06
news
FE B R UARY 1, 2010
T h e na n ya ng c h ron ic l e
Collision of crowds and tech School's in, for the School of Discount Crowd simulation technology gets more realistic, allowing for use in civil and urban planning Elizabeth Law Kwan Hui Xian
RESEARCH in real-time crowd simulation technology that has been in the works for about a decade will be making a new home for itself in NTU. Being able to digitally generate crowds instantaneously will help in areas like urban planning, emergency evacuation planning, gaming, and virtual teaching. This research is headed by Professor Daniel Thalmann, a visiting professor to the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), as well as the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), a research institute in NTU that focuses on interactive digital media. Professor Thalmann is the Director of The Virtual Reality Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is also a pioneer in research on Virtual Humans. According to Professor Thalmann, the research started with generating individuals, and it was only in recent years that they started focusing on crowds. The current crowd engine is able to simulate tens of thousands of characters. “A lot of attention is dedicated to generating uniqueness in the crowd,” he said. This is because every person is unique and the technology aims to represent crowds as realistically as possible. Things like an individual’s skin tone, shape, style of walking and even accessories like spectacles and mobile phones will be taken into consideration. The technology also aims to add another dimension of realism by varying the quality of digital people in the crowd. In real life, it is hard to distinguish the features of people far away. Likewise, virtual
The tertiary students' EZ-link card carries a host of discounts and priviledges that NTU students can enjoy Chua Yan Yu
PULLING IN THE CROWD: Crowd simulation is a relatively new concept in Singapore even though Professor Thalmann has been working on it for the last decade. PHOTO | ELIZABETH LAW
people further away from the user will be less detailed compared to people nearer the user. One challenge that presents itself is in collision avoidance among humans. Professor Thalmann explained that even in everyday life, people bump into each other. Trying to avoid it in the simulation is problematic as it is not a matter of geometry or physics, but personality. “People who are shy will probably let the more outgoing
person go past first,” he said. Other factors like cultural heritage and personal characteristics will also come into play. It is here that Professor Thalmann acknowledged the need for a multi-disciplinary approach, as this ventures into the area of the social sciences. He is currently in the midst of forming a research team from the IMI, and intends to hold discussions with SCE to see how they can work together.
FANCY checking out exclusive deals for tertiary students online? The School of Discount, founded by a group of NTU students, lets you do just that. Open to all tertiary students, the website serves as an advertising platform for participating merchants who have agreed to give discounts to students. The group has tried to gather as many discounts as possible by approaching merchants. Students only have to flash their tertiary student ez-link card at participating stores to receive these discounts. No membership is required for students to access the threemonth-old website at www. schoolofdiscount.com.sg Some of the merchants involved include Cathay Cineplexes, Coffee Bean, Manhattan Fish market and 20 others. Over 40 blogshops are also included. This business idea struck a group of five NTU undergraduates when they were pursuing their final year project for their Minor in Entrepreneurship (MiE). One of the group members, Tan Zheng Qiang Darryl, 25, a fourth-year student from the School of Civil and Environment, had actually thought of this before, but had never put it into practice due to lack of resources. The group of students finally managed to turn their idea into reality when they were tasked with the challenge of setting up
a business under the MiE. The School of Discount uses flyers, posters and word-ofmouth, as well as new media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to advertise themselves. So far, these methods have garnered much support and attention from students—they do receive emails from other students suggesting benefits and discounts they would like to see included. Also, students from the Singapore Institute of Management also requested for similar discounts.
“The more we speak to different merchants, the more we find there is potential in this.” Darryl Tan Member School of Discount
However, not all had been smooth sailing. The group revealed that they had problems convincing companies to jump on the bandwagon. “We got rejected by some merchants as they do not want to associate their brands with discounts,” said Tan. However, they are not about to give up. The group has plans to continue with the project even after their MiE ends. “The more we speak to different merchants, the more we find there is potential in this, because many of them are looking to enter the student market," said Tan. “We certainly wouldn't want to waste this opportunity," he added.
Time or Dime: it pays to help and be helped New online portal gives undergrads freedom to buy time or to earn some spare cash Nabilah Bte Syed Sultan How much would you pay someone to do your shopping? Or charge someone to stand in a queue for them? Now, you can find out. A group of undergraduates from NTU and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have started a business on the concept of service networking— where people run errands for
money—after being inspired by the popularity of social networking sites. The new service portal, TimeOrDime.com, will launch in mid-February and will allow those who are pressed for time to buy other people’s time, by posting errands on the website for fellow members to help with. This service will be launched in both universities, and it is not just for people to save time or earn money. One of the founders, Ong Chin Leng William, 22, explained that running errands for peers could also allow undergraduates to expand their social circle. “This portal aims to take friendship a step further and
make the school population more efficient,” he said. On TimeOrDime, “errand posters” will post on the portal asking for people to help them, while “errand runners” will post their offers for work. The “posters” will say how much they are prepared to pay for the errand and “runners” can decide if they are willing to do the work for the price. To make things more competitive, “errand posters” with similar errands may have to bid higher for their errand to be run. This service networking site provides students the option of allowing their errands to be viewed either by friends only, or be open to the public.
“Students can opt for their errand to be only run by their friends, which makes it very personal,” said Ong, who is a second-year student from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Can Yan Xi, 22, a thirdyear student from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, likes the concept and believes it is feasible. “Everybody on campus is pressed for time. I think this service is cool and those engaged in it will benefit in one way or another,” she said. According to Ong, the beta test of the website launch revealed that 30 percent of the 120 participants are willing to be errand runners,
40 percent are willing to be errand posters and the remaining 40 percent are willing to do both. He added that it is surprising that people were forthcoming and willing to render their services. However, some feel insecure having strangers run errands for them. Muhammad Kamal bin Sarkinin, 25, a final-year student from the school of Electrical and Electronic Engineering said: “It is a little difficult to trust any Tom, Dick or Harry to run your errand for you. What I like about this service is that we can choose our friends to run the errand for us.” “But, if I were to run an errand for a friend, I would not take cash for it. It’s more fitting that I do it as a favour,” he added.