The 1 Trillion Pixel Maze: My Decade-Long Obsession with C# Optimization
summary
C# implementation rethinks maze generation end to end: backtrack algorithm with bit arrays, disk‑tiled caching and chunked enumerable processing yields huge images; custom image‑pyramid tool replaces Gigapan/TIFF failures. Benchmarks report 18.5 hours to generate, 5.4 hours to compute path, 62 hours to render, 18 billion total steps and 577 million directions reduced to 144 MB via 2‑bit junction encoding. Experiments scale from 64k×64k to a hosted mega output (~400 GB); the pipeline completes successfully for the large runs and runs on Azure VMs using aggressive inlining and ExoShiftRandom.
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chapters (20)
- 0:00Trillion pixel maze obsession
- 2:20What defines a maze
- 6:30Goal for biggest maze
- 9:01First implementation
- 13:57Disk storage and caching
- 16:01512k maze and compression
- 21:073D view of 2048x2048 maze
- 22:11Million pixel maze and Azure
- 26:05Image format and tool limits
- 28:13Stats from million pixel maze
- 31:01Optimizing maze generation
- 34:35Backtrack algorithm improvements
- 37:22Eliminating branch prediction
- 40:54Benchmarking .NET versions
- 41:15Alternative maze algorithms
- 42:40Division algorithm limits
- 43:053D maze demo
- 44:09Maze coasters and PNG optimization
- 44:55Comparing maze algorithms
- 48:39Closing remarks and Q&A
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