Collaborative immersive planning and training scenarios in VR

Abstract

Virtual reality is a promising technology to create fully immersive exercises in various fields such as civil safety engineering, security, teaching or facility management, designed as serious games for engineering purposes. Based on previous research and cooperation with industry partners and public institutions a concept for a collaborative virtual environment for multiple organizations with different hardware systems was devised. The approach focused on the integration of 1st person virtual reality together with the corresponding interactions as well as a roles and rights management for all participants involved. Additionally, the setup allows for traditional desktop solutions to be included and enables users to build a dynamic and ever-changing training scenario based on an interactive planning phase. The concept was implemented and tested within a specific civil safety scenario using modern head-mounted displays as well as controllers and object tracking capabilities. This paper outlines the necessary steps in order to achieve such a collaborative virtual environment including various responsibilities for different roles and hierarchy levels and examines its potential. Together with the use of different hardware systems the described approach results in a flexible concept for planning and training applications in order to create dynamic, individual scenarios that facilitate the effectiveness of learning.