Efficient Mesoscopic Simulations for Persistent Agents in 3D-Applications and Games

To save computational resources, traffic simulations in virtual environments and digital games often remove entities from the simulation once they leave the user´s visual field of view. This can lead to inconsistencies within the simulated world and break the immersive effect. To counter this effect, we propose a system consisting of a regular microscopic simulation around the user and an additional less detailed simulation layer beyond the user´s immediate surroundings. The new layer performs a mesoscopic simulation based on the FastLane model, utilizing elements from queuing theory. With this hybrid approach it is possible to simulate a reasonable amount of detailed traffic participants as well as a much larger number of less detailed, but persistent traffic participants. As a result it is possible to simulate entities with complex behavior close to the user while maintaining reasonable traffic densities throughout the entire system.