Earthquake disaster prevention support tool - Visualization of prevention effectiveness by utilizing augmented reality

Abstract

Japan has faced major problems with large-scale earthquake countermeasures due to its location in an earthquake zone. The Building Standards Act of Japan has been amended since previous major earthquake damage and new buildings have been built with a safer design than ever before. However, measures against falling or overturning of furniture, which could injure people inside buildings, are not sufficient. In this paper, the authors propose an earthquake disaster prevention support tool with which one can experience the shaking of furniture with or without earthquake disaster countermeasures using a 3DCG animation function of Augmented Reality (AR) and three applications of this tool. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.