Second Life Use Case: Urban Planning With Simulated Agents

Digital Urban, the UK firm which created technology for uploading 3D models of city streets based on mapping data into Second Life, have outdone themselves.  What you're looking at above is a proof of concept for one of their latest projects: agent-based models for use in urban planning, visual demonstrations, and other applications.  Their demo models  Conway's famous Game of Life, Schelling's segregation model and above (most impressive to me), pedestrian evacuation, which models crowd behavior at they attempt to exit a building during an emergency.  It's part of their effort to use Second Life as "an online urban laboratory to explore issues pertaining to urban planning and public debate in a visually 3D collaborative environment."  Read more about it here.  (Image: digitalurban.blogspot.com)

Comments

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

I note that this is a good use of bots; they're not just for gaming traffic.