We have been developing MassMotion, a unique 3-D simulation software application that can be used to predict human behaviour within virtual built environments. The people, or agents, in MassMotion models are intelligent and can retain information about their virtual environment. The agents are able to recognise congestion and to consider alternate routes based on their familiarity with an environment. The inclusion of the kinds of emergent phenomena that occur every day in the real world – such as lighting – allows us to analyse crowd behaviour in all kinds of buildings, transit areas and public spaces and landscapes.

The really nice feature the 3-D environment in MassMotion offers is the ability to import design geometry so with very-early-stage schematic models, designers can watch and observe how a space might perform and then make changes to the proposed space before running it again.

MassMotion was originally developed for transport planning by a team in Arup’s Toronto office, and has now been adopted by Arup’s pedestrian planning team in Australia. During 2008, Arup funded a project called Extending MassMotion to investigate how other engineering, planning and design disciplines could add information to models about phenomena that influence human movement. During this period, we spoke with clients and academics to further develop the research and business applications of MassMotion, and developed ways to better communicate the work – for example, using software engines and peripheral devices such as Nintendo Wii controllers to navigate the environment.

One of the outcomes was to introduce influence maps, as above. These can be used where there is not hard items defining a path like furniture or walls, but transient elements such as smoke.

If you’d like something to print, click the image above for a pdf on MassMotion.

July 2011 Update

MassMotion has developed. It has been taken on by Arup’s software house Oasys and has now been released as a commercial product.