Investigating the use of radiative heat panels to enhance perceived threat of fire in VR

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this report was to develop and evaluate new solutions to improve the perception of fire threat in virtual reality experiments. Thermal heat have been identified as a stimulus that modern day virtual reality experiments don’t take into account that would likely affect a person in a real life fire evacuation scenario. The objective of this report was to successfully implement thermal heat radiation to a fire evacuation scenario in VR, and evaluate its effect on fire threat perception. To accomplish this objective, literature studies have been performed in the field of virtual reality and thermal heat. An experiment have been setup integrating radiative heat panels into a virtual reality experiment, simulating a fire evacuation scenario. The result of the experiment have been evaluated on behavioral ques during the experiment and answers from a questionnaire.