Review
MassMotion AEC catches up with the latest updates to Oasys’ MassMotion software, which provides crowd flow simulation for buildings, transport and public spaces. by Martyn Day
T
here have been a number of to be run several times to collate more 20% of the perpetual fee. Oasys aims to put out at least two updates a year. It is also posimprovements to Oasys’ accurate results. sible to hire a MassMotion seat for one MassMotion crowd flow simulaAnalysis month (£3,060), three months (£6,120), six tion software in its latest update. Models can now be imported from CAD MassMotion’s analysis capabilities have months (£9,180) and 12 months (£11,220). drawings or built from scratch. been improved with much more graphical Discounts are available for multiple seats. MassMotion supports all the popular CAD feedback within the model, as well as chartfile formats. Tools enable import of 3D ing. This enables designers to quickly delve Conclusion geometry from AutoCAD, SketchUp, deeper into the simulation and clearly identi- MassMotion is incredibly visual for a simuMicroStation and Rhino as well as Industry fy performance issues. lation tool. Major flow problems can be seen Foundation Classes (IFC) models from Journey time analysis between origins with queues and dense collections of agents Revit and ArchiCAD. and destinations or across specific areas for backing up to negotiate a choke point in an Portals have been added where individual individuals or groups is added. There is evacuation scenario. The more subtle results agents spawn (origin) and exit (destinations) rapid feedback for flow rates on doors, can be found in the extensive reporting and within the model, charting, which can having negotiated be sliced and diced floors, barriers, in many ways. The stairs and escalators. visual aspect of the Data is now stored results belies the in an external SQL fact that the operadatabase, speeding tor would still need up overall simulato know what they tion time. were doing and There is enhanced interpret the results agent scheduling, correctly, for which with the import of Oasys offers many spreadsheet matrionline tutorials, as ces. Using this methwell as bespoke od, Gatwick Airport training. analysed terminal The ability to mass usage by feeding in load schedule data passenger numbers further benefits for flight arrivals. transport applicaMass load schedule data benefits applications where flow is governed by regular arrivals and departures ‘Agents’ can be tions where flow is organised according to profiles, which stairs, escalators and user defined cordons. governed by regular arrivals and departures, define attributes such as speed, size, and Problem areas can be identified, where as well as irregular events (i.e. ‘rush’ hour). tasks and colour coded to identify groups. queue lengths exceed thresholds or accuHistorically, MassMotion was a plug-in There are many user definable characteris- mulate too great a number of agents. With to Autodesk’s Softimage visualisation softtics that can be applied to agents from over- colour co-ordinated density plots displayed ware, where geometry was imported or all number to spawn rate. It’s also possible in the 3D model, it is possible to identify created. MassMotion 6 requires a copy of to see ‘vision maps’, indicating where agents varying ‘Levels of Service’ and bottleneck SoftImage to author the geometry, but the are looking. Agents spawn and head to their areas. All the simulations are recorded to runtime analysis now happens externally destination and react to events in real-time, the SQL database for playback. in an Oasys simulation environment. The so should an escalator become overcrowded, workbench plug-in for SoftImage also now they will seek an alternative route, the same Pricing validates and automatically assigns propif a gate should change from open to closed. There is a range of options to get access to the erties of BIM geometry. MassMotion can simulate the flow of hun- software. The first stage is a 30-day free trial. With Autodesk announcing the end of dreds of thousands of individual agents in A full perpetual license is £20,000 but Softimage, Oasys is developing a replacereal time as it is 64-bit and multi-threaded. also requires a copy of Autodesk Softimage, ment geometry environment, which should It is possible to run batch analysis for a at least for now. After the first year, an annu- be released later this year. variety of scenarios, but each case needs al subscription for service and updates is ■ oasys-software.com 34
May / June 2014
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