Usefulness of VRML building models in a direction finding context

Murano, P; Mackey, D

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness and efficiency issues being primarily investigated were number of tasks completed overall and task completion times. The experiment involved a series of tasks where participants had to find a number of locations/objects in a building unknown to them at the outset of the experiment. Statistically significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, law enforcement officers and fire fighters where it is clear that in this context, the VRML model led to better task completions than the equivalent architectural plans. Regarding the task completion times,
no statistical significance was found. Given the current climate of security issues and terrorist threats, it is important that law enforcement officers have at their disposal the best information possible regarding the layout of a building, whilst keeping costs down. This also applies to fire fighters when rescuing victims. This experiment has shown that a VRML model leads to better
task completions in direction finding.

Citation

Murano, P., & Mackey, D. (2007). Usefulness of VRML building models in a direction finding context. Interacting with Computers, 19(3), 305-313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2007.01.005

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: May 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Jan 6, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 6, 2009
• Journal: Interacting with Computers
• Print ISSN: 0953-5438
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 305-313
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2007.01.005
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2007.01.005
• Related Public URLs: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/homepage.cws_home; http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/525445/description#description