Project Detail

BVT and Archi-UP: 3D Software and Visualization and Analysis Tools for First-Responders

3D Building Visualization Tool that will give emergency crews a better view in 3D inside buildings at major fires and other disasters.

Lead: Razdan, Anshuman
Collaborators: Wonka, Peter;Femiani, John
RA: Yin, Xuetao
Sponsor: Department of Homeland Security and Kutta Tech, Phoenix, AZ
Date: 05/15/2007  - 06/15/2010

Abstract

The focus of this project is to develop technology that will give first responders, such as firefighters and police, a 3D view inside buildings in order to effectively deal with major fires and other disasters. This technology will allow an incident commander at the scene of a major emergency to view the interior of the building in three dimensions on the screen of a laptop or handheld computer. This tool will also help ICs direct resources more efficiently and effectively, lowering the risk of loss and saving lives.

The tool provides personnel with the ability to annotate the incident scene by simply dragging and dropping standard DHS symbology (e.g. Fire, smoke, bad guy) on a comprehensive display in a geo-referenced 2D and 3D environment. It comes with easy to use sketching options that allow an incident commander to edit the 3D structure in real-time (e.g. delete/add wall) and extrude a 3D model from scratch in a matter of seconds.

Critical steps in 3D model extrusion. The system takes as input an original floor plan. It then uses algorithms for denoising and text removal and symbol recognition and 2D geometry creation. Finally, it extrudes a 3D model.