Disaster Management and 3D User Interfaces

Disaster Management has become an issue of growing importance. Planning for and managing large scale emergencies is complex. The number of both victims and relief workers is large and the time pressure is extreme. Emergency response and triage systems with 2D user interfaces are currently under development and evaluation. Disasters present a number of spatially related problems and an overwhelming quantity of information. 3D user interfaces are well suited for intuitively solving basic emergency response tasks. Such tasks include commanding rescue agents and prioritizing the disaster victims according to the severity of their medical condition. Further, 3D UIs hold significant potential for improving the coordination of rescuers as well as their awareness of relief workers from other organisations.