Tangible Disaster Simulation System is a collaborative tool for planning disaster measures based on disaster simulation and evacuation simulation using Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Built on the Sensetable platform, Tangible-DSS allows multiple users to directly input parameters such as the scale of disasters (ex. Tsunami, earthquake, and fire) and the capacity of a shelter on a projected map. Then, this system simulates and visualises the disaster and the evacuation of people to shelters, under any conditions inputted by users. Tangible-DSS is best suited for use in discussions and collaborative planning scenes, since Sensetable can handle multiple and simultaneous inputs by physical ‘gpuckss’ on the table. Users can effectively examine how much damage from a disaster will be and what kind of measures could prevent the estimated damage.

by Kazue Kobayashi, Shinetsu Tsuchida, Takaharu Omi, Tatsuhito Kakizaki, Takuma Hosokawa, Atsunobu Narita, Mitsunori Hirano, Ichiro Kase, all of NTT Comware, and Professor Hiroshi Ishii of MIT’s Tangible Media Group