Cerberus: Solving world problems with the power of the crowd

What is Cerberus about?Cerberus is a crowdsourcing platform in which we bend ‘brain power’ and

later ‘revenues’ abundantly present in the gaming industry to good causes.

Cerberus is using game elements inspired by the existing gaming industry to

motivate her crowd of 1000s so they help us to convert satellite imagery into

maps. The advantage of using human mappers above machine learning

systems is that they can map not only based on directly visual recognition of

elements, but also based on context creating the surrounding region into

account. In addition, since Cerberus connects the global public directly to

world problems without asking them to leave their living room works as a

vessel of communication showing that it truly matters to help out.

Cerberus for humanity: Solving world problems with the power of the crowd, satellites and a bit of gaming

Cerberus Beta can be downloaded through the following links:

Windows

macOS

Linux

Image: Tsunami Damage, Fukushima, One of Cerberus’s first test projects. 50 cm resolution

With Cerberus we target the community of social gaming with an emphasis on city builders, where we

provide satellite images allowing us to zoom in from 10 meters down to 30 centimeters per pixel!. While

people learn about and experience these real world 3D environments they not only help us to produce

important information, but we also engage the public to think critical about important things happening in

the world generating planetary awareness.

On top of crowdsourcing, we are anticipating on a crowdfunding component allowing the crowd to

purchase in game items, of which revenue partly will be used in the map region to benefit development or

help efforts. For example we can use the crowd to help us fund new water pumps, solar panels, shelters and

so on. For this technology we are considering blockchain so we can ensure the player that your $ ends up at

the geolocation you choose. Having this basically would allow us to have SimCity in real, since satellites will

give us visual feedback on your help efforts!

To construct Cerberus the team is being supported by the European Space Agency and Earth on Amazon,

while in addition we are working closely together with Airbus and Digital Globe so we have access to near

real time and ultra high quality satellite imagery which is something you cannot find in Google Earth ;).

Some themes Cerberus is and has been used for are:• Mapping Disasters so we can better plan help efforts• Rescuing Refugees to supply them, or getting them out of harm's way• Detection of illegal rainforest cut and put a stop to it• Supporting Farmers in developing countries to become smart and feed their

communities• The detection of illegal fishing to protect our oceans

Image: Explaining what to map is mandatory, here we explain how to detect fresh natural surface water.

Image previous page: Cerberus’s interface

Bringing satellites and gamers together | Cerberus in Unity:

The idea of Cerberus was originally designed to reinforce NASA researchers to map the surface

of planet Mars. This idea came under the attention of the European Space Agency (ESA), who

then encouraged Hans van 't Woud, Cerberus's inventor for use on Earth regarding its potential.

Hence, a large crowd could allow us to map disasters almost instantly. In the day, the first

iteration was designed to work in Adobe Flash. A web based game platform allowing us to run

the game directly in a browser. However, Flash has now become obsolete, while in addition Flash

made it difficult for the crowd to spot heights. We ran into this when we asked the crowd to

search for refugees in the Sinjar region, Iraq. Then, with support from ESA, we got a research

grant to investigate if we could move over to a game engine to support 3D, which is the start of

where we are right now after we had to solve many technical challenges.

So, satellites and their data haven't really been designed to put in gaming engines, we did pull it

off. A custom terrain engine was built by lead engineer Ramy Wassef, allowing us not to only get

satellite imagery in their highest splendor in Unity, we also combine it with real terrain data and

if needed multispectral data to show everything what is hidden for the human eye. As for the

mapping, we rely on the judgement of the majority. When a certain threshold of players

mentions there is a damaged house on one location for example, statistics do their job so we

can share the results as maps real time with our end users saving real lives. The more crowd we

accumulate, the more precise our maps are and the larger the areas are we cover.

Currently Cerberus is running in Amazon Web Services, where a large part is being managed

through Amazon GameSparks, so we can start to scale up. The newest iteration of game is

already playable as a beta version, and by learning from our users we are improving agile while

we add new crowdsourcing projects to carry out from time to time.

Image: Showing off the terrain engine in Mali, we use a multispectral channel helping us to highlight living vegetation (red color)

Technical achievements summarized allowing us to have Cerberus in Unity:Cerberus is built using Entitas, an Entity-Component-System plugin available for unity through the asset store. Entitas was featured inseveral Unite talks, and that's how we adopted their technology.

Using Entitas, the following points were achieved: High usage of entity and component pooling, thus reducing memory allocations in real time. Using Systems allowed us to easily enable or disable features in the game with ease. Bug tracking became much simpler, as it became a matter of finding the error in a few lines of code rather than hundreds

or even thousands of lines in a Monobehaviour. Making the code scalable and ready for reuse in other parts of the game or even other projects.

The custom terrain engine is built on the standard unity Terrain Engine, providing a streaming tile at different zoom levels as thetexture for the terrain. The system also caches tiles from the server in both memory and hard-disk for a better bandwidth usage.

Having created a custom terrain engine, we were able to: Get the highest quality of streamed satellite imagery in Unity and allow the crowd to use this as their terrain layer. Utilize Unity's Terrain Engine's LOD system to provide better details to the user. Overlay multiple layers of satellite data allowing us to go back in time, or x-ray planet Earth (see next image) Using real time elevation data to recreate the world as it is in 3D Ingest satellite imagery from multiple satellite data providers such as ESA, Airbus and DigitalGlobe Retain the coordinate system behind the satellites so what the people map is always accurate

Not terrain related: Using Amazon GameSparks to drive our backend infrastructure, we were able to: Authenticate players, and share their progress among several devices. Authenticate player moves from the server and rejecting illegal moves and / or practices. Benefit from the real time socket connection to ensure faster client-server connection, and thus enhance the player

experience.

Image: Showing buildings having to be mapped in Mali

Image: In Brazil we have to distinct palm oil plantations from natural rain forest. We use the satellite’s multispectral sensors allowing us to distinct crop species which can’t be seen with the human eye. Natural rain forest is green, palm oil is red.

Anticipated gameplayGaming for the greater good is not always a main drive for a multitude of gamers, and as our model is totally dependent on crowdsourcing, this could prove to be a major risk. According toour research, only a small fraction of gamers (both hardcore and casual) will invest their times in mapping. A good cause can help to an extent, but missing the real gaming componentswould discourage many potential players. We tackled this problem on two major axis:

Gamifying the mapping process (Completed):

Mapping is done through a fleet of units divided into three main categories:1. Raven: These fast moving units are the best way to explore the map.

They have low fuel consumption and can traverse the map in minutes.2. Phoenix: These units, despite being slow and have high fuel

consumption, are the crown jewel of the fleet! They can be used tomark the different map locations by different probes.

3. Albatross : These units supply fuel and probes to nearby units. They alsoprovide additional perks to and powerups to other units.

Modules can be added to units to enhance their stats as well as add specialabilities to them.

All fleet units are upgradable, enhancing their stats, and adding extra moduleslots to them.

Players are rewarded for their mapping. A successful probe fired at a certainlocation, can be determined from the server by the number of players that firedthe same probe at the same location. The higher the number, the higher theyield the player will get.

City Building (Phase II, under construction. Pun intended)

The second part of Cerberus, which is as big and as important as the first part,is the actual game: City Building.

The players are offered a city to manage, as they progress through the game,they unlock several features and buildings. In order to be able to construct theirbuildings, the players have to gather several resources, most of which are onlyoffered through mapping. Mapping offers multiple important resources to theplayers (now called points): Research points, Infrastructure points, RescuePoints, Social Points and Building Points. These are used to research, build roadsand infrastructures, build monuments, trade and construct buildingsconsecutively.

The city "Woodland Vale" have a population of environment loving people. Sothe player is advised to focus on ensuring a green, recycling, resource efficient,smart and sustainable city. Unique features like production automation, greentransportation, thriving forest life are the major competitive edge for this partof the game versus other similar products like Sim City Buildit and Pocket City.

The endless gameplay should ensure that as the city grows, the player isdirected to do more mapping to receive more points that would help himsustain his ongoing development.

Art directionArt direction back bones the overall game design, for that, choosing an appealing direction that would reflect our game concepts is of extreme importance. Cerberus is a space game, utilizing satellites and high tech units in the game play, which is one point to consider. However the direction should not be too futuristic as per the requirements of gameplay and story design. Furthermore, studies conducted on gamers around the world show that gamers prefer stylized to realistic art. As such, we decided to create a mix between stylized Sci-Fi and realistic directions.

The next image sets some concepts and examples of art direction setting the overall theme of the game where the main concept involves the exploration of world areas simulated in a game engine with aerial units.

Image: Showing some early concept designs for Cerberus ‘s units

Image: Showing some early concept designs for Cerberus ‘s units going from sketch to design

Color SchemeOur main colors are white and purple as they deliver the feel of our art direction (Stylized Sci-Fi, Realistic), but we also have 3 different skins for the units to give the player the freedom to choose any color scheme to play with (like the green one in the reference left, and the yellow on the next page). In later stage more skins will be released allowing the player to customize a bit more.

Image: Showing one of the rendered units (the Albatross) in a green skin

Image: Showing one of the rendered units (the Raven) in the “Bumblebee” skin, at various upgrade levels

User Interface and Experience (UI-UX)Art direction is also reflected in Cerberus’ UI design. In the early phases we launched the game with a UI-UX for testing and we had feedback regarding the UX and the ease of use of the UI inspiring us for many improvements. Hence, we decided to make a whole new UI system with a much easier UX. To do that, we compressed multiple windows into one so the player can easily navigate throughout the game. We added the 3D element into the UI to make it more interesting. Now the UI-UX is much better and easier to understand (Yet to be challenged by our testers).

Image: Showing Cerberus’s navigational interface allowing us to navigate through playable maps

Distributing CerberusThe Cerberus crowd is currently managed through Facebook allowing us to announce the users of new projects to do and to receive feedback. Currently, Cerberus is in Beta mode, so we are not advertising aggressively. However, when we achieve the next milestone and have enhanced the tutorial experience in game we are going to branch out using various technical distribution channels and a triple helix marketing strategy.

Technical: As a platform we are beta testing Cerberus first using Windows PCs, MacOS machines and Linux builds. Next, we will launch Cerberus mobile running on OSx and Android. Since there the most casual gamers are and it doesn't matter if you play Cerberus for hours, or for minutes it will be a good place, what is helping us is the excellent image quality mobile devices deliver us today.

Marketing: As for marketing we will engage a triple helix to accumulate more crowd, these elements are organic, viral and paid advertising.

1. Organic involves the existing network willing to show Cerberus 's potential by writing articles and other opportunities. In addition, our partners such as the AKVO foundation, ESA and Amazon will help us to share the news Cerberus is out there through their own networks. Lastly, future crisis map tasks and reaching out to the media will help us.

2. With viral we mean that there is another way to gain in game currency. Cerberus will have a model so people can spend some in game currency gained with real money unlocking items making Cerberus more interesting. Part of these revenues will go to a good cause. However, another way, and that is viral, is that you can get in game currency for free will if you introduce friends to Cerberus.

3. Lastly, we execute targeted advertising within platforms such as Facebook. Laws such as the GDPR have made it more difficult to really sharp target audiences since we hardly store any personal information about our users. knowledge about our crowd and their interests. For example, we intend to target advertisements to Europe and people who are friends of Greenpeace or the UN for example in a certain age range. In addition, we anticipate on advertising through Unity Ads.

We belief that the combination of these three allow us to grow up to a 200 000 players in the next two years allowing us to truly start making positive impact to our world. For example, a crowd of 20 000 could help us to map 900km2 in a day allowing us to create a total damage map of New Orleans caused by a hurricane such as Katrina!

Image: Irrigation channels as seen from space in Mali, to be mapped for “Drivers for Human Conflict”

A selection of or current and anticipated projectsProject 1 | “The path to a well” with AKVO in MaliIn the context of water resilience, upon the request of AKVO, supporting UDUMA working on the installment and maintenance of manual water pumps we will detect fresh water sources and monitor existing water sources, then we can start mapping the infrastructure between water source and communities. In this case we use very high-resolution satellite imagery in which we can detect objects of 50 centimeters. It will allows us to distinct walking paths from roads which can have vehicles. This will later allow us to calculate travel times between water source and livelihood.

Project 2: “Water and Peace” with the Hague Center for Strategic Studies in MaliThe Hague Center for Strategic Studies is conducting research involving information in the support of the WPSI (Water, Peace and Security Initiative ) in Mali. This user ‘d like to have a map of approximately 100km2 whereas the area will be mapped for infrastructure, lively hoods and water sources. In addition, a mapping will be done of dried up rivers and active rivers. The overall research is being conducted to investigate what potential drivers are for conflict, whereas in this case water, or better the absence of water is seen as a main actor. To do this research detailed maps are required.

Project 3: “Brazilian Mapping” with The Forest Trust in Brazil” (confirmed)This project will cover an area of approximately 15 000km2 and involves an area in Brazil where palm oil production is prone. From The Forest Trust, Firstly BlackShore got several requests for information involving insight in historical context such as deforestation and the growth of palm oil quality. Second, The Forest Trust is interested in information on the existing infrastructure to estimate logistic travel times between communities and large agricultural farms. In addition, our request is needed to search for candidate areas to plant new palm oil plantations without the sacrifice of any natural rain forest. For this land characteristics are required such as accessibility, soil type, flatness and the absence of nature.Third, The Forest Trust, is interested to get estimates of total CO2 stocks being present in the natural rain forests, this is an important part for TFT, since they work is in the philosophy of REDD+ whereas farmers must be supported to work efficiently on their existing land plots and thus eliminate illegal rain forest logging or burning.

Image: A preliminary crowd generated map of Mali

Project 4 | “Sugar Cane and water consumption” with AKVO in MaliWe propose to map a predefined data, using open satellite imagery, and generate a baseline map to see what type of crops are growing there. The most important crop is to identify sugar cane whilst it is a heavy water user. If we can identify the crops we can for example start analyzing sugar cane development over time.

Project 5: “Building a village” with The Forest Trust in Ivory coastIn this project we are going to monitor a village in Ivory coast and take a closer look at smallholder farms and what crop types they produce. In addition, we are going to map building types and infrastructure creating a detailed local geographical map. In this project we are going to use satellite imagery in which we can distinct objects of 30 centimeters.

Project 6: “Preserving what is beneath” with Q42 in Southern AfricaWith Q42 we are going to design a service so they can use their drones more effectively. With satellites we can help predicting where for example illegal fishing is likely to occur. They can send out their flying drones to catch and identify vessels carrying out illegal fishing and report them to the authorities. In this case we are probably going to use Sentinel-1 (Radar) based satellite imagery.

Project 7: “Bright colors” with the Rabobank Bollenstreek in the NetherlandsThis project is a bit out of scope compared to the other projects, but we add this helping out the Rabobank Bollenstreek (Netherlands, flower region), one of the supporting partners. We are going to build a demonstrator connecting space assets with agricultural assets in the region where ESTEC, Netherlands is based. We intend to allow local, but also our global crowd, to play with satellite imagery highlighting the local flowers in their blooming period. Using both multi spectral imagery and color imagery the users will learn in an engaging way how satellites can help doing the farmers work. In this case we aim to use 0,3-meter satellite imagery.

Image: Wetlands to be mapped for “Drivers for Human Conflict”

Cerberus ‘s OwnershipThe general concept of Cerberus whereas the crowd can create maps based on satellite imagery satisfying knowledge levels of demand by end users was created and published by Hans van 't Woud, 2011 (Woud 2011, The Mars Crowdsourcing Experiment published in IEEE Xplore). Nowadays more advanced methods are protected and patented by Andromeda Holding in the Unites States and the Netherlands. In addition, Cerberus is trademarked throughout the European Union). Development is being carried out by BlackShore (owned by Andromeda Holding), Netherlands whereas Streaming Creativity Game Studios, Egypt is subcontracted.

Image Use17-02-2019: All images in this document are copyrighted by BlackShore or her direct partners. Satellite images are only allowed to be distributed by written authorization.

Image: Sometimes we find the unexpected, here an Aeoroglyph discovered in Mali! What do you think it could be ;)?

AuthorsHans van ‘t Woud & Ramy Wassef