Toward a Hybrid Approach for Crowd Simulation

We address the problem of simulating pedestrian crowd behaviors in real time. To date, two approaches can be used in modeling and simulation of crowd behaviors, i.e. macroscopic and microscopic models. Microscopic simulation techniques can capture the accuracy simulation of individualistic pedestrian behavior while macroscopic simulations maximize the efficiency of simulation; neither of them assures the two goals at the same time. In order to achieve the strengths of the two classes of crowd modeling, we propose a hybrid architecture for defining the complex behaviors of crowd at two levels, the individual behaviors, and the aggregate motion of pedestrian flow. It consists of combining a microscopic and a macroscopic model in an unified framework, we simulate individual pedestrian behaviors in regions of low density by using a microscopic model, and we use a faster continuum model of pedestrian flow in the remainder regions of the simulation environment. We demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of our interactive hybrid simulation technique in a large environment. This technique demonstrates the applicability of hybrid techniques to the efficient simulation of large-scale flows with complex dynamics.