Abstract
The paper presents a dynamic fire signage system for simulating emergency evacuation in the case of fire through dynamic pathfinding towards the nearest and safest exit in a virtual environment. Conventional fire signs and fire escape plans are becoming outdated and less effective due to their static nature and inability to adapt to different emergency scenarios. Experimental studies have shown that dynamic signs can be effective in guiding users of any age and can highly influence their direction choices during evacuation. A VR tool for simulating emergency evacuation through dynamic pathfinding towards the safest and nearest exit was designed using a BIM model as a basis to create a virtual environment for the simulation. Newly created fire signals, referred to as Fire Signal Cubes (FSCs) were used. They were specifically developed and implemented for this project as input for the node database and pathfinding algorithm to define navigable spaces. The FSCs have from one to four active sides, depending on their position in the floor plan and their relation to pathways and exit doors. Each side of the FSC that faces a path, or an exit door is active, and the FSC can show the correct signal according to the input of the pathfinding algorithm that instantly calculates the safest escape path. The paper provides a detailed description of the methodology and presents the results of implementing the dynamic pathfinder using a BIM model of an office environment.
O. Braholli, M. Ataide, J. Emig, I. Di Blasio—All authors contributed equally to this work.
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O.B worked on the BIM model and creation of FSC, M.A worked on the literature research, J.E worked on the pathfinding algorithm, I.D.B worked on the VR simulation, E.N reviewed the manuscript, D.S and D.M supervised the development.
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Braholli, O. et al. (2023). Design and Development of a Dynamic Fire Signage System for Building Evacuation: A VR Simulation Study. In: De Paolis, L.T., Arpaia, P., Sacco, M. (eds) Extended Reality. XR Salento 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14218. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43401-3_10
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