Agent Based Modelling Archives - Digital Urban

UCL Live Campus Augmented Reality App – Created by Masters Students at CASA

Andy — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:23:03 +0000

UCLive is an Augmented Reality Map of UCL developed by students on the Masters in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at CASA. Featuring live data, the augmented reality android app works by simply pointing your mobile device at any of the UCL maps across campus.
Running in Unity and mixing a number of GIS and Agent Based Modelling elements, the development is outlined below:

A three dimensional base model was created with SketchUp on top of the UCL campus map;
Moving agents and transports are added into the application to show local bus and tube routes;
Sounds are embedded into the application from the UCL Soundcloud;
Online data on buildings, Twitter and PC Cluster availability – live;
The user’s location is shown in the application map.

Augmented Reality UCL Map

Produced by Ayana Kito ( http://3rdplat.blogspot.co.uk ), Balamurgan Soundararaj ( http://geoidin.wordpress.com ), Daniel Lam ( http://spatiametrics.wordpress.com ) and Nicola Clark (http://cityofblindinglights.org ) it represents the output of the final visualisation project on the masters course. The movie illustrates the app in action:
Take a look at the main UCLive page for full details and updates, we are currently exploring next steps to move the app towards release on Android and iOS.
You can still apply for 2013/14 entry to the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation the final full time deadline for applications: August 2nd.

The post UCL Live Campus Augmented Reality App – Created by Masters Students at CASA appeared first on Digital Urban.

6 Fellowships £10,000 Each at The Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy (CSAP) in Leeds or the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) in London

Andy — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:33:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the availability of six fellowships are available to support individuals in non-academic institutions to undertake defined research projects at the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy (CSAP) in Leeds or the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) in London. The Fellowships will provide individuals with an opportunity to learn and apply spatial analytical methods to their own data.

Value

Fellowships are valued at up to £10,000 each and will cover costs for up to 3 months for full-time projects and 6 months for part-time work (although other temporal arrangements may be considered).

Eligibility

To qualify to apply for a fellowship individuals should:

– Belong to a non-academic organisation
– Have a degree (preferably in geography)
– Have the support of their organisation
– Be located in the UK.

Application Procedure

To apply for a fellowship, please include the following by email under single cover and preferably as one PDF file:

– A completed User Fellowship application form
– A letter of support from your employer

Applications should be sent to Amy O’Neill, TALISMAN Project Assistant: a.oneill@leeds.ac.uk

Deadline

We require all materials to be sent together by 4pm on September 21, 2012.

Enquiries

If you would like further information about the fellowships or to discuss a potential project before applying, please contact:

At CSAP:

Mark Birkin, email: m.h.birkin@leeds.ac.uk

John Stillwell, email: j.c.h.stillwell@leeds.ac.uk

AT CASA:

Andy Hudson-Smith, email: a.hudson-smith@ucl.ac.uk

TALISMAN is a node of the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) and is funded through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of a strategy to improve the standard of research methods across the UK social science community. The key rationale for TALISMAN is to act as a catalyst for methodological innovation by forging strong links between research and capacity building in geospatial analysis and simulation. TALISMAN is based at the University of Leeds and the University College London.

The post 6 Fellowships £10,000 Each at The Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy (CSAP) in Leeds or the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) in London appeared first on Digital Urban.

Lumion, Unity, Agents & Objects

Andy — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Crowd, transport and urban simulations are at their roots down to ‘Agents’ or ‘Objects’ that are assigned a set of rules as to how to moves in relation to both the environment and other agents around them. 3D Studio Max has a built in ‘Crowd and Delegate’ system which can be used to assign behaviour and therefore create realistic traffic of pedestrian systems in 3D space.
The movie below displays our first tentative steps to explore emergent behaviour via the introduction of simple rules. The movie starts out with a basic ‘wander’ behaviour where the agents only knowledge is the shape of the surface. Moving on we assign each of our ‘cubes’ (of which we have become quite fond of…) a level of vision so they can see ahead and therefore avoid each other and objects in their environment.

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Thirdly, the agents seek a ‘sphere’ which could be viewed as a source of food. While being aware of each other and tweaking the way the cubes move a swarm behaviour emerges. Finally, we introduce competing groups with two priorities, firstly to eat and secondly to stay as a group. The majority choose the group over the food but a couple stray off in search of sustenance and lose the other members.

Previous steps in our visualisation of agent based models are based around a simple flocking examples. This model is an attempt to mimic the flocking of birds, while the resulting motion also resembles schools of fish. The flocks that appear in this model are not created or led in any way by special leader rather, each bird is following exactly the same set of rules, from which flocks emerge.
We have exported the model into 3D Max providing the visualisation below, as ever these are early days but the results seem to run well with 300 ‘birds’ over 1000 frames. The birds are rendered as cubes at the moment for proof of concept:

Flocking in NetLogo exported to 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.
Music “Funkmelon Blooz” (Electronica)
The birds follow three rules: “alignment”, “separation”, and “cohesion”. “Alignment” means that a bird tends to turn so that it is moving in the same direction that nearby birds are moving. “Separation” means that a bird will turn to avoid another bird which gets too close. “Cohesion” means that a bird will move towards other nearby birds (unless another bird is too close). When two birds are too close, the “separation” rule overrides the other two, which are deactivated until the minimum separation is achieved.
The three rules affect only the bird’s heading. Each bird always moves forward at the same constant speed.
If we were using the built in Crowd and Delegate system a true 3D flocking system would be possible, but it would be pure visualisation, by importing via NetLogo you gain access to the raw data and thus spatial analysis is possible. It is also quick to model and provides the best of both worlds – 3d visualisation and complex modelling.
While 3D Max is of use for crowd and particle simulation when it comes to modelling complex systems an external package is required, such as NetLogo. The movie below details our first steps at CASA (home of digital urban) to export a basic traffic model from NetLogo into 3D Studio Max. The import script was written by our new PhD student, Ateen Patel and opens up a vast array of opportunities to both visualise and model the city.

Music by The Tedd-Z Cookbook, Aerodrome (Funky Shuffle Remix)
NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment that is widely. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent “agents” all operating concurrently. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.(Nation Master Encyclopedia).
How does this relate to the city? The next part is to put in real geographical data and to get the agents movies and reacting to each other on a spatial network, more on that to come. Perhaps using a particle system as per the movie below:
Particles in the City from digitalurban on Vimeo.All of these models are going into our exhibition space to allow a step by step guide to the principles of agent based modelling. At the moment we are weighing up two options – Unity and Lumion. Our previous trials in Unity are below:
Unity is great, it is a fully featured game engine, however we are also looking at Lumion. Lumion, aimed more at direct visualization, is remarkably easy to learn, the movie below is the result of our first 20 minutes working with Lumion from first load to final output. It is merely proof of concept, but taking the output from Max and dragging into Lumion is refreshingly simply:
We will have more on Lumion in future posts…

The post Lumion, Unity, Agents & Objects appeared first on Digital Urban.

NetLogo and Repast to 3DMax to Unity: ABM Visualisation

Andy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:09:00 +0000

Our work on Unity stalled for a while due to another projects and deadlines, but we are back on the case from next week with the aim of providing a quick and easy route to visualise agent based models with an urban theme .

The movie below details where we left off:

The ultimate aim is go from popular agent based modelling packages such as NetLogo or Repast into 3D Max and subsequently out to a game engine.

The movie below shows basic agent based models created directly inside of 3D Max:

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Finally, below is output from NetLogo visualised in Max – this is now up and running in Unity so the proof of concept seems to work:

Flocking in NetLogo exported to 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.

All being well we should have a plugin for 3D Max available in the next quarter allowing direct input for agent based models.

The post NetLogo and Repast to 3DMax to Unity: ABM Visualisation appeared first on Digital Urban.

NetLogo and Repast to 3DMax to Unity: ABM Visualisation

Andy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:09:00 +0000

The movie below details where we left off:

The ultimate aim is go from popular agent based modelling packages such as NetLogo or Repast into 3D Max and subsequently out to a game engine.

The movie below shows basic agent based models created directly inside of 3D Max:

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Finally, below is output from NetLogo visualised in Max – this is now up and running in Unity so the proof of concept seems to work:

Flocking in NetLogo exported to 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.

All being well we should have a plugin for 3D Max available in the next quarter allowing direct input for agent based models.

The post NetLogo and Repast to 3DMax to Unity: ABM Visualisation appeared first on Digital Urban.

Dynamic 3D Models in Google Earth: Traffic and Pedestrian Visualisation

Andy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:18:00 +0000

The movie clip below provides an insight into some particularly note worthy research, not just in terms of Google Earth, but also in terms of collecting and visualising traffic and pedestrian data:

Its not the overlaying of video clips in Google Earth, but the animation of complex traffic patterns in a digital city which we see as innovative. This has notable potential for populating city models with real-time traffic and crowd data as well as for the validation of agent based models.

Picked up via http://www.gearthblog.com

See http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/augearth/ for full details – very neat.

The post Dynamic 3D Models in Google Earth: Traffic and Pedestrian Visualisation appeared first on Digital Urban.

Dynamic 3D Models in Google Earth: Traffic and Pedestrian Visualisation

Andy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:18:00 +0000

The movie clip below provides an insight into some particularly note worthy research, not just in terms of Google Earth, but also in terms of collecting and visualising traffic and pedestrian data:

Picked up via http://www.gearthblog.com

See http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/augearth/ for full details – very neat.

The post Dynamic 3D Models in Google Earth: Traffic and Pedestrian Visualisation appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crowds and Delegates in 3D Max – Agent Based Modelling and Emergent Behaviour

Andy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:40:00 +0000

The movie below displays our first tentative steps to explore emergent behaviour via the introduction of simple rules. The movie starts out with a basic ‘wander’ behaviour where the agents only knowledge is the shape of the surface. Moving on we assign each of our ‘cubes’ (of which we have become quite fond of…) a level of vision so they can see ahead and therefore avoid each other and objects in their environment.

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

All of these models are going into our exhibition space previewed below to allow a step by step guide to the principles of agent based modelling.

The virtual exhibition space should be online for Windows and Mac in the next few weeks.

The post Crowds and Delegates in 3D Max – Agent Based Modelling and Emergent Behaviour appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crowds and Delegates in 3D Max – Agent Based Modelling and Emergent Behaviour

Andy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:40:00 +0000

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

All of these models are going into our exhibition space previewed below to allow a step by step guide to the principles of agent based modelling.

The virtual exhibition space should be online for Windows and Mac in the next few weeks.

The post Crowds and Delegates in 3D Max – Agent Based Modelling and Emergent Behaviour appeared first on Digital Urban.

Second Life: Agent Based Models Update

Andy — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:04:00 +0000

As part of joint work with gisagents.blogspot.com we have just finished another part of Agent-Street where agents and avatars can interact with each other. The idea here is to merge iconic and symbolic urban models in a multi-user real time environment:

Agent-Based Modelling in Second Life from Andrew Crooks on Vimeo.

The movie below details Agent-Street and how one can download the models we have created by clicking on the model vending machines. Such vending machines are common features in Second Life and allow users to store objects and scripts in their personal inventory for later use such as rebuilding the models on their own Land or in free sand-boxes. We have been using the Mauve Land for this (SLURL).

In our previous models avatars could only visualise and initiate the models. For example, in the pedestrian evacuation model users could only observe how agents exited the building (in a similar way to professionally developed 3D pedestrian modelling software packages such as STEPS – more on STEPS in a future post.). In this new model, we extend the basic pedestrian evacuation model, so that agents not only consider their environments but also other avatars. In this sense we are not only incorporating iconic and symbolic modelling styles but also adding a further human dimension, moving towards an augmented reality (i.e. as if the agents and the humans were in the same crowd). The movie below details how pedestrian paths change when avoiding an avatar, note how an avatar stationed near the exit impacts on pedestrian egress as agents have to move around it.

We have also set up a website outlining the work in detail (click here) or alternatively if you have a Second Life account this SLurl will take you to the Land, once you teleport to the area, follow the red arrow (beam of red light) into the sky to find Agent-Street. If the models are running slow let us know as we having problems with fish entering our land from a neighbouring island.

Thanks as ever go to NATURE for allowing us use of Second Nature Island to set up the experiments.

The post Second Life: Agent Based Models Update appeared first on Digital Urban.