Answer by Joseph Kern for Representing and solving a maze given an image

This solution is written in Python. Thanks Mikhail for the pointers on the image preparation.

An animated Breadth-First Search:

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The Completed Maze:

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#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys

from Queue import Queue
from PIL import Image

start = (400,984)
end = (398,25)

def iswhite(value):
    if value == (255,255,255):
        return True

def getadjacent(n):
    x,y = n
    return [(x-1,y),(x,y-1),(x+1,y),(x,y+1)]

def BFS(start, end, pixels):

    queue = Queue()
    queue.put([start]) # Wrapping the start tuple in a list

    while not queue.empty():

        path = queue.get() 
        pixel = path[-1]

        if pixel == end:
            return path

        for adjacent in getadjacent(pixel):
            x,y = adjacent
            if iswhite(pixels[x,y]):
                pixels[x,y] = (127,127,127) # see note
                new_path = list(path)
                new_path.append(adjacent)
                queue.put(new_path)

    print "Queue has been exhausted. No answer was found."


if __name__ == '__main__':

    # invoke: python mazesolver.py <mazefile> <outputfile>[.jpg|.png|etc.]
    base_img = Image.open(sys.argv[1])
    base_pixels = base_img.load()

    path = BFS(start, end, base_pixels)

    path_img = Image.open(sys.argv[1])
    path_pixels = path_img.load()

    for position in path:
        x,y = position
        path_pixels[x,y] = (255,0,0) # red

    path_img.save(sys.argv[2])

Note: Marks a white visited pixel grey. This removes the need for a visited list, but this requires a second load of the image file from disk before drawing a path (if you don't want a composite image of the final path and ALL paths taken).

A blank version of the maze I used.