Ph.D. students Felipe Bacim, Eric Ragan, Siroberto Scerbo, Cheryl Stinson and advisor Doug Bowman on another first place win at the IEEE 3D UI symposium. They beat out six other finalists from around the world (including a second team from VT).
The challenge this year was to “build an application to enable collaborative navigation through a complicated 3D environment.” The winning team did a virtual search-and-rescue scenario where a “rescuer” is inside a virtual burning building looking for survivors and the other is a “commander” who is monitoring progress on an interactive map of the building. The commander suggests paths for the rescuer to follow in order to ensure coverage of the whole building, while the rescuer places markers in the building to indicate the location of survivors, blockages, hazards, and new openings in the building.