The Future of Emergency Response
Unobtrusively Interact with What Matters
In the near future, front-line first responders will have direct access to data that is most important, most urgent, and most relevant. FirstModulAR (FMAR for short) is a set of Unity development modules for prototyping future augmented reality interfaces for our heros so that they can better protect themselves as well as those of us that they serve.
Open Source for Unity Development
FMAR is is open sourced licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. Use as you want. All we ask is that you attribute the original development to NextGen Interactions.
Example Scenarios
TrafFic Stop
Fire Search and Rescue
Emergency Medical Services
Augmented Reality for High-Risk Incidents
The Problem
First responders are increasingly gaining access to vast and complex real-time data. Unfortunately, this can be overwhelming to responders who often must make tough decisions and act quickly in situations where mistakes can be deadly. Information overload can potentially backfire resulting in decreased situational awareness and delayed reaction times instead of the intended result of improving understanding and decision making in critical incidents. To benefit from the additional data, intuitive and non-obtrusive user interfaces need to be developed that allow first responders to increase situational awareness and interact effectively with data, without inducing cognitive overload.
Benefits and Impact
The results of this research will build awareness among public safety stakeholders regarding the benefits of AR technology, eventually leading to decreases in the time, costs, and risks associated with first responder operations. First responders will be presented with actionable information in an intuitive manner that fits the context of their environmental conditions, personal protective equipment, and communications systems. The evaluation and refinement of the patterns will serve as guidelines for identifying future interfaces and the user interface modules will be capable of being integrated into a broad range of use cases beyond those that we implement, resulting in an acceleration of beneficial AR UIs by first responders This will ultimately lead to increased performance, transferability, and deployment of AR to field operations. The impact of this work will be transformative in the way public safety operations is more effectively conducted and will lead to a set of verified AR UIs that increase situational awareness, reduce uncertainty, and improve decision making among first responders.
Architected for the Future
AR Focused
FMAR was created in collaboration with first responders in order to support their most important needs.
Cross Platform
Choose your hardware based on project needs. Written to be used across different AR platforms, rather that is today's headsets or future headsets.
Modular
Choose and use only what you need. Integrate into your existing Unity application or build based off of our example core scene.
ABOUT US
NextGen Interactions believes it is our moral responsibility to identify and work towards solutions for use cases where our expertise in immersive technologies can have the most positive impact. Specializing in XR technology, we focus on training for high-risk incidents, particularly in emergency response.
NextGen Interactions continues to partner with a diverse range of clients, extending our impact in simulation and training. Our steadfast belief that the power of XR to improve professional simulation/training will contribute to societal well-being drives our ongoing efforts and future endeavors.
NextGen Interactions developed FirstModulAR in collaboration with Iowa State, Augusta University, and various First Responders. Work funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) division) Federal Award #70NANB22H096.
Some of Our Emergency Response Clients
Consulting AND Emergency Response Development
Are you being challenged with applying Mixed Reality to emergency response? Rather you are developing training for today's needs or prototyping software for future systems, we can help.
Empowerment Through the Use of Mind, Body, and Technology
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