Modeling a Simulated Prison Riot with Laser Scanning

1. Teams from 28 states and 14 countries participated in a mock prison riot training exercise in West Virginia this past spring.
2. Valador, a company specializing in using their gaming engine to create real world training simulations was hired to develop a realistic 3D digital environment.
3. They hired GKS to capture the data using laser scanning for the 2 million square foot facility.

This past spring teams from 28 states and 14 countries descended on Moundsville, WV to participate in a mock prison riot training exercise. The now de-commissioned West Virginia Penitentiary, the site of this annual event is a museum the rest of the year. No detailed drawings or CAD files of the facility exist, making it difficult for the teams to prepare in advance of the event. Manual survey was out of the question as the prison covers some 2 million square feet of space.

Laser scanning to the rescue. Valador, a firm that specializes in building information architectures for the military was called in to develop a simulation model using their gaming engine. They turned to GKS, a Los Angeles, CA based firm that specializes in large scale, geospatial data collection and processing to build the full scale 3D models. This included the cellar areas, where the lighting conditions are poor.

The interactive model was provided to the teams in advance of their arrival. This allowed them to work through a number of potential scenarios, which resulted in improved response times during the actual training events. In addition, the teams are now aware of the power of this technology and were very interested in how they could make use of it at their facilities.