A Multi-Layered Flocking System For Crowd Simulation

The field of crowd simulation attempts to model crowd movement of both people and animals. Typical research in this field aims to develop systems which model the interaction between multiple instances of the same type of character. This dissertation examines two aspects of crowd simulation which are often not considered, the movement of crowds containing characters of vastly different sizes and the ability to allow characters to move underneath other characters when there is sufficient space to do so. To include these traits in a crowd simulation model a new system is proposed: the multi-layered flocking system. This system has a basis in the original Reynolds flocking model but includes a series of layers to represent the simulation space. Characters in the simulation are represented using one or more navigation objects which lie upon the layers in the system. This dissertation examines the different representations of characters that are possible using this system. It also examines different representations for the environment in which these characters move. Finally it describes the various types of crowd movement that can be created in the system with these character representations.