Bringing a Behavioural Model to Life
Did you know that Eonfusion can be used to model and animate fish schooling behavior like that shown in the video below?
The Fish Model is an Individual Based Model (IBM) developed by Greg Lee of Myriax. Written in Java, the simple behavioural model was imported into Eonfusion in column formatted ASCII. The basic input data was comprised only of position (X,Y,Z), and time.
Using Eonfusion a data flow was created which first augmented the model data with new attributes such as an individual's ID and heading. Next, a series of visualizers was created in Eonfusion to simulate the fishes' bodies. The visualizers were oriented according to heading to align the fish's body with the direction of travel. Finally, a freely available topobathy surface and simulated sea surface were incorporated into the scene to give the appearance of an underwater environment.
By using the Eonfusion time slider "Play" button the model can be animated at several different speeds. By increasing the visible time extent the size of the school can be increased to show several subsequent positions at once.
In addition, the techniques applied in the Eonfusion dataflow model created for this study can be repurposed to integrate virtually any kind of tracking data and topobathy so that users can perform similar analyses on other fish, birds, terrestrial wildlife or even manmade vehicles such as UAV's or aircraft. In addition, support for 3D objects is currently in development and this will enable users to embed graphical representations of objects being modelled.
Figure 1: This simple dataflow was used in the development of this model and animation. It can be easily repurposed for similar analyses.
For a directory of free sources for topological or bathymetric data, please visit the Eonfusion Geospatial Data Directory. For more information on this project and for free access to the dataflow model, please contact Jon Marcus.
