Virtual reality system for fire evacuation training in a 3D virtual world

This paper presents a virtual reality (VR) system for fire evacuation training and a natural user interface via Kinect for imitating users movements, e.g. walking, running, step side way, turn and open/close a door, during the training. The incident is set in an realistic environment by imitating one campus building in Bangkok University, where there are robotic, computer, and research laboratories, lecture rooms, and staff offices. The fire starting can be randomly changed to let trainees learn the exit path through the building. The design decision for the system and motion controls are described in order to achieve the objectives of evacuation training.