RealityFlythrough: enhancing situational awareness for medical response to disasters using ubiquitous video.

The first moments at a disaster scene are chaotic. The command center initially operates with little knowledge of hazards, geography and casualties, building up knowledge of the event slowly as information trickles in by voice radio channels. RealityFlythrough is a tele-presence system that stitches together live video feeds in real-time, using the principle of visual closure, to give command center personnel the illusion of being able to explore the scene interactively by moving smoothly between the video feeds. Using RealityFlythrough, medical, fire, law enforcement, hazardous materials, and engineering experts may be able to achieve situational awareness earlier, and better manage scarce resources. The RealityFlythrough system is composed of camera units with off-the-shelf GPS and orientation systems and a server/viewing station that offers access to images collected by the camera units in real time by position/orientation. In initial field testing using an experimental mesh 802.11 wireless network, two camera unit operators were able to create an interactive image of a simulated disaster scene in about five minutes.