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Developing a Wayfinder system

 
Greenhorn
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Hi everyone,

Wondering if any one could be of help with this...

Got a project to design a wayfinder system for a hospital with about 200 nodes. Navigation through the nodes are dynamic i.e Users should be able to specify any nodes as starting and destination points. Then, way description is generated (not worrying about shortest path at the moment). Way description generated is made up of other nodes as landmarks.

Have the routes already recorded but can't get my head around this... Design-wise & Implementation!

ANY SUGGESTIONS WILL BE APPRECIATED!

Cheers...
Braun
Have the
 
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Exactly what are you missing here - the way to describe a path or the way to describe nodes and links or what?

Bill
 
Braun Mac
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The way to describe to a complete path from a given start point to a destination point - at the same time mentioning other nodes along that same path, ie as landmark...

The nodes, I suppose will have to be stored in a database.

Cheers...
Braunie
 
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I think you should get hold of networking alogrithms for it...
Dijkstra's Algorithm for shortest path etc...

You can specify the nodes like n1->n2->n3 where the database may store its peers...

Cheers!!
 
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Please take the time to choose the correct forum for your posts. This forum is for questions on Servlets.

For more information, please read this.

This post has been moved to a more appropriate forum.
 
Bear Bibeault
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"Braunie", please check your private messages for an important administrative matter.
 
Braun Mac
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Thanks. Do you know of any networking algorithm specifically for this? For now, I am not worried about the shortest path... I would want to get the basic part - of generating the paths dynamically with specified start and end point - working before shortest path.

Ps. any idea is welcome.

cheers...
 
William Brogden
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What is your current representation of a node?

Once you get that right the rest should be simple.

Bill
 
Braun Mac
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I haven't yet got a clue on how to present them. At the moment, the nodes are recorded as unique numbers (representing the node locations).

If you have got any idea on how to go about this, please do not hesitate sharing it.

Cheers!
 
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Hi Braun,

OK, so you have nodes that are represented by unique numbers, how are you representing how they are connected to eachother? Asa poster stated previously, Networking algs are the way to go here....
 
William Brogden
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Since we are working in an object oriented language here, I would say the way to represent a node is with an object.

Think about all the properties a node has and how they could be represented as Java variables in an object. In particular you need a way to represent the connections to other nodes.

Bill
 
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To be clear here - any good algorithm book should have a section on networking algorithms - this should also discuss the pros/cons for using said algotithgm and will usually disucss a minimal format for the data (points or vectors) as well as a minimal code example.

This might be the easiest way for you to complete your project.

-steve
 
Braun Mac
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Thanks all for your help so far. I am researching on networking algorithms at the moment. A bit relieved, it would solve my problem! Fingers crossed! Will be updating...

Happy Xmas everyone!!!
Braun
 
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