While the importance of disaster safety is being emphasized across the country, a small company successfully localized 3D evacuation simulation software for large-scale building complexes of which supply had been entirely dependent on foreign products.
Under the circumstances where government’s investment in disaster safety is expanding following the launch of the Ministry of Public Safety and Security (MPSS), the software localization is also expected to produce an effect of import replacement. The software customized to Korean users by reflecting Koreans’ body shapes and response types will also enable substantial disaster response.
On the 18th, Virtual Builders, a spatial information software developer, announced that it had developed and commercialized 3D evacuation simulation software for large-scale building complexes with government’s support in order to promote a stability assessment technology development in the future.
In R&D for this product, which began in May 2011 and was completed at the end of last year, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Kyungpook National University, KF UBIS and KEI participated.
To reduce disaster and accident damages, construction companies predict human evacuation routes or types in advance through virtual simulation and reflect them in designing large-scale building complexes. However, as 3D evacuation simulation software is 100% foreign, there has been a criticism that the building designs are unrealistic as they do not reflect body shapes or cultures unique to Korean people. The price of software is also expensive, and thus quite a number of construction companies have been avoiding the application of 3D evacuation simulation.
To solve this problem, MPSS (formerly National Emergency Management Agency) started promoting a project to support human disaster safety technology development in 2011, and thus began 3D evacuation simulation software localization. Over three years, this project has been invested with a total of KRW 1,348.76 million including a government subsidy of KRW 980 million.
The product developed by Virtual Builders provides an evacuation simulation function and a human behavioral modeling function, which is applied to evacuation and fire simulation, using 3D based spatial information. In addition, it offers evacuation stability verification tools. Suitable for application to subway stations, super high-rise buildings and large-scale shopping mall complexes, this product also provides open application programming interface (API), and thus can support fire disaster and evacuation simulation studies in the future.
Domestic 3D evacuation simulation software will be placed in the market at a price only half that of foreign products. Therefore, it has a large import replacement effect. “We have already completed the development and are currently working on performance improvement in order to increase user convenience,” said a Virtual Builders source. “Once performance improvement is completed, we will start making supply proposals to construction companies.”