Unity 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.

15,000 Agents: A* Pathfinding

Andy — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:54:11 +0000

Games engines such as Unity are the perfect platform for agent based modelling, they allow a combination of 3D urban cityscapes and navmeshes/grid graphs/point graphs and local avoidance systems. The A* Pathfinding project features an array of techniques for rapid pathfinding or AI development using a low memory footprint.

Agents in Unity

We have only started exploring the possibilites but the results are intriguing, below features a clip of 15,000 agents using local avoidance, the number could be considerably increased using multiple machines:

A* Pathfinding is available in free and pro versions, it is well worth checking out, we have just upgraded to the pro….

The post 15,000 Agents: A* Pathfinding appeared first on Digital Urban.

Unity Traffic System – City Traffic

Andy — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:05:01 +0000

Creating a sandbox style traffic system in Unity is a challenge. As our previous posts have shown agents can use NavMesh and calculate shortest paths but the hit is high on processing which in turn limits the number of agents in a scene. Sander van der Vegte is a multidisciplinary game developer who for the past 12 years has fortunate enough to make a living creating games, part of his current development process is a city traffic game and thus finding ways for natural behaviour while maintaining a low processing requirment.

Unity City Traffic

The clip below is a recording of an autonomous traffic system. Cars drive around while aware of crossings and other vehicles. When something is blocking their path, they will stop. If it takes too long, they will back up and look for another path, the basic ruleset allows for humorous situations:

Traffic system from Sander van der Vegte on Vimeo.

Within the development the user is able to click on a car to take it over while falling off the edge triggers the random camera again.
It is well worth heading over to http://sandervandervegte.nl/ to view his other projects and to keep up to date on City Traffic.

The post Unity Traffic System – City Traffic appeared first on Digital Urban.

Urban Ball – CityEngine, Unity and Agent Based Modelling on the iPad

Andy — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:14:26 +0000

CityEngine combined with Unity and a tablet – iOS requires a developers account, Android simple needs the 30 days Unity trial – allows city wide models to run with a touch based interface.

Urban Ball – CityEngine and Unity on iOS

We have used our recent work on Unity and Agent Based modelling to create a simple app called ‘Urban Ball’. Development time so far is around a couple of days so the route from city modelling through to iOS app is remarkably short. Via some tweaked physics and a touch interface linked to a to a ball (the target) we have a simple agent based model on the iPad.
The movie below shows the app so far:
We have been impressed with the rapid development path using Unity and the ability of the iPad to run city wide models complete with agents. Arguably we have completed a proof of concept here, in the next few weeks we will explore how much further we can go – perhaps to release our first free iPad/Android app….
See also – Trail Rending of Agents with NavMesh, Physics, Unity and CityEngine, Augmented Reality City Table Top – Unity, CityEngine and Vufoira and Shortest Path Modelling and NavMesh in Unity and CityEngine.

The post Urban Ball – CityEngine, Unity and Agent Based Modelling on the iPad 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.

Augmenting a Roman Fort: A Paper Model, IPad and Unity

Andy — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:48:00 +0000

Stuart Eve here at The Bartlett’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis has posted an update on his PhD research looking at augmenting archaeological sites. Before moving onto the real world he has built a proof of concept based on a Roman Fort made out of paper, the results on the iPad are extremely promising:

Augmenting a Roman Fort from Dead Men’s Eyes on Vimeo.
Stuart has a full write up on the tools used over on his blog..

The post Augmenting a Roman Fort: A Paper Model, IPad and Unity appeared first on Digital Urban.

Unity 3.0 Announced

Andy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:27:00 +0000

Hopefully we are about to dive back into the Unity game engine for a truly exciting project, as such the glimpse of Unity 3 opens up a number of possibilities:

Dark Unity from Unity3D on Vimeo.

As soon as we are back using Unity we will of course post the usual update movies and tutorials. Keep an eye on http://unity3d.com/ for full details.

Thanks go to Chester of http://associated-architects.com/ for the link.

The post Unity 3.0 Announced appeared first on Digital Urban.

Unity 3.0 Announced

Andy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:27:00 +0000

Hopefully we are about to dive back into the Unity game engine for a truly exciting project, as such the glimpse of Unity 3 opens up a number of possibilities:

Dark Unity from Unity3D on Vimeo.

As soon as we are back using Unity we will of course post the usual update movies and tutorials. Keep an eye on http://unity3d.com/ for full details.

Thanks go to Chester of http://associated-architects.com/ for the link.

The post Unity 3.0 Announced appeared first on Digital Urban.

Unity – Now Free

Andy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Unity, our current development platform of choice here at digital urban, is now available free of charge. The Indie version of its Unity engine previously sold for $200 and is quite simple one of the best and indeed easiest game engines to work with.

We will be ramping up our Unity development in the coming months, for now if you haven’t had chance to use Unity yet, what are you waiting for.

Head over to http://unity3d.com/unity/ for the download.