Department of Computer Science

Augmented Reality with Hololens

Building Evacuation

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Current Students: Sri Teja Bodempudi (Doctoral Student) and James Stigall (Doctoral Candidate)

Status: Current

Early hands-on experiences with the Microsoft Hololens augmented/mixed reality device have given promising results for building evacuation application. A range of use cases are tested, including data visualization and immersive data spaces, in-situ visualization of 3D models and full scale architectural form visualization. The Hololens is a remarkable tool for moving from traditional visualization of 3D objects on a 2D screen, to fully experiential 3D visualizations embedded in the real world. This work comprises an AR application being built to help users evacuate a building. The application was built for Microsoft HoloLens, a device offering users a 3D, holographic view of building floor plans so that they can have a better perspective of the building, making it easier for them to find a way out of the building during the evacuation. Pilot studies were conducted with the system showing its partial success and demonstrated the effectiveness of the application in an emergency evacuation.

Our Hololens application gives a visual representation of a computer science building in 3D space, allowing people to see where exits are in the building. It also gives path to the various exits; shortest path to the exist as well as directions to safe zone. Currently, our Hololens application supports the following features:

  • scaling models
  • loading 3d models of each floor plan of the building
  • Including smoke and fire as well as animations
  • positioning models relative to real markers
  • user customizable tracking patterns
  • support GPS capability for calculating path to exit

Decision Making System

We are currently working on the following:

  • Develop decision making system to give user specific directions (w.r.p. to location) for evacuation
  • Recommend shortest path or recommended path to the user from a specific location
  • Using IBM analytics to develop voice commands for evacuation

Phase 2: Building Evacuation using Hololens Video

Phase 1: Building Evacuation using Hololens Video

Phase 1: Building Evacuation using Tablet Video

Phase 1: Building Evacuation using Phone Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publications

  1. Sharma, S, Bodempudi, S.T., Scribner, D., Grynovicki, J., Grazaitis, P., "Emergency response using HoloLens for building evacuation", Proceeding of 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21607-8_23 , Online ISBN 978-3-030-21607-8, Orlando, Florida, USA, 26-31 July, HCII 2019, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11574, pp. 299–311, 2019.
  2. Stigall, J., Bodempudi, S.T., Sharma, S, Scribner, D., Grynovicki, J., Grazaitis, P., "Use of Microsoft HoloLens in indoor evacuation", International Journal of Computers and their Applications, IJCA, Vol. 26, No. 1, March 2019.
  3. Stigall, J., Sharma, S, "Evaluation of Mobile Augmented Reality Application for Building Evacuation", Proceedings of 28th International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering (SEDE 2019) in San Diego, CA, USA on September 30 - October 2, 2019.
  4. Stigall, J., Bodempudi, S.T., Sharma, S, Scribner, D., Grynovicki, J., Grazaitis, P., "Building Evacuation using Microsoft HoloLens", Proceedings of 27th International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering (SEDE 2018), New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, pp. 20-25, October 8-10, 2018. [Best paper award finalist]
  5. James Stigall and Dr. Sharad Sharma, "Mobile augmented reality application for building evacuation" , Poster Presentation, 11th Annual Grant Expo and Research day, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP), Bowie State University, April 10, 2018. [Won first Prize]
  6. Stigall, J., Sharma, S, "Mobile Augmented Reality Application for Building Evacuation Using Intelligent Signs", proceedings of ISCA 26th International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering (SEDE-2017), pp. 19-24, San Diego,CA, USA, October 2-4, 2017.
  7. Sharma, S, Jerripothula, S., "An indoor augmented reality mobile application for simulation of building evacuation", proceedings of SPIE conference on the Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2015, paper 9392-7, San Francisco, CA, USA, 9 - 10 February 2015.