Immersive Virtual Reality for Fire Safety Behavioural Skills Training via Gesture-based Technology

Abstract

The fire safety can be one of the biggest problems in metropolitan area. To reduce injuries in a fire, the virtual reality based behavioural skills training (BST) has been used to train people to survive in emergency circumstance. VR-based BST training has been demonstrated to effectively help people of different ages to acquire safe escape skills in a virtual environment. However, most of people have encountered difficulty to train in a right gesture or poor body performance, such as running at unsuitable body position. Gesture-based technology can effectively help people to learn the correct gestures in order to enhance training efficiency. Thus, this paper proposes a theoretical framework of “VR-Gesture BST”, which is expected to improve behavioural skills training more effectively for fire safety training. It adopts motion capture device obtaining user’s body data to evaluate the body performance during the BST training. The outcomes of the study provide guideline and suggestions for VR based design in practice of the behavioural skills training adopted gesture-based technology.