M. Brandon Haworth

Environment optimization for crowd evacuation

The layout of a building, real or virtual, affects the flow patterns of its intended users. It is well established, for example, that the placement of pillars at proper locations can often facilitate pedestrian flow during the evacuation of a building. Such considerations are therefore important for architects, game level developers, and others whose domains involve agents navigating through buildings. In this paper, we take the first steps towards developing a simulation framework that can be used to study the optimal placement of architectural elements, such as pillars or doors, for the purposes of facilitating dense pedestrian flow during the evacuation of a building. In particular, we show that the steering algorithms used to model the local navigation abilities of the agents significantly affect the results, which motivates the need for a statistically valid approach and further study. Copyright

PhoVR: a virtual reality system to treat phobias

Phobias are a common type of disorder that affect a significant number of people, often in debilitating ways. Treating phobias is not always straightforward and can require significant effort from both the patient and the clinician. We propose a Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) system for the treatment of phobias that makes use of affordable, consumer-level hardware and software components. The system allows the patient to follow the treatment in the comfort of his or her own home and allows the clinician to supervise and to direct the treatment from a different location via network.

Evaluating and optimizing level of service for crowd evacuations

Level of service (LoS) is a standard indicator, widely used in crowd management and urban design, for characterizing the service afforded by environments to crowds of specific densities. However, current LoS indicators are qualitative and rely on expert analysis. Computational approaches for crowd analysis and environment design require robust measures for characterizing the relationship between environments and crowd flow. In this paper, the flow-density relationships of environments optimized for flow under various LoS conditions are explored with respect to three state-of-the-art steering algorithms. We optimize environment elements to maximize crowd flow under a range of density conditions corresponding to common LoS categories. We perform an analysis of crowd flow under LoS conditions corresponding to the LoS optimized environments. We then perform an analysis of the crowd flow for these LoS optimized environments across LoS conditions. The steering algorithm, the number of optimized environment elements, the scenario configuration and the LoS conditions affect the optimal configuration of environment elements. We observe that the critical density of crowd simulators can increase, or shift LoS, due to the optimal placement of pillars. Depending on the steering model and environment benchmark, pillars are configured to produce lanes or form wall-like structures, in an effort to maximize crowd flow. These experiments serve as a precursor to environment optimization and crowd management motivating the need for further study using real and synthetic crowd datasets across a larger representation of environments.

Characterizing and optimizing game level difficulty

Balancing the interactions between game level design and intended player experience is a difficult and time consuming process. Automating aspects of this process with respect to user-defined constraints has beneficial implications for game designers. A change in level layout may affect the available routes and subsequent player interactions for a number of agents within the level. Small changes in the placement of game elements may lead to significant changes in terms of the challenge experienced by the player on the path to their goal. Estimating the effect of this change requires that the designer take into account new paths of all interacting agents and how these may affect the player. As the number of these agents grow to crowd size, estimating the effect of these changes becomes grows difficult. We present a user-in-the-loop framework for tackling this task by optimizing enemy agent settings and the placement of game elements that affect the flow of agents within the level, with respect to estimated difficulty. Using static path analysis we estimate difficulty based on agent interactions with the player. To exemplify the usefulness of the framework, we show that small changes in level layout lead to significant changes in game difficulty, and optimizations with respect to the characterization of difficulty can be used to attain desired difficulty levels.

CODE: Crowd-optimized design of environments

We present crowd‐optimized design of environments (CODE): a “crowd‐aware” computational tool for designing environments (e.g., building floor plans). Our system analyses the impact of newly added environment elements (e.g., pillars or doorways) on the resulting crowd flow, using current‐generation crowd simulators. The results of the simulation are used to provide feedback to the designer in terms of aggregate statistics and heat maps. Additionally, our system is able to “automatically” optimize the placement of environment elements to maximize crowd flow in egress scenarios, while satisfying constraints that are imposed by the designer. Using CODE, architects and environment designers can iteratively refine upon their original design to quickly accommodate the dynamic properties of crowd simulations in an interactive fashion. CODE is modular and flexible so that designers may build environments, select from different crowd simulators, and specify varying crowd configurations.

A Game System for Speech Rehabilitation

Speech disorders are common in children and adults. For a number of these individuals, traditional speech therapy will not be successful, leaving them unable to (or poorly able) to communicate through speech. By combining recent advances in motion tracking technology with state of the art interactive gaming technology, we aim to develop a novel clinical tool that can potentially overcome the shortcomings of traditional methods. There is strong evidence that entertaining and clever visualizations not only can provide necessary augmented feedback to facilitate motor skill acquisition but, also, can be very engaging and effective teaching tools. For the first time, we want to explore the practically infinite possibilities for interactive visualizations of game engines in speech rehabilitation focused on the tongue, the primary articulator, and develop a commercial grade clinical rehabilitation tool with full security, reporting, and data management abilities.

Towards Computer Assisted Crowd Aware Architectural Design

We present a preliminary exploration of an architectural optimization process towards a computational tool for designing environments (e.g., building floor plans). Using dynamic crowd simulators we derive the fitness of architectural layouts. The results of the simulation are used to provide feedback to a user in terms of crowd animation, aggregate statistics, and heat maps. Our approach automatically optimizes the placement of environment elements to maximize the flow of the crowd, while satisfying constraints that are imposed by the user (e.g., immovable walls or support bearing structures). We take steps towards user-in-the-loop optimization and design of an environment by applying an adaptive refinement approach to reduce the search space of the optimization. We perform a small scale user study to obtain early feedback on the performance and quality of our method in contrast with a manual approach.

On density–flow relationships during crowd evacuation

Traffic and pedestrian dynamics communities often use a standard qualitative classification, namely, level of service (LoS), to describe the relationship between the crowd flow and crowd density in an environment. However, this classification has not yet been rigorously studied in the application of synthetic crowds, which are derived using a variety of approaches and may model certain behaviors better than others. Although synthetic crowds can be simulated to extrapolate crowd flow for rigorous quantitative analysis, these may be at odds with the qualitative LoS. In order to successfully use computer‐assisted design, it is important to have sound quantitative metrics as the basis for analysis and optimization. In this paper, we present a systematic empirical analysis of LoS for synthetic crowds. Using established crowd simulation techniques, we quantify the relation between crowd density and crowd flow for evacuation scenarios across different simulators to explore conformity to qualitative LoS classifications. Following this study, we perform environment optimization experiments under various LoS conditions. Finally, we test the generality of optimizing under these LoS conditions. Our results motivate the need for further study, using real and synthetic crowd datasets across representative environment benchmarks.

Treating Phobias with Computer Games

Phobias are a relatively prevelant and debilitating form of anxiety disorder. Treatment for phobias can be rather costly and potentially embarrassing. We present a system designed to overcome the challenges of traditional treatment and the demands of current computer-based exposure therapy systems. Our system consists of affordable consumer level hardware and software components. Our system also leverages networking technology to enable the patient to engage in therapy in the comfort of their own home. These advantages have implications for the treatment of various types of phobia.

The Use of Working Prototypes for Participatory Design with People with Disabilities

The inclusion of people with disabilities and their circle of stakeholders in the design and deployment of digital assistive technology is increasingly being recognized as important. The Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technology (DIY-AT) approach investigates methodologies and tools to support accessible making practices. In prior work, we successfully used a DIY-AT approach to develop TalkBox, an open-source direct-selection communication board for those with little or no functional verbal communication. In this paper, we describe a follow-up project in which we use TalkBox as a prototyping platform to facilitate co-design and co-fabrication of DIY-AT. We present results from (1) a workshop in which users with disabilities and their parents/caregivers fabricated their own TalkBoxes, and (2) a collaborative co-design session with a non-verbal child and his mother wherein the potential for TalkBox variants led to novel design decisions. We illustrate the outcome of our process by describing the multi-vocabulary variant called Hot Swappable TalkBox, in which RFID technology is used to afford easy switching among different vocabulary sets.