Crating mazes with Rust.

I wrote an article about my journey writing this tool on https://fau.re/blog/20160206_rust_maze.html

Examples

Generating a gif animation of a maze being generated using various algorithms

Prim's algorithm

maze -r plain -g100x100 --foreground #585858 --animation --algorithm prim prim.gif

It produces the following gif in 295 iterations:

Kruskal's algorithm

maze -r plain -g100x100 --foreground #585858 --animation --algorithm kruskal kruskal.gif

It produces the following gif in 287 iterations:

Recursive Backtracking algorithm

maze -r plain -g100x100 --foreground #585858 --animation --algorithm backtracker backtracker.gif

It produces the following gif in only 169 iterations:

Different styles

Plain style

maze -g630x400 --foreground #ffffff --background #000000 plain.png

Mosaic style

maze -g 635x400 -r mosaic mosaic.png

Invaders style

maze -g 637x399 --foreground #585858 -r invaders invaders.png

Bias

The maze generator can be biased to create mazes with a certain orientation. Here is an example of a maze with a strong vertical bias:

maze -g 630x400 --foreground #585858 -b 0.65 vertical_bias.png

Or from a different starting point, in the center of the maze:

maze -g 630x400 --foreground #585858 -b 0.65 -o 0.5x0.5 bias_centered.png

Shading

The maze generator can also shade the walls based on their distance from the starting point. In this example, the color goes from red to white based on the length of path from the center:

maze -g630x400 -o 0.5x0.5 --gradient length maze.png

A different can be achieved by shading based on the distance from the solution. It produces a lava river effect:

maze -g630x400 --foreground #d70000\ #585858 --gradient solution lava_river.png

The impact of the Prim algorithm is clearly visible : it tends to produce mazes that go from top left to bottom right in a direct way.

With the Kruskal algorithm, the effect is more subtle:

maze -g630x400 --foreground #d70000\ #585858 --gradient solution --algorithm kruskal kruskal.png

With the backtracker algorithm:

maze -g630x400 --foreground #d70000\ #585858 --gradient solution --algorithm backtracker backtracker.png