Intelligent VR-AR for Natural Disasters Management

Abstract

Considering the significance of improving natural disasters emergency management and recognizing that catastrophe scenes are almost impossible to reconstruct in real life, forcing persons to experience real hazards violates both law and morality, in this research is presented an engine for Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) that works enhancing human capacities for prevention, response and recovery of natural phenomena effects. The selected novel techniques have very advantageous qualities to overcome the inconveniences detected in the most recent seismic devastating experience in Mexico City, the Sept 19th, 2017, earthquake M7.2: total collapse of more than 230 buildings, partial fall of 7 000 houses, 370 people were killed, and over 6,000 were injured. VR and AR provide researchers, government authorities and rescue teams with tools for recreating the emergencies entirely through computer-generated signals of sight, sound, and touch, when using VR, and overlays of sensory signals for experiences a rich juxtaposition of virtual and real worlds simultaneously, when AR is applied. The gap between knowledge and action is filled with visual, aural, and kinesthetic immersive experiences that poses a possibility to attend to the population in danger in a deeply efficient way, never experimented before.