An engineering team from Virginia Tech’s Center of HCI and Department of Computer Science recently won first place in the IEEE’s 2012 3DUI Contest the for their Collaborative Navigation in Virtual Search and Rescue Escort (CARNAGE) project. The project was designed to enable emergency responders to collaborate and safely navigate a dangerous environment such as a disaster area.
The contest was open to researchers, students, and professionals working on 3-D user interface technologies. Entrants were challenged to design an application to enable two users—situated in different locations with his or her own UI—to navigate a 3-D environment without speaking to each other.
Collaborative Augmented Rescue Navigation and Guidance Escort UI (Source: Virginia Tech News, YouTube)
The Virginia Tech team—comprising Felipe Bacim, Eric Ragan, Siroberto, and Cheryl Stinson—described their design in a concise system description, which is currently available on the 3DUI 2012 contest website:
Our task specifically looks at communication between a scene commander and a disaster relief responder during a search and rescue operation. The responders inside the environment have great difficulty navigating because of hazards, reduced visibility, disorientation, and lack of survey knowledge of the environment. Observing the operation from outside of the disaster area, scene commanders work to help coordinate the response effort [1, 2]. With the responder’s notifications about the environment, scene commanders can provide new instructions, alert the responders to risks, and issue evacuation orders. Since neither the commander nor the responder has complete information about the environment, effective communication is essential.
As technology advances, the incorporation of new tools into search and rescue protocols shows promise for improving operation efficiency and safety. In this research, we explore the use of 3D user interfaces to assist collaborative search-and-rescue. Ideally, users should be able to focus on their primary tasks in the VE, rather than struggle with travel and way finding. Using virtual reality (VR) as a prototyping testbed, we implemented a proof-of-concept collaborative guidance system. Preliminary evaluation has demonstrated promising results for efficient rescue operations.
The team also created an explanatory 6:16-minute project video:
— ADVERTISMENT—
—Advertise Here—
Click here for more information about the IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces in Costa Mesa, CA.
Source: Virginia Tech News
Sponsor this Article
Circuit Cellar's editorial team comprises professional engineers, technical editors, and digital media specialists. You can reach the Editorial Department at editorial@circuitcellar.com, @circuitcellar, and facebook.com/circuitcellar
