EyeSim - Maze Format

The Maze format is a very simple input format for environments with right angles only, such as the Micro Mouse competitions.

Walls

The input is ASCII characters only. Walls are specified by single characters within a line. A "|" (at odd positions in a line, 1,3,5,..) denotes a wall piece in y-direction, a "_" (at even positions in a line, 2,4,6,..) is a wall piece in x-direction. So, each line contains in fact the horizontal walls of its coordinate and the vertical wall segments (if any) above it.

Example:
This defines a rectangle with two dividing walls.

 _ _ _
|    _|
|_|_ _|

However, the following is identical and reads nicer:

 _____
|    _|
|_|___|

Complex mazes can be constructed this way:

 _________________
|  _________|     |
| |  _____  | |___|
| | |_____  | | | |
| |  _  __|___|  _|
| |_|____________ |
| |___    |  _  | |
|  _  | |___| | __|
| | | |   | ____  |
|_|_____|_______|_|

Starting Positions

Characters may be added to a maze to indicate starting positions of one or multiple robots. Uppercase characters assume a wall below the character, lowercase letters do not:

S,s robot start position, facing up
U,u robot start position, facing up (identical to S,s)
D,d robot start position, facing down
L,l robot start position, facing left
R,r robot start position, facing right

Size

The size of a wall element can be specified in mm as a single integer number in the last line. If missing, 36cm is the default value.

Example:

 _________________
|  _________|     |
| |  _____  | |___|
| | |_____  | | | |
| |  _  __|___|  _|
| |_|____________ |
| |___    |  _  | |
|  _  | |___| | __|
| | | |   | ____  |
|S|_____|_______|_|
100

The robot will start in the bottom left position, facing up. The size of a wall element is set to 100 mm (10 cm).

Ball

A soccer ball can be inserted by using the symbol "o". The robots can then interact with the ball, e.g. push or kick it.

Example:

   _____________________________________________________
  |                                                     |
  |                                                     |
  |          r                               l          |
  |                                                     |
 _|                                                     |_
|            r                               l            |
|                                                         |
|  r                         o                         l  |
|                                                         |
|_           r                               l           _|
  |                                                     |
  |                                                     |
  |          r                               l          |
  |                                                     |
  |_____________________________________________________|
100

Thomas Bräunl