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Ahead of the crowd

Editorial Type: Technology focus     Date: 11-2015    Views: 2795      








Oasys MassMotion 8.0 takes crowd simulation modelling and visualisation to new levels, writes David Chadwick

We can design practically anything that is structurally feasible with the tools we now have available. We have mastered the geometry, incorporated new materials, integrated the latest technology, and sorted out a building's innards. The focus is now on building performance, construction efficiencies and a building's interaction or relationship with its occupants or users.

This boils down to a couple of different things that we need to look at; whether a building is comfortable to live or work in, in terms of heating, light and airiness, spaciousness and even feng shui (there’s an app for that), and how efficient the design is to facilitate its use as an office, school, storage depot or transit area - such as a station, airport terminal or football stadium.

The latter concerns the efficiency with which large numbers of people, each with their own destination intent, can move through a constrained area without contention, and in a secure manner. This is, sadly, particularly relevant in today's climate when determining and designing speedy routes from a building or stadium in the event of terrorist activity.

OASYS MASSMOTION
Foremost amongst applications that handle the movement of people is MassMotion from Oasys, which we have written about before. Now Oasys has widened the market lead of its pedestrian simulation and crowd analysis tools for building and district planning, with new modelling, visualisation and analysis features.

You can try it out for yourself. The latest release of this remarkable 3D and BIM compatible tool is now available to download and try for free at www.oasys-software.com, with a time-limited 25% discount to help encourage architects, planners and engineers to use crowd simulation tools for safer and more efficient designs. The real interest in the latest version, though, is the technology that lies behind the application.

HOW DOES MASSMOTION WORK?
MassMotion solves complex problems about how a building can actually perform for its occupants delivering results in a highly visual manner. It is non-deterministic, reflecting real life human behaviour, so the virtual agents in a MassMotion model reveal real pedestrian flow issues and opportunities during the planning phase of projects. 3D BIM compatibility also ensures that MassMotion models are an integral part of the whole of a building’s lifecycle.

All the new features in MassMotion 8.0 are delivered via a new interface design which offers new functionality but still adheres to established industry workflow practices and preferences. This makes it easy for new users to learn and integrate into their teams, and upgrades for existing users will be seamless.

Flow, a sister product designed for less complex ingress/egress and emergency evacuation planning, offers the same high level model import and visualisation tools that have become a requirement for project planning and stakeholder communication for all architectural and engineering projects. Flow is designed for planners, designers, engineers and architects who need to quickly model environments to get feedback on pedestrian interaction and behaviour for a large number of different scenarios.

MODELLING
One of the biggest innovations within MassMotion V8.0 is the addition of built-in polygon modelling tools, which eliminates the need to use Softimage, a third party application that featured in earlier releases. With these new tools, 3D environments can be created from scratch or imported using the open IFC standard from tools such as AutoCAD, MicroStation, SketchUp, Rhino & Revit. The geometry is automatically mapped, including floors, barriers, links and portals, saving even more time and reducing the learning curve for users.

The key thing about MassMotion and Flow is that the characters don't follow assigned paths. They are told where to enter the model and leave and then they make their own decisions, so it is non-deterministic (as opposed to a system whereby the agents follow a predetermined path). However there are times where you need to force an agent onto a path in order to complete a task (such as airport security, for example).

MassMotion models can contain just a few or hundreds of thousands of agents, each of whom has their own agenda and will respond to changes or challenges, such as route choice and congestion, in real time. Agents select their paths within areas according to algorithms that select a route to reach a particular destination, defining a critical space around themselves so that they can avoid collisions with other agents, respond to obstacles and even detect an area that is blocked by other agents that are, for example, waiting for a lift. Agents make strategic decisions to take a different path to reach its destination, and can move within groups (a 'family'), taking their lead from the principal agent.

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