Being a part of the crowd: towards validating VR crowds using presence

Crowd simulation models are currently lacking a commonly accepted validation method. In this paper, we propose level of presence achieved by a human in a virtual environment (VE) as a metric for virtual crowd behavior. Using experimental evidence from the presence literature and the results of a pilot experiment that we ran, we explore the egocentric features that a crowd simulation model should have in order to achieve high levels of presence and thus be used as a framework for validation of simulated crowd behavior. We implemented four crowd models for our pilot experiment: social forces, rule based, cellular automata and HiDAC. Participants interacted with the crowd members of each model in an immersive virtual environment for the purpose of studying presence in virtual crowds, with the goal of establishing the basis for a future validation method.

[1]  Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn,et al.  Effects of Sensory Information and Prior Experience on Direct Subjective Ratings of Presence , 1999, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[2]  Mel Slater,et al.  A Virtual Presence Counter , 2000, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[3]  Stephen Chenney,et al.  Flow tiles , 2004, SCA '04.

[4]  Demetri Terzopoulos,et al.  Autonomous pedestrians , 2005, SCA '05.

[5]  Dirk Helbing,et al.  Simulating dynamical features of escape panic , 2000, Nature.

[6]  Taras I. Lakoba,et al.  Modifications of the Helbing-Molnár-Farkas-Vicsek Social Force Model for Pedestrian Evolution , 2005, Simul..

[7]  W ReynoldsCraig.  Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model , 1987 .

[8]  Franco Tecchia,et al.  Agent Behaviour Simulator (ABS):a platform for urban behaviour development , 2001 .

[9]  Norman I. Badler,et al.  Controlling individual agents in high-density crowd simulation , 2007, SCA '07.

[10]  Holger Regenbrecht,et al.  The Experience of Presence: Factor Analytic Insights , 2001, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[11]  Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn,et al.  Using Behavioral Realism to Estimate Presence: A Study of the Utility of Postural Responses to Motion Stimuli , 2000, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[12]  David C. Brogan,et al.  Group Behaviors for Systems with Significant Dynamics , 1997, Auton. Robots.

[13]  Mel Slater,et al.  Using Presence Questionnaires in Reality , 2000, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[14]  D. Thalmann,et al.  Virtual Humans’ Behaviour: Individuals, Groups, and Crowds , 2000 .

[15]  Norman I. Badler,et al.  Modeling Crowd and Trained Leader Behavior during Building Evacuation , 2006, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[16]  Norman I. Badler,et al.  Collision Awareness Using Vibrotactile Arrays , 2007, 2007 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference.

[17]  Maria V. Sanchez-Vives,et al.  From presence to consciousness through virtual reality , 2005, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[18]  Mel Slater,et al.  Taking steps: the influence of a walking technique on presence in virtual reality , 1995, TCHI.

[19]  Gert Pfurtscheller,et al.  Analysis of Physiological Responses to a Social Situation in an Immersive Virtual Environment , 2006, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[20]  Adrien Treuille,et al.  Continuum crowds , 2006, SIGGRAPH 2006.

[21]  Craig W. Reynolds.  Flocks, herds, and schools: a distributed behavioral model , 1987, SIGGRAPH.

[22]  Cagatay Basdogan,et al.  An experimental study on the role of touch in shared virtual environments , 2000, TCHI.

[23]  Craig W. Reynolds.  Steering Behaviors For Autonomous Characters , 1999 .

[24]  J. Loomis,et al.  Interpersonal Distance in Immersive Virtual Environments , 2003, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[25]  Woodrow Barfield,et al.  The effect of update rate on the sense of presence within virtual environments , 1995, Virtual Reality.