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Originally published on 02/11/2002
In November, I nervously visited the Seattle headquarters of Advanced Interactive Systems. I had been told that the company's tactical simulation systems for police were unlike anything I had seen: they shoot back.
After a chat with Greg Hoover, AIS' director of law enforcement training, he walked me into the demo room, put a modified pistol in my hand, and fired up the simulation. A video of a couple of burglars in a garage appeared on a wall-sized screen in front of me, and Greg told me to be a cop.
I suffered a moment of awkwardness, but then the room melted away and my disbelief was completely suspended. I started yelling orders to the very bad armed men on the screen. They didn't heed my commands, and one took a shot at me, at which point a small roof-mounted, computer-controlled pellet gun zinged a plastic ball into the wall next to me (the PR person wouldn't let the AIS people shoot directly at me).
The simulation was completely immersive, and thus effective. And, of course, simulations like this are much less expensive and dangerous than most other types of training, not to mention far more flexible.
The screen approach does have its boundaries: crime doesn't always unfold in a flat plane, and filming limits the bad guys' responses. AIS does make multi-screen surround systems that are even more immersive, and AIS' military division, Reality By Design, makes a system with computer-generated environments and actors.
But for one particular kind of law-enforcement official -- a US air marshal -- the nature of the screen-based training is almost ideal. For this simulation, a screen ahead of the trainee and one behind does a great job of replicating the closed-tube layout of airplane, in which threats rarely come from the sides.
- Rafe Needleman
email: rafe-needleman@catchoday.com
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