PED: Pedestrian Environment Designer

Abstract

Pedestrian simulations have many uses, from pedestrian planning for architecture design through to games and entertainment. However, it is still challenging to efficiently author such simulations, especially for non-technical users. Direct pedestrian control is usually laborious, and, while indirect, environment-level control is often faster, it currently lacks the necessary tools to create complex environments easily and without extensive prior technical knowledge. This paper describes an indirect, environment-level control system in which pedestrians' behaviour can be specified efficiently and then interactively tuned. With the Pedestrian Environment Designer (PED) interface, authors can define environments using tools similar to those found in raster graphics editing software such as PhotoshopTM. Users paint on two-dimensional bitmap layers to control the behaviour of pedestrians in a three-dimensional simulation. The layers are then compiled to produce a live, agent-based pedestrian simulation using the FLAME GPU framework. Entrances and exits can be inserted, collision boundaries defined, and areas of attraction and avoidance added. The system also offers dynamic simulation updates at runtime giving immediate author feedback and enabling authors to simulate scenarios with dynamic elements such as barriers, or dynamic circumstances such as temporary areas of avoidance. As a result, authors are able to create complex crowd simulations more effectively and with minimal training.