RISKING ONE’S OWN LIFE TO SAVE PEOPLE IN NEED

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an independent, global movement providing medical aid to people in regions affected by armed conflicts, irrespective of country borders. Risking their own lives, they provide assistance in areas abandoned by other organizations. This undertaking was coordinated by Andreas Papp from MSF.

Client

Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Sector

Healthcare NGO

Services

Gesture Control

VR training

Technology

GearVR Unity 3D

Visual results video

Challenge

Reducing the threat to the lives of doctors being sent to areas affected by armed conflict

The client needed a training application that would considerably improve the quality of doctors’ training aimed at preparing them to leave for dangerous areas – in this case, refugee camps in South Sudan. Until recently, such training consisted of dramatization + theoretical information about a given region, in fact not reflecting real-life conditions there.

Although the organization has grown significantly, training could not be scaled up accordingly. Courses are still provided in one country only, and employees often cannot afford to attend them for 1-2 weeks. Through lack of training caused by insufficient funding, doctors going to Africa make such mistakes as jogging – unaware that in Africa people run only when someone is chasing them – and causing general panic in the refugee camps.

Process and project scope

Scope

The user arrives at a refugee camp as a doctor and navigates through a 3D environment of a village in the danger zone (complete with buildings, real machines, tools and other equipment). The task is to identify children and collect blood samples from them. The user must behave properly during the talks – with parents and soldiers alike – so that no one has any reason to cause problems.

Process

The client came to our premises for a 1-day workshop during which our team developed a workable scenario that became a pilot project. It provides exact simulation of real machines, tools and equipment. Dynamic simulation scenario is generated on the basis of the user’s decisions, while Motion Capture and Gesture Control tracks body movements and hand gestures in real time.

Collaboration

We set the budget for the project during our first visit to the client’s premises, and started up with a training scenario strictly meeting the client’s requirements. Additionally, various appropriate and unwanted behaviors, such as body and hand gestures, were being tracked in real time to become part of the training.

Business value

Do small things with great love

We developed a training and educational application – a complex tool to support the learning process undertaken by doctors leaving for missions. Its biggest advantages are safety as well as an immersive, engaging and realistic experience. Not only does the application present real-life conditions, but it also simulates citizens’ and soldiers’ behavior, as well as conversations with them.

Additional simulated elements include various emergency situations, such as a mine-infested roadside, which requires specific actions (i.e. under no circumstances should you leave the road).

It was possible to launch the training in many different places at the same time which was a great benefit. The training can be repeated as many times as needed to measure and monitor the progress of individuals. It is a very important educational tool for the safety of future doctors working in dangerous regions of the world.

There were three major outcomes of the project:

Reducing the loss resulting from improper or negligent use of machines.
Employee training without interrupting the production process carried out by vital machines.
Better educated employees due to enhanced engagement in training.

Technology stack

The project was developed in Unity 3D. Faces were scanned and modeling was done in Maya software. Motion capture was done using iPi Soft Markerless Motion Capture technology working in tandem with Kinect cameras. Apart from that, we also employed Samsung Gear VR and Gesture Control technology.

Tech stack for VR/AR project at 4Experience