from one building within a chosen time, and lists every building inside that area. Follows the footpath network instead of a simple circle, so it stretches along paths and stops where they end.
A visual comparison of four pathfinding algorithms and how each one works. Dijkstra spreads outward evenly. A* aims for the destination using straight line distance. Bidirectional search starts from both buildings and meets in the middle. BFS counts path segments rather than distance, so its route can be longer. The animation shows how much of the campus each one explores, and the results compare the time and work each search took.
Credits and disclaimers
No accounts or cookies. Anonymous visit counts through Vercel Web Analytics. Map tiles come from MapTiler.