Pathfinding3d : Which is 10-20X faster than three-pathfinding and three-pathfinding-3d

[MrYang614]

This is my GitHub repository pathfinding3d. I previously released three-pathfinding-3d, which fixed some algorithmic issues with three-pathfinding. The /pkg directory contains a pre-built wasm module that can be used directly as an es-module.

Performance comparison (WASM vs JavaScript)

This document compares the two implementations used in demo/src/main_wasm.ts: pathfinding3d (Rust / WASM) and three-pathfinding-3d (JavaScript).

---

Browser demo methodology

After level.nav.glb is loaded, a single click on the navmesh (without dragging) triggers pathfinding. The code runs 10 pathfinding calls for the same start / end pair and measures elapsed time:

Section	Metric / Detail	Value	Notes
Browser Demo	API (WASM)	PathfindingWasm.prototype.find_path	10 iterations
	API (JS)	Pathfinding.prototype.findPath	10 iterations
	Measurement	Elapsed time for 10 calls	Inspect console.table
	Metrics	Total ms, Avg per call	console.time / console.timeEnd
Node Benchmark	Script	demo/scripts/bench-pathfinding.mjs	Headless, reproducible
	Mesh	level.nav.glb (Navmesh_Mesh)	Vertices: 563, Indices: 1656
	Endpoints	Start: (-3.5, 0.5, 5.5) End: (2, 0.5, -2)	Player height aligned
	Iterations	10 calls per implementation	No rendering overhead
Pathfinding Performance	Run 1	WASM: 0.8818 ms JS: 10.4133 ms	Ratio: 11.81x
	Run 2	WASM: 0.7459 ms JS: 9.5605 ms	Ratio: 12.82x
	Run 3	WASM: 0.8342 ms JS: 10.4888 ms	Ratio: 12.57x
	Summary	JS is ~11–13× slower than WASM	Varies by mesh complexity
Zone Build Performance	Run 1	WASM: 3.1529 ms JS: 4.9874 ms	Single shot
	Run 2	WASM: 2.8102 ms JS: 5.7774 ms	Single shot
	Run 3	WASM: 2.8803 ms JS: 5.0330 ms	Single shot
	Summary	Same order of magnitude	WASM sometimes slightly faster
Environment	Date	2026-05-11	Recorded run
	OS	Windows (win32)
	Node.js	v22.22.0

On this asset, single-shot zone build is the same order of magnitude for WASM and JS; across these runs WASM was sometimes slightly faster.

---

Takeaways

• Pathfinding: On the Node benchmark against demo/public/level.nav.glb, WASM is on the order of one magnitude faster than JavaScript (here ~12×, see js_vs_wasm_ratio in the table). In the browser, treat console.table as the ground truth; absolute milliseconds vary with endpoints and load.

• Zone build: Strongly depends on mesh complexity; on this navmesh, single-shot WASM / JS builds are in the low single‑digit millisecond range.

• Recommendation: Use the browser demo’s console.table for interactive realism; use bench-pathfinding.mjs for regression checks against the same glb shipped with the repo.

[MrYang614]

In larger-scale scenarios, this disparity will become increasingly pronounced. Pathfinding3D (WASM) has been extensively optimized across numerous APIs, leveraging a k-d tree to enhance spatial search efficiency. We eagerly anticipate your adoption.