Incident Command systems often achieve situational awareness through manual paper-tracking systems. Such systems often produce high latencies and in-complete data, resulting in inefficient and ineffective resource deployment. The WIISARD system collects much more data than a paper-based system, dramati-cally reducing latency while increasing the kinds and quality of information available to incident com-manders. Yet, the introduction of IT into a disaster setting is not without problems. Most notable is that temporary system component failures delay the deliv-ery of data. The type and extent of the failure can have varying effects on the usefulness of information displays. We describe a small, coherent set of cus-tomizble information overlays to address this prob-lem and discuss reactions to these displays by a medical commander.

Pre-2018 CSE ID: CS2006-0857

The emergence of personal mobile computing and ubiquitous wireless networks enables powerful field applications of video streaming, such as vision-enabled command centers for hazardous materials response. However, experience has repeatedly demonstrated both the fragility of the wireless networks and the insatiable demand for higher resolution and more video streams. In the wild, even the best streaming video mechanisms result in low-resolution, low-frame-rate video, in part because the motion of first-person mobile video (e.g., via a head-mounted camera) decimates temporal (inter-frame) compression. We introduce a visualization technique for displaying low-bit-rate first-person video that maintains the benefits of high resolution, while minimizing the problems typically associated with low frame rates. This technique has the unexpected benefit of eliminating the ``Blaire Witch Project'' effect -- the nausea-inducing jumpiness typical of first-person video. We explore the features and benefits of the technique through both a field study involving hazardous waste disposal and a lab study of side-by-side comparisons with alternate methods. The technique was praised as a possible command center tool, and some of the participants in the lab study preferred our low-bitrate encoding technique to the full-frame, high resolution video that was used as a control.

Pre-2018 CSE ID: CS2006-0855