Avatar-centric risk evaluation

Hazard detection and prevention of natural and man-made disasters at critical civil infrastructure is becoming increasingly important. Recent events, such as earthquakes and terrorist attacks, clearly demonstrated the societal and economical impact stemming from the limitations and uncertainty within currently deployed emergency response systems. We present a new data visualization and simulation platform that facilitates risk detection, emergency response and assessment in hazardous situations. The platform is based on the acquisition, modeling and analysis of sensor data, to capture objects and temporal changes in the observed spaces. Avatars are acquired, inserted and tracked in a virtual environment, enabling the simulation of multiple perilous situations and assisting in determining possible risk mitigation strategies. While the initial research focus is on algorithms and techniques in the field of hazard detection and prevention using path planning, the results can also be applied to diverse fields such as media contents development, cultural heritage, e-learning, teleconferencing, animation and video gaming.