Designing trails with a path-planning algorithm

Mark Underwood
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:42:46 PDT

Designing the route of a trail, whether it be a hiking, mountain biking, or ATV trail, is a process currently done manually. Since a trail designer often chooses a path that minimizes certain costs, such as steepness, aspect, and proximity to existing structures, it is possible to automate this process using an algorithm. This paper describes Breadcrumbs, a program which uses GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data and a set of modifying weights to automatically create a trail route using a modified A* search algorithm. The operation of the program is described, and a number of experimental results are shown and discussed.