The glasses prototype is basically finished. This is a technology known from video games, such as catching Pokemon. The researchers simply adapted it to the needs of firefighters and were able to do so even through complex complexes.
The firefighter sees two realities: the real one, namely the room in which he intervenes, and the so-called extended one, where glasses show him a computer plan of the building with additional information and arrows for orientation.
“It would be ideal for a firefighter to have an entire building fire plan loaded on his helmet when getting out of the car at the scene of an accident. The software is now able to create a 3D computer model of the paper plan. The fire department decided on the spot, our glasses could become his assistant,” developer Kryštof Zeman told Práva, adding that the prototype would be ready by the end of the year.
Guide and mentor
This unique project is the joint work of scientists from the Department of Telecommunications, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technology, Brno University of Technology (BUT), developers from Gina Software, the Czech Fire Service Association and the Czech Republic Technology Agency.
The goal is to simplify and expedite each intervention for firefighters as much as possible. He assumed that in a smoky area of flames, littered with debris, a firefighter needed every second.
“The whole system should be as easy as possible. That’s why we use darts from a computer game to navigate a building with augmented reality,” explains Zeman.
Detecting people inside buildings can help detect their cell phones and electronic devices. In the event of a disaster over a large area, data critical to firefighters can be added to augmented reality by the intervention commander, who will inspect the area from a helicopter.
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