Immersive human-in-the-loop HMD evaluation of dynamic group behavior in a pedestrian crowd simulation that uses group agent-based steering

Abstract

Figure 1: Formation capabilities of the articulated object approach: (a) U-formation. (b) The group adapted a formation to pass through a narrow alley. (c) Formation with locked hinges allows for a hand-holding couple. (d) Conversation formation. (e) Asymmetric L-formation. AbstractMost prior virtual crowds are simulated based on individualistic movement and behavior, but in recent years a few works have begun to offer approaches for human-like social group movement and plausible interactions between people in a group while moving or standing together. In our work, two novel approaches for social group movement are offered for a slot-based group agent: the basis of the first is an articulated object with hinges at the inner slots which allows for dynamic formation transitions, and the second approach which has no hinges uses interpolation to do the same. In the articulated object approach, we accommodate sub-groups of people in the group who are more strongly bonded (e.g. couple, parent and child, talkative friends) so that they can continue to socialize or hold hands so long as the surrounding environment conditions permit it. In addition, we adapted a behavioral interaction framework to work between sub-groups of people in a group. We tested our approaches in a number of testcase scenarios and found that they work as desired. Furthermore, helped by many participants one-at-a-time, each conducted an immersive human-in-the-loop HMD evaluation of the dynamic group behaviors from a first-person view. Each participant, as one of the pedestrians in the crowd, belonged to his or her own virtual group and moved around and interacted with members of his or her group for group decision making. The statistical analysis of participant responses from the questionnaire validate the realism of the dynamic group behavior.

Virtual reality crowd simulation: effects of agent density on user experience and behaviour

“…Evaluation was conducted using a bespoke questionnaire and qualitative descriptions of video recordings. VR was also used by Rojas and Yang (2013) and Rojas et al (2014) to study small group formations, and Ahn et al (2012) used a similar method to compare different collision avoidance algorithms in a street scene. In this case, the user remained stationary, and observed the scene using a CAVE environment.…”

“…Whilst some existing work has considered the use of crowd simulations in virtual reality (VR) settings, it has generally focused on three areas: firstly, the validation of simulation models by a human observer (Ahn et al 2012;Kim et al 2016;Pelechano et al 2008a, b;Rojas and Yang 2013;Rojas et al 2014); secondly, investigations of additional human-agent interactions, such as gestures and gaze (Kyriakou et al 2016;Narang et al 2016); and finally, user response to agent proximity (proxemics). Proxemics is of most relevance to our work, but existing investigations use 1 3 single agents or objects, or small groups in predefined configurations, rather than full crowd simulation models (Bruneau et al 2015;Llobera et al 2010;Wilcox et al 2006;Sanz et al 2015), and also use physiological measures of arousal rather than measures of affect.…”

Group Modeling: A Unified Velocity‐Based Approach

“…Yeh et al [YCP*08] placed different types of composite agents to constrain agents in groups. Rojas and Yang [RY13] introduced a group agent consisting of several hinge‐connected slots which each member follows. Alonso‐Mora et al [AMBR*12] enabled a large number of robots to transform among a set of formations by computing their goal positions in each formation assignment.…”

A Virtual Reality Platform to Study Crowd Behaviors

“…A set of experiments were performed in crowd simulation perception, to design for example realistic immersive crowds (McDonnell et al (2009); Ennis and O'Sullivan (2012)). VR has also been used to evaluate simulation quality (Pelechano et al (2008); Rojas and Yang (2013)). However, the interaction loop between users and their environment differs in virtual conditions in comparison with real conditions.…”