Mobile‐powered head‐mounted displays versus cave automatic virtual environment experiments for evacuation research. (20th February 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ronchi, Enrico; Mayorga, David; Lovreglio, Ruggiero; Wahlqvist, Jonathan; Nilsson, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Computer animation and virtual worlds. Volume 30:Number 6(2019)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2019-02-20
• Subjects: CAVE -- evacuation -- flashing lights -- HMD -- tunnel -- virtual reality; Computer animation -- Periodicals; Visualization -- Periodicals; 006.6
• DOI: 10.1002/cav.1873
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1546-4261

Abstract

Abstract: Different virtual reality (VR) experimental tools and equipment are available for evacuation research, ranging from highly immersive systems such as cave automatic virtual environments (CAVEs) to head‐mounted displays (HMDs). In particular, mobile‐powered HMDs are an extremely cost‐efficient solution, for which the research potential for evacuation studies needs to be assessed. This study compares the results of tunnel evacuation experiments aimed at investigating the design of flashing lights on emergency exit portals using two different VR methods (CAVE vs. mobile‐powered HMD). The experiments were performed by repeating the same case study in a CAVE laboratory and a low‐cost mobile‐powered HMD. The CAVE experiment involved 96 participants, whereas the HMD experiment involved 55 participants. An affordance‐based questionnaire was used to interview participants immersed in a VR road tunnel emergency evacuation scenario and rank different emergency portal designs. Questionnaire results show consistency between the two experimental methods for the variables investigated, thus leading to be in favor of the use of low‐cost mobile‐powered HMD tools in evacuation scenarios with a relatively limited level of complexity. Abstract : This paper investigates the use of different virtual reality methods (cave automatic virtual environment and mobile‐powered head‐mounted displays) to investigate human behavior during evacuation. The two methods have been tested through a tunnel evacuation scenario in which test participants had to rate the design of flashing lights at emergency exit portals. Consistency in results between the two methods adopted has been observed.