Rules of the Game
How can ants find the shortest route that passes everywhere exactly once? It is simple: they leave a pheromone trail. The more ants have passed along a path, the stronger it smells and attracts other ants. The shortest paths will be traversed by the most ants and will therefore be preferred. This algorithm does not find the best path quickly, but it takes few seconds to discover one of the best. Just think that it still takes months for modern computers to find the best path for 100 cities... Try changing the number of ants, the initial random walk duration, the way pheromones are vanishing, the strength of the initial smell which parameters do you think are optimal?
The opacity of the lines is proportional to the strength of the pheromones. The green lines indicate the current busiest circuit. To see the best option, click on the "Best path" button.
