Virtual Disaster Viewer

EEFIT is pleased to be part of an international consortium supporting the development of a first of its kind social networking tool for earthquake impact assessment - an online Virtual Disaster Viewer (VDV) for earthquake reconnaissance.

The Virtual Disaster Viewer is developed by ImageCat and can be viewed at http://128.205.141.22/vdv/

Developed in conjunction with Microsoft Virtual Earth, VDV represents an exciting combination of new technologies, including satellite imagery-based damage and situation assessments by international teams of expert engineers, along with geo-referenced ground photographs and videos collected by field teams. VDV represents a new way of remotely viewing a disaster area and generating preliminary estimates of earthquake damage, when access to the affected area is restricted.

A prototype VDV, based on the Wenchuan, China earthquake of 12 May 2008, is currently being piloted by a group of EEFIT members, as well as representatives from other organizations in the consortium involving structural engineers, geotechnical experts, geographers, and social scientists.

Contact
For further information on the testing and evaluation, contact EEFIT member Tiziana Rossetto at t.rossetto@ucl.ac.uk . For technical enquiries, contact Beverley Adams at ImageCat (bja@imagecatinc.com).