Zhenan Feng

Zhenan Feng, Vicente A. González, Ling Ma et al.

Virtual Reality (VR) for Serious Games (SGs) is attracting increasing attention for training applications due to its potential to provide significantly enhanced learning to users. Some examples of the application of VR for SGs are complex training evacuation problems such as indoor earthquake evacuation or fire evacuation. The indoor 3D geometry of existing buildings can largely influence evacuees' behaviour, being instrumental in the design of VR SGs storylines and simulation scenarios. The VR scenarios of existing buildings can be generated from drawings and models. However, these data may not reflect the 'as-is' state of the indoor environment and may not be suitable to reflect dynamic changes of the system (e.g. Earthquakes), resulting in excessive development efforts to design credible and meaningful user experience. This paper explores several workflows for the rapid and effective reconstruction of 3D indoor environments of existing buildings that are suitable for earthquake simulations. These workflows start from Building Information Modelling (BIM), laser scanning and 360-degree panoramas. We evaluated the feasibility and efficiency of different approaches by using an earthquake-based case study developed for VR SGs.

Ruggiero Lovreglio, Vicente Gonzalez, Zhenan Feng et al.

Enhancing evacuee safety is a key factor in reducing the number of injuries and deaths that result from earthquakes. One way this can be achieved is by training occupants. Virtual Reality (VR) and Serious Games (SGs), represent novel techniques that may overcome the limitations of traditional training approaches. VR and SGs have been examined in the fire emergency context, however, their application to earthquake preparedness has not yet been extensively examined. We provide a theoretical discussion of the advantages and limitations of using VR SGs to investigate how building occupants behave during earthquake evacuations and to train building occupants to cope with such emergencies. We explore key design components for developing a VR SG framework: (a) what features constitute an earthquake event, (b) which building types can be selected and represented within the VR environment, (c) how damage to the building can be determined and represented, (d) how non-player characters (NPC) can be designed, and (e) what level of interaction there can be between NPC and the human participants. We illustrate the above by presenting the Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand as a case study, and propose a possible VR SG training tool to enhance earthquake preparedness in public buildings.