Presenting evacuation instructions on mobile devices by means of location-aware 3D virtual environments

Abstract

Natural and man-made disasters present the need to efficiently and effectively evacuate the people occupying the affected buildings. Providing appropriate evacuation instructions to the occupants of the building is a crucial aspect for the success of the evacuation. This paper presents an approach for giving evacuation instructions on mobile devices based on interactive location-aware 3D models of the building. User's position into the building is determined by using active short-range RFID technology. A preliminary user evaluation of the system has been carried out in the building of our Department.