Mixed reality emergency management: bringing virtual evacuation simulations into real-world built environments

Computer-based evacuation simulations are important tools for emergency managers. These simulations vary in complexity and include 2D and 3D GIS-based network analyses, agent-based models, and sophisticated models built on documented human behaviour and particle dynamics. Despite the influential role of built environments in determining human movement, a disconnect often exists between the features of the real world and the way they are represented within these simulation environments. The proliferation of emergency management location-aware mobile devices, along with a recent infatuation for augmented reality (AR), has resulted in new wayfinding and hazard assessment tools that bridge this gap, allowing users to visualize geospatial information superimposed on the real world. In this paper, we report research and development that has produced AR geovisual analytical systems, enabling visual analysis of human dynamics in multi-level built environments with complex thoroughfare network infrastructure. We demonstrate prototypes that show how mixed reality visual analysis of intelligent human movement simulations built in virtual spaces can become part of real space. This research introduces a fundamentally new way to view and link simulations of people with the real-world context of the built environment: mixed reality crowd simulation in real space.