I’ve been thinking about how TSP is usually taught — most explanations are either very theoretical or use static examples.
I’ve been experimenting with a small tool to visualize how optimal routes change with different graph structures (including partially connected graphs).
I’m curious:
What tools or methods have you found useful for teaching or understanding TSP?
Do interactive demos actually help, or do people prefer step-by-step explanations?
Would love to hear how others approach this.
The gap between theoretical TSP and actual understanding is usually the static examples. A partially connected graph changes everything, the constraints become visible in a way that distance matrices alone never show. Interactive demos help when they let people break the assumption that "all nodes connect."
Thanks. That's exactly what the solver aims to do. I has an animated visualization option which allows you to see the route traversal.