Crowdsourcing: Using real-time social media data to repopulate the socially distanced world

The paper suggests that one of the aspects of the pre-Covid world that is most missed in the ‘new normal’ is the social experience of crowds and that immersive media might compensate for this. The nature of crowds is explored with a view to identifying the parameters for successful crowd simulation. There is a brief survey of computer crowd simulation which identifies some of the challenges together with descriptions of some recent games which feature crowds as a significant element. The paper then describes a method using real-time searches of social media content derived from Twitter as an extended data set which can be used to produce variety in the individual agents making up generated crowds and so provide a closer simulation of the crowd experience.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Ian Willcock

Conference

Publication date: July 2021

Publication date (Print): July 2021

Pages: 226-230

Affiliations

[0001]University of Hertfordshire

Hatfield, United Kingdom

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2021.38

SO-VID: 92f303f4-dfbc-4c33-b891-867472ff28eb

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2021

Conference acronym: EVA 2021

Conference number:

Conference location: London

Conference date: 5th July – 9th July 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: AI and the Arts: Artificial Imagination

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2021.38

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

P. Dickinson, K. Gerling, K. Hicks, J. Murray, J. Shearer & J. Greenwood (2019) Virtual Reality Crowd Simulation: Effects of Agent Density on User Experience and Behaviour. Virtual Reality, 23 (1) March, pp. 19–32.
V. Filingeri, K. Eason, P. Waterson & R. Haslam (2017) Factors Influencing Experience in Crowds – The Participant Perspective. Applied Ergonomics, 59 March, pp. 431–441.
Frontier Developments (2016) Planet Coaster [Computer game], Frontier Developments. Cambridge.
IO Interactive (2016) Hitman [Computer Game], Square Enix, Tokyo.
IO Interactive (2018) Hitman 2 [Computer Game] Burbank, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment
O. McCarthy (2017) Game Design Deep Dive: Creating Believable Crowds in Planet Coaster. Gamasutra, 4 January [Online blog]. Available from: <https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/288020/Game_Design_Deep_Dive_Creating_believable_cro wds_in_Planet_Coaster.php> [Accessed 17 March 2021].
S. Moore (2020) What Am I Missing Thanks to Coronavirus? Crowds, Smiling at Strangers – and a Government That Cares. the Guardian [Online], Available from: <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/what-am-i-missing-thanks-to-coronavirus-crowds-smiling-at-strangers-and-a-government-that-cares> [Accessed 17 March 2021].
N. Pelechano, J. Allbeck & N. Badler (2007) Controlling Individual Agents in High-Density Crowd Simulation. Proceedings of the 2007 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, August, pp. 99–108.
N. Pelechano, J. M. Allbeck & N. I. Badler (2008) Virtual Crowds: Methods, Simulation, and Control. Morgan & Claypool Publishers, USA.
S. Perez (2010) This Is What a Tweet Looks Like [Online]. ReadWrite. Available from: <http://readwrite.com/2010/04/19/this_is_what_a_tweet_looks_like> [Accessed 15 December 2014].
SomaSim (2016) Project Highrise [Computer Game] Leicester, Kasedo Games.
D. Thalmann & S. R. Musse (2012) Crowd Simulation. Springer Science & Business Media.
T. Thompson (2019) The AI of Hitman (2016) [Online]. Gamasutra. Available from: <https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TommyThompson/20190807/346425/The_AI_of_Hitman_2016.ph> [Accessed 13 March 2021].
H. Van Kerrebroeck, M. Brengman & K. Willems (2017) Escaping the Crowd: An Experimental Study on the Impact of a Virtual Reality Experience in a Shopping Mall. Computers in Human Behavior, 77 December, pp. 437–450.
Ming-Liang Xu, Hao Jiang, Xiao-Gang Jin, and Zhigang Deng. (2014) ‘Crowd Simulation and Its Applications: Recent Advances’. Journal of Computer Science and Technology 29 (5): 799–811. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-014-1469-y.
R. Zubek (2017) 1000 NPCs at 60 FPS [Chapter]. In: S Rabin. ed., Game AI Pro 3: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals. Taylor & Francis, pp. 105–112.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] P. Dickinson, K. Gerling, K. Hicks, J. Murray, J. Shearer & J. Greenwood (2019) Virtual Reality Crowd Simulation: Effects of Agent Density on User Experience and Behaviour. Virtual Reality, 23 (1) March, pp. 19–32.

[2] V. Filingeri, K. Eason, P. Waterson & R. Haslam (2017) Factors Influencing Experience in Crowds – The Participant Perspective. Applied Ergonomics, 59 March, pp. 431–441.

[3] Frontier Developments (2016) Planet Coaster [Computer game], Frontier Developments. Cambridge.

[4] IO Interactive (2016) Hitman [Computer Game], Square Enix, Tokyo.

[5] IO Interactive (2018) Hitman 2 [Computer Game] Burbank, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment

[6] O. McCarthy (2017) Game Design Deep Dive: Creating Believable Crowds in Planet Coaster. Gamasutra, 4 January [Online blog]. Available from: <https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/288020/Game_Design_Deep_Dive_Creating_believable_cro wds_in_Planet_Coaster.php> [Accessed 17 March 2021].

[7] S. Moore (2020) What Am I Missing Thanks to Coronavirus? Crowds, Smiling at Strangers – and a Government That Cares. the Guardian [Online], Available from: <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/what-am-i-missing-thanks-to-coronavirus-crowds-smiling-at-strangers-and-a-government-that-cares> [Accessed 17 March 2021].

[8] N. Pelechano, J. Allbeck & N. Badler (2007) Controlling Individual Agents in High-Density Crowd Simulation. Proceedings of the 2007 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, August, pp. 99–108.

[9] N. Pelechano, J. M. Allbeck & N. I. Badler (2008) Virtual Crowds: Methods, Simulation, and Control. Morgan & Claypool Publishers, USA.

[10] S. Perez (2010) This Is What a Tweet Looks Like [Online]. ReadWrite. Available from: <http://readwrite.com/2010/04/19/this_is_what_a_tweet_looks_like> [Accessed 15 December 2014].

[11] SomaSim (2016) Project Highrise [Computer Game] Leicester, Kasedo Games.

[12] D. Thalmann & S. R. Musse (2012) Crowd Simulation. Springer Science & Business Media.

[13] T. Thompson (2019) The AI of Hitman (2016) [Online]. Gamasutra. Available from: <https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TommyThompson/20190807/346425/The_AI_of_Hitman_2016.ph> [Accessed 13 March 2021].

[14] H. Van Kerrebroeck, M. Brengman & K. Willems (2017) Escaping the Crowd: An Experimental Study on the Impact of a Virtual Reality Experience in a Shopping Mall. Computers in Human Behavior, 77 December, pp. 437–450.

[15] Ming-Liang Xu, Hao Jiang, Xiao-Gang Jin, and Zhigang Deng. (2014) ‘Crowd Simulation and Its Applications: Recent Advances’. Journal of Computer Science and Technology 29 (5): 799–811. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-014-1469-y.

[16] R. Zubek (2017) 1000 NPCs at 60 FPS [Chapter]. In: S Rabin. ed., Game AI Pro 3: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals. Taylor & Francis, pp. 105–112.

Studying business & IT? Drive your professional career forwards with BCS books - for a 20% discount click here: shop.bcs.org