AI and virtual crowds: Populating the Colosseum

Computer technologies and digital recreations have been widely used in the field of Cultural Heritage in the past decade. However, most of the effort has concentrated in accurate data gathering and geometrical representation of buildings and sites. Only very recently, works are starting to go beyond that approach by including digital people. The impressive development of computer graphics techniques and computing power, makes now possible the creation and management of virtual environments where a big number of virtual creatures interact and behave in a smart manner. In this paper we present a novel use of virtual crowds for Cultural Heritage: we use them to predict behaviors, or to help scholars draw more educated conclusions on unknown matters. We specifically present a case study based on an artificial intelligence crowd simulation which is being used by scholars to study the ergonomics of the Roman Colosseum: it was formerly believed to be an excellent people-mover, but currently that belief is seriously questioned, as potential bottlenecks seem to have been detected. (c) 2007 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.