Hand gesture-based virtual reality training simulator for collaboration rescue of a railway accident.

Training simulator is an efficient and innovative tool to help users learn professional skills due to its convenience and safety. However, complex human-computer interaction is one of the main disadvantages that limits its effectiveness in safety training, especially for the rescue of a railway accident which requires collaborations. Through designing a set of task-specific hand gestures, we developed a training simulator for the recovery of a railway accident which helps the rescuers learn and practise rescue skills in a life-like environment and gain the firsthand experience. To test the validity of our training simulator, a user experiment is designed to compare it with the controller-based simulator in a between-groups study with 51 participants, focusing on different aspects of effectiveness. The results demonstrate that the hand gesture-based controller can be more efficient and usable to deal with complex interactions than the traditional hand-held controller