Abstract
We present Menge, a cross-platform, extensible, modular framework for simulating pedestrian movement in a crowd. Menge's architecture is inspired by an implicit decomposition of the problem of simulating crowds into component subproblems. These subproblems can typically be solved in many ways; different combinations of subproblem solutions yield crowd simulators with likewise varying properties. Menge creates abstractions for those subproblems and provides a plug-in architecture so that a novel simulator can be dynamically configured by connecting built-in and bespoke implementations of solutions to the various subproblems. Use of this type of framework could facilitate crowd simulation research, evaluation, and applications by reducing the cost of entering the domain, facilitating collaboration, and making comparisons between algorithms simpler. We show how the Menge framework is compatible with many prior models and algorithms used in crowd simulation and illustrate its flexibility via a varied set of scenarios and applications.
Highlights
Whether for interactive graphics, special effects, or engineering applications, crowd simulation – the simulation of a large number of independent entities acting and moving through a shared space – relies on the solution to many subproblems: determining what an agent wants to do, how it will achieve its purpose, how it responds to unforeseen challenges, and, for visual applications, determining how its virtual body moves
We model agent behavior and how it changes with respect to time with a Behavioral Finite State Machine (BFSM)
We have presented the design of a novel, modular framework for the simulation of crowd movement
Summary
Whether for interactive graphics, special effects, or engineering applications, crowd simulation – the simulation of a large number of independent entities acting and moving through a shared space – relies on the solution to many subproblems: determining what an agent wants to do, how it will achieve its purpose, how it responds to unforeseen challenges, and, for visual applications, determining how its virtual body moves. Each time an entire crowd movement simulator is created to support the creation of a single component, the task of performing meaningful comparisons between novel and pre-existing approaches becomes increasingly difficult. Research in and development of crowd simulation applications would benefit from a common framework. Researchers first entering the domain could focus on one aspect, but still evaluate it in a complex context by exploiting the frameworks built-in implementations. Focused development: Researchers could focus on a single subproblem, while exploiting shared implementations of solutions for the surrounding context. This would reduce the initial cost of performing research in crowd simulation.
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