ORCANet: Differentiable multi‐parameter learning for crowd simulation

• Published in: Computer animation and virtual worlds Vol. 34; no. 1
• Main Authors: Zhang, Jiawen, Li, Chen, Wang, Changbo, He, Gaoqi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.01.2023
• Subjects: Collision avoidance; Computer graphics; crowd simulation; Datasets; Deep learning; deep learning networks; differentiable simulator; Linear programming; Mathematical models; Optimization; ORCA model; Parameters; Simulation
• ISSN: 1546-4261; 1546-427X
• DOI: 10.1002/cav.2114

Realistic crowd simulation has always been an important research field in computer graphics. While both agent‐based motion models and data‐driven behavior models have made some progress, they are still suffering from either huge effort of multi‐parameter tuning or limited realistic motion. In this article, we propose a novel and differentiable multi‐parameter learning method for crowd simulation, which is called ORCANet. The main idea is to learn from real data and inverse evaluating the multi‐parameter for subsequent simulation. ORCANet uses classic optimal reciprocal collision avoidance (ORCA) as a basic motion model which is integrated into the deep learning framework. Addressing the feature of linear programming and non‐differentiable operation, a Gaussian kernel is added to approximate the role of neighbor distance in collision avoidance, which turns the original discrete operation into a fully differentiable forward simulation. Furthermore, we leverage ORCANet to optimize the multi‐parameter combination in synthetic and real‐world datasets. ORCANet is proved to rapidly converge to correct parameter values and regenerate the input synthetic sequence. Moreover, experiments on real‐world datasets by the metric of pedestrian trajectories verified that a more realistic crowd simulation has been generated through ORCANet. We propose a novel and differentiable multi‐parameter learning method for crowd simulation, which is called ORCANet. The main idea is to learn from real data and inverse evaluating the multi‐parameter for subsequent simulation. ORCANet uses classic optimal reciprocal collision avoidance as a basic motion model which is integrated into the deep learning framework.