Implementation of a Cost Function to Model Travel Cost for Shortest Path Routing

Abstract

Many times, as we travel in a region from one place to another we start wondering if there’s a better, optimal path to travel from point A to point B. In order to figure this out, normally, we would seek for details of some of the possible ways of finding such optimal path. However, during our analysis we then start to see things that are subjective such as “steep uphills followed by steep downhills” and we wonder if a path with those characteristics would indeed be the optimal path from point A to B. Through this project we attempt to create a cost function that can help us answer such question. This cost function would take terrain data such as latitude, longitude, elevation, to compute a cost based on constraints subject to the user’s interest. With this information we intend to produce a node graph to model a region of interest in a map that shows the optimal path from point A to B. Key Terms ⎯ Bellman-Ford, Cost Function, Shortest Path, Travel Cost.