Brandon Haworth

University of Victoria | UVIC · Department of Computer Science

This paper describes using human creativity within a gamified collaborative design framework to address the complexity of predictive environment design. This framework is predicated on gamifying crowd objectives and presenting environment design problems as puzzles. A usability study reveals that the framework is considered usable for the task. Par...

Agent-based synthetic crowd simulation affords the cost-effective large-scale simulation and animation of interacting digital humans. Model-based approaches have successfully generated a plethora of simulators with a variety of foundations. However, prior approaches have been based on statically defined models predicated on simplifying assumptions,...

Signage systems play an essential role in ensuring safe, stress‐free, and efficient navigation for the occupants of indoor spaces. Crowd simulations with sufficiently realistic virtual humans provide a convenient and cost‐effective approach to evaluating and optimizing signage systems. In this work, we develop an agent model which makes use of imag...

Intuition behind sign placement and wayfinding features of architectural design can rarely encompass the needs of a wide range of building users. To help in automating sign placement, recent research has combined the use of agent-based simulation with optimization algorithms for maximizing visibility and wayfinding throughout a building model. As w...

Modeling visual attention is an important aspect of simulating realistic virtual humans. This work proposes a parametric model and method for generating real-time saliency maps from the perspective of virtual agents which approximate those of vision-based saliency approaches. The model aggregates a saliency score from user-defined parameters for ob...

Hand signs have long been a part of elementary music theory education systems through the use of Kodály-Curwen Solfège hand signs. This paper discusses a deep learning convolutional neural network model that can identify 12 hand signs and the absences of a hand sign directly from pixels both quickly and effectively. Such a model would be useful for...

This work addresses a key emerging issue for building resiliency in the digital age and the advent of “smart” environments, specifically the impact of AI on human-building interactions. We present herein a concise summary of the workflows we have developed over time to simulate human-movements and dynamics of human-building interactions. We discuss...

At present, environment designers mostly use their intuition and experience to predictively account for how environments might support dynamic activity. The majority of Computer‐Aided Design tools only provide a static representation of space which potentially ignores the impact that an environment layout produces on its occupants and their movemen...

Multi-agent simulations can provide useful insights into the movement of pedestrians in arbitrary environments for predictive planning and analysis. The fidelity of such agents is important for the validity of the associated analyses. Current methods tend to employ agent models that are largely homogeneous in both physical abilities and behaviours....

Crowd simulations provide a practical approach to evaluate building design alternatives with respect to human-centric criteria, such as evacuation times and flow in case of emergency scenarios. Coupled with Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools, they support architects’ iterative exploration of design alternatives. However, methods based on man...

In architectural design, architects explore a vast amount of design options to maximize various performance criteria, while adhering to specific constraints. In an effort to assist architects in such a complex endeavour, we propose IDOME, an interactive system for computer-aided design optimization. Our approach balances automation and control by e...

Simulating groups of virtual humans (crowd simulation) affords the analysis and data-driven design of interactions between buildings and their occupants. For this to be useful in practice however, crowd simulators must be well coupled with modeling tools in a way that allows users to iteratively use simulation feedback to adjust their designs. This...

Authoring behavior narratives for heterogeneous multiagent virtual humans engaged in collaborative, localized, and task‐based behaviors can be challenging. Traditional behavior authoring frameworks are either space‐centric, where occupancy parameters are specified; behavior‐centric, where multiagent behaviors are defined; or agent‐centric, where de...

Building-Information Modeling (BIM) tools provide static representations of built environments, disjointed from the expected behaviors of their future inhabitants. Current approaches for simulating buildings in use can be categorized as building-centric, where occupancy distributions are specified, behavior-centric, where multi-agent behaviors are...

We present a computational spatial analytics tool for designing environments that better support human-related factors. Our system performs both static and dynamic analyses: the first relates to the building geometry and organization, while the second additionally considers the crowd movement in the space. The results are presented to the designers...

Purpose: This study evaluates the effects of a novel speech therapy program that uses a verbal cue and gamified augmented visual feedback regarding tongue movements to address articulatory hypokinesia during speech in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: Five participants with PD participated in an ABA single-subject design study....

The application of state-of-the-art signal processing often differs between offline and online real-time application domains. Offline processing techniques may be used to accurately reduce signal noise and spot errors before analysis. However, without the global signal information available to offline processes, such techniques can be difficult to...

The design of a building requires an architect to balance a wide range of constraints: aesthetic, geometric, usability, lighting, safety, etc. At the same time, there are often a multiplicity of diverse designs that can meet these constraints equally well. Architects must use their skills and artistic vision to explore these rich but highly constra...

Purpose: To further understand the effect of Parkinson's disease (PD) on articulatory movements in speech and to expand our knowledge of therapeutic treatment strategies, this study examined movements of the jaw, tongue blade, and tongue dorsum during sentence production with respect to speech intelligibility and compared the effect of varying spe...

Crowd-aware environment design is a complex combinatorial decision process, where small changes in a design may affect crowd flow patterns in unexpected and potentially unintuitive ways. Existing solutions rely on expert intuition, best practices, or automation. To address the dimensionality and complexity of the design process, we propose leveragi...

Floor plan designs and their spatial analysis are typically constrained to blueprints and 2D projections of 3D models. Computing appropriate spatial measures from such representations provides a standard way of quantifying important aspects of the design. We wish to investigate whether a person's perceptual exploration of a space would agree with s...

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...

Spatial analysis of floor plans is typically constrained to blueprints. We investigate how a person’s perception of space in different visual modes relates to common computational spatial measures for environment designs. The three spatial measures, grounded in Space-Syntax analysis, are used to capture different aspects of a design such as visibil...

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to demonstrate the effect of augmented visual feedback on acquisition and short-term retention of a relatively simple instruction to increase movement amplitude during speaking tasks in patients with dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: Nine patients diagnosed with PD, hypokinetic dysar...

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 varie...

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 u...

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...

We present a preliminary exploration of synthetic crowds towards computational tools for informing the design of environments (e.g., building floor plans). Feedback and automatic design processes are developed from exploring crowd behaviours and metrics derived from simulations of environments in density stressed scenarios, such as evacuations. Com...

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 meas...

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 who...

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 n...

In this paper we discuss our current research project, which is a clinical application of biomechanical modeling for the purpose of motivating behaviour change (motor speech learning) among the clients of speech intervention services. We review and discuss previously developed computer-based speech therapy approaches and then discuss the challenge...

In the context of crowd simulation, there is a diverse set of algorithms that model steering. The performance of steering approaches, both in terms of quality of results and computational efficiency, depends on internal parameters that are manually tuned to satisfy application-specific requirements. This paper investigates the effect that these par...

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...

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 cli...

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 h...