The document describes Sirui (Quincy) Liu's PhD dissertation on modeling and simulating human activities in smart spaces using the Persim 3D system. The system allows defining environments, objects, sensors and character models to visualize activities. It was validated through similarity comparisons between synthesized and real sensor datasets, and a user study found the visualizations had average realism ratings between 6-8 on a 10-point scale. The system aims to enable low-cost activity experimentation and testing of smart home technologies without human subjects.