Mountain trail formation and the active walker model

TL;DR

This paper extends the active walker model to better simulate mountain trail formation on gradients, incorporating rules to prevent steep descent and rapid direction changes, resulting in more realistic trail patterns.

Contribution

It introduces new rules into the active walker model to account for aversion to steep inclines and rapid turns, improving the realism of simulated mountain trails.

Findings

Extended model produces trail patterns similar to real mountain paths.

Inclusion of rules against steep descent and rapid turns is essential for realistic simulations.

Model suggests behavioral rules are crucial for accurate trail formation modeling.

Abstract

We extend the active walker model to address the formation of paths on gradients, which have been observed to have a zigzag form. Our extension includes a new rule which prohibits direct descent or ascent on steep inclines, simulating aversion to falling. Further augmentation of the model stops walkers from changing direction very rapidly as that would likely lead to a fall. The extended model predicts paths with qualitatively similar forms to the observed trails, but only if the terms suppressing sudden direction changes are included. The need to include terms into the model that stop rapid direction change when simulating mountain trails indicates that a similar rule should also be included in the standard active walker model.