Node Detour

A JavaScript library for 3D pathfinding on a Recast & Detour c++ library generated binary file.

This is a node-gyp addon bundle of the Detour pathfinding script. Pathfinding is frequently used and can be a bottleneck when running games. Taking advantage of the performance boost offered by a native c++ implementation is advantageous.

This library outputs a smoothed path for moving an agent across 3D space.

Install

npm install node_detour

Usage

The workflow for using this is to create a Recast & Detour navigation mesh and export it using the .bin format.

My workflow involves building the RecastDemo application and using that to build my mesh and then exporting it using the save function. This will result in a new bin file being created in the RecastDemo folder which can be used in your nodejs application.

var NodeDetour = require('node_detour');
var detour = new NodeDetour();
 
var loadResult = detour.load('/full/path/to/mymap.bin');
// Returns a map {error: false} or {error: true, message: "Error message"}
 
var p1 = detour.findRandomPoint();
// Returns an array with 3 values for x, y, z position
 
var p2 = detour.findRandomPoint();
//Returns an array with 3 values for x, y, z position
 
var path = detour.findPath(p1, p2);
//returns a 1-dimensional array representing a series of [x,y,z,x,y,z...] points
 
var path = detour.findPath2d(p1, p2);
//returns a 2-dimensional array of of points [ [x,y,z], [x,y,z] ]

Test

npm run test

Benchmarks

i5-7200U @ 2.50GHz with 8 GB of RAM: ~0.7 milliseconds to return a smooth path for paths averaging 400 waypoints

i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz with 8 GB of RAM: ~0.8 milliseconds to return a smooth path for paths averagin 400 waypoints