The effectiveness of the ship layout from the point of view of safe and orderly evacuation can be assessed through simulation tools, which are generally used in batch mode. However, introducing the possibility for humans to interactively participate in a simulated evacuation process together with computer controlled agents can open a series of interesting possibilities for design, research and development. This paper describes the first phase of a research activity aimed at developing an evacuation simulation tool which can potentially allow immersive real-time participation. The employed agent-based modeling technique is described, the choice of the development environment is discussed and justified, and a first approach for supporting real-time participation is presented. Some test cases are reported, showing comparisons between the developed tool, “FDS+Evac” and experimental data. Attention is also given to the description of the techniques used for Monte Carlo simulation data post-processing. Planned future developments are also reported.
