Simplifying Remote Evacuation Drills and Verification with VR ~Nikken Sekkei and GeoCreates Announce Jointly Developed VR Tool for Virtual Evacuation Drills~

Nikken Sekkei Ltd. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Atsushi Omatsu) and GeoCreates Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Tsukasa Honda), a company specializing in architectural VR, have jointly developed a VR tool designed to assist with various guidance, direction, and verification tasks—with a focus on remote evacuation drills—and have begun pilot testing it in actual office settings.As the shift to remote work diversifies work locations, the companies will continue to expand their efforts using VR to create safe and secure environments and enable new ways of working.

This tool was conceived to enable remote evacuation drills for buildings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Evacuation drills are most effective when conducted with the simultaneous participation of a large number of people. Therefore, we developed this tool with the requirement that users be able to participate easily using a PC or smartphone, without the need for VR headsets or similar devices.
As a VR tool that enables the conduct and recording of evacuation drills involving user participation, it also allows clients, designers, and users to share building evacuation routes. In an era where spatial concepts are expanding through digital twins and the metaverse, this service creates new value.
Within the VR environment, users can experience evacuation drills that reflect the realism of a multi-person scenario, including the sense of immersion, time, and speed, just as in the real world. It is also possible to analyze exploration behaviors such as pedestrian flow and line of sight during an evacuation. The tool not only makes conducting evacuation drills easier and more straightforward but also aims to promote the widespread adoption of buildings that are easy to understand and provide a sense of security, as well as to facilitate the application of disaster prevention measures to existing buildings.
*This system has already been put into practical use during evacuation drills involving 50 to 100 participants at Nikken Sekkei’s Tokyo Headquarters Building in 2020 and 2021.

This tool offers the following features:

1. Multiple users can participate remotely via avatars from anywhere
Each participant’s avatar appears at their respective seat, and by initiating the evacuation from there, it is possible to conduct realistic evacuation drills.

2.Capable of handling various scenarios
It allows users to quickly experience multiple drills—such as those involving different times of day (day and night) or different types of disasters (earthquakes, fires, etc.)—that would be difficult to conduct immediately in a real-world environment.

3.Reflects Crowd Density in Evacuation Speed and Time
By taking into account the surrounding crowd density and factoring it into each user’s evacuation speed and time, the system can simulate evacuation drills that are closer to reality.

4.Analysis of Line of Sight and Pedestrian Flow
The system records the specific routes each user took and what they observed during evacuation, providing data that can be utilized for planning building signage and evacuation routes.

5.Integration and A/B Testing of Elements Such as Signage and Equipment
By applying gaze and pedestrian flow analysis technology, this system can be utilized in a variety of scenarios, such as evaluating the placement of evacuation route signage and exit lights; improving safety awareness and training for school commutes and factory settings; and reviewing signage, advertising, guidance operations, and equipment in commercial facilities.

In the design of super-tall buildings and seismic-isolation buildings, the seismic motion used to verify a building’s response during an earthquake is referred to as “design input seismic motion.”NS Wave® allows for the consideration of various earthquakes that may occur in the future, tailored to each specific site. To date, it has been used to verify the safety of more than 300 super-tall buildings both in Japan and overseas. By utilizing the seismic motions generated by NS Wave® in conjunction with BIM data for design and maintenance, it is possible to easily create VR content.

This system uses VR to provide a realistic simulation of how a building sways during an earthquake, enabling users to gain a tangible understanding of a building’s seismic performance.This system makes it easy to generate VR footage tailored to the site’s ground conditions, building height, floor plan, structure, and number of stories. The SYNCVR earthquake simulation can be used remotely to conduct virtual evacuation drills.

This SaaS-based tool allows you to store spatial experience data in the cloud, not limited to VR or AR software and devices, but also in connection with digital twins and the metaverse.It features three modes—CAP, 360, and WEB—and uses VR for design studies, site surveys, and on-site operations. By analyzing gaze and brainwave data obtained through actual measurements or AI estimates, it quantifies the value of spatial experiences, thereby improving design efficiency and quality.By remotely integrating ToPolog’s analysis functions, it is possible to analyze virtual evacuation drills.

This tool will be showcased for the first time at the 4th Facility Renovation EXPO, held at the Tokyo Big Sight West Exhibition Hall. (*The video presentation will begin on December 7.)

・Dates: December 6, 2021 (Mon) – December 8, 2021 (Wed), 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. (Closes at 5:00 p.m. on the final day only)
・Location: Tokyo Big Sight West Exhibition Hall

Furthermore, GeoCreates plans to expand sales to real estate building owners and architectural firms for use in building evacuation drills and various verification tasks. The company also intends to market its solutions—in conjunction with digital twins and the metaverse—for virtual real estate and facility tours, trade shows, shopping malls, and other projects, including those in the design phase.

Address: 2-18-3 Iidabashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

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株式会社日建設計 広報室 Tel：03-5226-3030（代表） e-mail：webmaster@nikken.jp
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