BIHC · Bio-inspired models of human crowds

BIHC- Bio-inspired models of human crowds

With current consumer-grade personal computers, it is possible to display 3D virtual scenes with thousands of animated individual entities at interactive frame rates. Crowd simulations are, however, too often limited to characters lacking individuality and wandering in an environment. This situation is particularly problematic in the field of cultural heritage in real-time simulations of the past where the realism of individual behavior is key. In a collaboration across the computer science and the archaeology fields, this project addressed this problem, by exploring bio-mimicking techniques in the development of a generative model for heterogeneity and spontaneity in the behavioral animation of crowds. The project aimed at the development of a framework composed of a behavioral model (drawing on biological and economical tenets) and an associated authoring tool. This was to provide a software architecture for generative crowds and an associated application enabling users from the cultural heritage sector (non-programmers) to easily animate any historic/geographical scenario they may wish. More specifically, the goals can be defined as i) the development of a bio-inspired model of agency for virtual humans integrating bio-mimicking techniques originating from ALife's framework and known as computational ecosystems, ii) the development of an authoring tool to interact with the parameters of that model and develop context-specific behaviors/animations, and finally iii) the development of a proof-of-concept - the simulation of a historical environment, with the assistance of non-programmers using the authoring tool developed earlier. Resulting from this project, a new ALife model for virtual populations was developed, and a generative tool, Easy-Population, was produced. This tool follows a drag-and-drop design paradigm, to enable users to create their own populations. This system gives 'anima' to a set of otherwise static characters generating an autonomous and self-organizing population. Based on a set of 3d models (the static characters), and a set of locations (interest points), the system provides spontaneous behaviors and autonomous interactions to the characters. Available behaviors are: walk (with a different number of gaits), walk side by side, stop and chat/ argue/ flirt, and children following adults. It is also possible to configure static elements performing looping behaviors or two-state repetitive actions. In summary, this project provides a solid framework allowing the creation of generic populations of autonomous and self-organizing virtual humans. Although results obtained were evaluated by the end users of the tool, to achieve the level of realism adequate to historical simulations, the collective behavior component needs further research. In particular, the simulation of cultural aspects of the behaviors. This research opens new investigative routes since differences in human behavior are a fundamental part of the immaterial heritage of the sites represented and simulating culturally driven behavior seems to be paramount in the cultural heritage domain.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз