Virtual Reality for Immersive Multi-User Firefighter Training Scenarios

Virtual Reality (VR) applications are tools used to provide comprehensive training scenarios that are difficult or impossible to represent in physical configurations. This includes team training for emergency services, e.g. in firefighting. To achieve effective virtual training, creating a high level of immersion is essential. In that respect, motion capture systems offer the possibility to create highly immersive multi-user training experiences including full-body avatars. This work presents a preliminary prototype that enables the extinguishing of a fire on a container ship as a VR training scenario. The prototype provides a full-body and multi-user VR experience, based on the synthesis of position data provided by the motion capture system and orientation data from the VR headsets. As a consequence, the prototype allows an initial evaluation of results. The results confirm the value of using VR to train procedures that are difficult to train in the real world. Furthermore, the results show that motion capture based VR technologies are particularly useful for firefighting training, in which participants can collaborate in otherwise difficult-to-access environments. However, the work also illustrates that increasing the immersion of such training remains a challenge.

Subjects

Firefighting

Motion capture

Multi-user

Training

Virtual reality

Options

Virtual Reality for Immersive Multi-User Firefighter Training Scenarios