GeoJSON Path Finder
Find shortest path through a network of GeoJSON.
Given a network of GeoJSON LineString
s, GeoJSON Path Finder will find the shortest path between two points in the network. This might be useful for automatic route searches in smaller networks, where setting up a real route planner like OSRM is too much work, or you simply need to do everything on the client.
See the GeoJSON Path Finder demo.
Installing
npm install --save geojson-path-finder
API
Create a path finding object:
var PathFinder = require('geojson-path-finder'),
geojson = require('./network.json');
var pathFinder = new PathFinder(geojson);
The GeoJSON object should be a FeatureCollection
of LineString
features. The network will be built into a topology, so that lines that start and end, or cross, at the same coordinate are joined such that you can find a path from one feature to the other.
To find the shortest path between two coordinates:
var path = pathFinder.findPath(start, finish);
Where start
and finish
are two GeoJSON point
features.
If a route can be found, an object with two properties: path
and weight
is returned, where path
is the coordinates the path runs through, and weight
is the total weight (distance in kilometers, if you use the default weight function) of the path.
PathFinder
options
The PathFinder
constructor takes an optional seconds parameter containing options
that you can use to control the behaviour of the path finder. Available options:
weightFn
controls how the weight (or cost) of travelling between two vertices is calculated; by default, the geographic distance between the coordinates is calculated and used as weight; see Weight functions below for detailsprecision
(default1e-5
) controls the tolerance for how close vertices in the GeoJSON can be before considered being the same vertice; you can say that coordinates closer than this will be snapped together into one coordinateedgeDataReduceFn
can optionally be used to store data present in the GeoJSON on each edge of the routing graph; typically, this can be used for storing things like street names; if specified, the reduced data is present on found paths under theedgeDatas
propertyedgeDataSeed
is the seed used when reducing edge data with theedgeDataReduceFn
above
Weight functions
By default, the cost of going from one node in the network to another is determined simply by the geographic distance between the two nodes. This means that, by default, shortest paths will be found. You can however override this by providing a cost calculation function through the weightFn
option:
var pathFinder = new PathFinder(geojson, {
weightFn: function(a, b, props) {
var dx = a[0] - b[0];
var dy = a[1] - b[1];
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
}
});
The weight function is passed two coordinate arrays (in GeoJSON axis order), as well as the feature properties that are associated with this feature, and should return either:
- a numeric value for the cost of travelling between the two coordinates; in this case, the cost is assumed to be the same going from
a
tob
as going fromb
toa
- an object with two properties:
forward
andbackward
; in this case,forward
denotes the cost of going froma
tob
, andbackward
the cost of going fromb
toa
; setting either to0
,null
orundefined
will prevent taking that direction, the segment will be a oneway.