Prototyping an immersive virtual reality training system for urban-scale evacuation using 360-degree panoramas

Abstract

Urban-scale evacuation may take place because of disasters or emergencies. Efforts have been made to enhance the preparedness of communities for urban-scale evacuation. For instance, wayfinding systems are installed and implemented in tsunami-prone regions, indicating the evacuation routes to high ground or inland. However, communities tend not to familiarise themselves with wayfinding systems and the best evacuation routes because tsunami evacuation drills are not normally carried out given the challenges to plan and run them. This study proposes a rapid development approach for immersive virtual reality (IVR) training systems suited to urban-scale evacuation. This approach utilises 360-degree panoramas to represent an urban environment in IVR, getting rid of the process of 3D modelling or reality capture to reconstruct a virtual urban environment. The 360-degree panoramas used in this study were directly acquired via a 360-degree camera. Immediate feedback is applied as a pedagogical approach to inform users. The training objective is to make users capable of identifying evacuation signs and the best evacuation route. This paper outlines a development framework to demonstrate the prototyping workflow of a 360-degree panoramic IVR training system suited to urban-scale evacuation. 360-degree panoramic IVR requires low levels of development efforts and computational resources. Therefore, urban-scale evacuation drills become possible to be rolled out easily and quickly to a wider population using 360-degree panoramic IVR.