This book describes, from a computer science viewpoint the software, methods of simulating and analysing crowds with a particular focus on the effects of panic in emergency situations. The power of modern technology impacts on modern life in multiple ways every day. A variety of scientific models and computational tools have been developed to improve human safety and comfort in built environments. In particular, understanding pedestrian behaviours during egress situations is of considerable importance in such contexts. Moreover, some places are built for large numbers of people (such as train stations and airports and high volume special activities such as sporting events). Simulating Crowds in Egress Scenarios discusses the use of computational crowd simulation to reproduce and evaluate egress performance in specific scenarios. Several case studies are included, evaluating the work and different analyses, and comparisons of simulation data versus data obtained from real-life experiments are given.

Doktorarbeit / Dissertation aus dem Jahr 2003 im Fachbereich Verkehrswissenschaft, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The movement of crowds is a field of research that attracts increasing interest. This is due to three major reasons: pattern formation and selforganization processes that occur in crowd dynamics, the advancement of simulation techniques and hardware that enable fast and realistic simulations, and finally the growing area of potential applications (planning of pedestrian facilities, crowd management, or evacuation analysis). The field is spanning the borders of various disciplines: physiology, psychology, sociology, civil engineering, mathematics, physics, etc. It depends on the point of view which aspects are given the main focus. One approach is to reduce complexity to fundamental principles that make a mathematical (quantitative) formulation possible and at the same time are sufficiently complex to reproduce the major phenomena that can be observed in reality. The major aim of this dissertation is to define and validate a model for the simulation of evacuation processes and their analysis. To this end the analogy between non-equilibrium many particle systems and crowds is used. However, it will also become clear that this analogy is not sufficient for complex scenarios and realistic egress simulations and additional, ‘non-physical’, parameters and principles must be introduced. Even though the investigation is motivated by the applications, the dynamics of crowd movement and model properties are scrutinized. This also includes a thorough review of the data available in the literature, the calibration of the model parameters and the comparison of simulated and empirical flow-density relations. The core of any evacuation simulation is a set of rules or equations for the movement of people. This is connected to the representation of space, population, and behavior. These topics will be investigated generally (micro- vs. macroscopic, discrete vs. continuous) and especially with regard to a specific two-dimensional cellular automaton model, where the movement dynamics is based on discrete space and time. This allows an efficient implementation and therefore large scale simulations. The route-choice is done via the orientation along a discrete vector field which can in principal be derived from a discrete potential. It is therefore not explicitly simulated but taken into account in a pre-determined way, i.e., the coupling to the vector field is static (constant coupling parameter).

This book introduces the use of the distinct element method (DEM) in modeling crowd behavior and simulating evacuation processes. Focusing on the mathematical computation of the uncertain behavior of evacuees, which is switching action behavior, it subsequently reproduces the crowd evacuation process under several conjectural scenarios using a DEM-based multi-agent model that has been modified by introducing the switching action behavior. The proposed switching action behavior model describes a person who has to change his/her destination due to the limited space capacity of the designated evacuation area. The change in the destination of a person is determined according to the motion of other individuals in the perception domain during the defined switching action time. The switching action time is formulated in the so-called switching action function, which is described by a convolution integral of the input and unit response functions. The newly developed switching action model is then validated using sensitivity analysis in which the primary focus is the crowd motion and flow of switching action behavior.

Emergency evacuation (egress) is an important issue in safety design of buildings. Studies of catastrophic incidents have highlighted the need to consider occupants' behaviors for better understanding of evacuation patterns. Although egress outcomes are influenced by human and social factors, quantifying these factors in design codes and standards is difficult because occupants' characteristics and emergency scenarios vary widely. As an alternative, computational egress simulation tools have been used to evaluate egress designs. However, most of current simulation tools oversimplify the behavioral aspects of evacuees. This thesis describes a flexible computational framework that incorporates human and social behaviors in simulations to aid occupant-centric egress design. Based on the analysis of literature in social science and disaster studies, the design requirements of SAFEgress (Social Agents For Egress), an agent-based simulation framework, are derived. In SAFEgress, the agent's decision-making process, the representation of the egress environment and the occupants, and the algorithms that emulate human capabilities in perception and navigation are carefully designed to simulate group dynamics and social interactions. A series of validation tests has been conducted to verify the capability of the framework to model a wide range of behaviors. Case studies of a museum and a stadium show that considering group navigation could cause additional bottlenecks on egress routes, thus prolong evacuation. On the other hand, by strategically arranging stewards to control crowd flow, evacuation time can be significantly improved. SAFEgress provides a means to systematically evaluate the effects of human and social factors on egress performance in buildings and facilities. Using the simulation results, facility managers and designers can develop occupant-centric solutions to crowd problems by addressing different scenarios and unique occupants' characteristics. Furthermore, the framework could be applied to support research in social science to investigate the collective behaviors of crowds in a built environment.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on e-Learning and Games, EDUTAINMENT 2018, held in Xi’an, China, in June 2018. The 32 full and 32 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 85 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections named: virtual reality and augmented reality in edutainment; gamification for serious game and training; graphics, imaging and applications; game rendering and animation; game rendering and animation and computer vision in edutainment; e-learning and game; and computer vision in edutainment.

Virtual reality techniques are increasingly becoming indispensable in many areas. This book looks at how to generate advanced virtual reality worlds. It covers principles, techniques, devices and mathematical foundations, beginning with basic definitions, and then moving on to the latest results from current research and exploring the social implications of these. Very practical in its approach, the book is fully illustrated in colour and contains numerous examples, exercises and case studies. This textbook will allow students and practitioners alike to gain a practical understanding of virtual reality concepts, devices and possible applications.