Animation of the Traveling Salesman Problem

Author

ElAarag, Hala ; Romano, Sam

Author_Institution

Dept. of Math. & Comput. Sci., Stetson Univ., Deland, FL, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

15-18 March 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Visualization of algorithms has become increasingly more popular as classrooms are upgraded with better technology and graphically interactive systems. This technique is attractive to educators and students alike. With increased performance in languages such as Java and the ease of implementation for graphical interfaces, one can construct graphical systems for effectively animating and visualizing algorithms. In this paper, we present an implementation of such a system for The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Our goal is to bring TSP to life by graphically representing the states of two popular solutions to this problem, namely backtracking and branch and bound, and animating the transitions between those states.

Keywords

computer aided instruction; computer animation; computer science education; data visualisation; graphical user interfaces; travelling salesman problems; tree searching; Java; TSP animation; classrooms; educators; graphical interfaces; graphical systems; graphically interactive systems; traveling salesman problem animation; visualizing algorithms; Aerospace electronics; Animation; Cities and towns; Java; Traveling salesman problems; Visualization; Optimization; TSP; Traveling Salesman Problem; animation; computer science education; educational tools; visualization;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Southeastcon, 2012 Proceedings of IEEE

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

ISSN

1091-0050

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1374-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SECon.2012.6197002

Filename

6197002