High-fidelity behaviours for model people on model streetscapes

Abstract

Computational techniques for generating plausible-looking and authentically behaving synthetic walkers on simulated sidewalks are an important component of social science, engineering, planning, policy and management scenarios for many downtown settings, particularly for phenomena that are difficult to experiment with in reality. Yet, traditional approaches used to fashion model streetscapes and model people to fill them are usually sourced in proxy behaviours borrowed from physics and information heuristics, and while these are often conveniently parsimonious and analytically tractable, they can be limited in their ability to generate the sorts of rich synthetic realities in simulation that are commonly desired for extended experimentation. To facilitate the generation of higher-fidelity behavioural models, I present an alternative scheme based on behavioural geography in theoretical foundation and on polyspatial automata, space-time calculation and efficient computing as actionable media for simulation. Ultimately, the aim in introducing new approaches is to broaden the range of experimental scenarios that models can be applied to, and I present varied applied tests for the model infrastructure as a demonstration of the concept.

Computational Streetscapes

“…VGEs serve as immersive settings, often built as virtual realities, but with the added distinction of featuring well-referenced spaces and catalogs of objects and entities that match real-world settings [250]. Lately, research in VGE development has also been pursuing the inclusion of life-like process models that handle physical and environmental forces [317,318], as well as human-based phenomena on streetscapes [229,319].…”

“…Models of mental maps [226,227] that are generated as people reason about their surroundings are also well-explored [228]. Recently, there has been interest in developing a more unified platform that would dock behavioral geography in simulation pipelines that also accommodate methods and interests from physics, animation, and urban studies [65], and that would intertwine sequences of behavioral processes in a unified scheme [229].…”

“…The topic of building artificial or life-like built environments for streets and populations of walkers atop them is well-covered in the computer graphics and urban design literature [248,249], and recent developments in this area have, among other things, focused on allying synthetic cities to real-world modeling pipelines that can treat the physics of natural and built dynamics within them [250][251][252], often as modeled characters pulse along their simulated sidewalks and buildings [229,253]. In applied simulation, it is often important to benchmark patterns and processes in run-time relative to real-world analogs [254][255][256][257].…”

“…In some instances, these can be developed on ontological schemes [357]. In others, characters' agency is used to produce life-like cognition and awareness [229].…”

Developing dynamic virtual geographic environments (VGEs) for geographic research

“…It is another important aspect of collaboration, albeit not directly; once human behavior-related models (e.g., Torrens et al 2012Torrens et al , 2013Torrens et al , 2014) and physical models can functionally interact with each other, the human-environment processes can be simulated naturally and dynamically in a complete VGE (Torrens 2015b). The framework can also offer a seamless transition between data, process, and representation, thus contributing to an actionable understanding.…”