Improving the search for victims in mountain environments with geovisualization and competing hypotheses management

Abstract. This article is part of a research program aimed at improving the location of victims in the mountains. The search for victim location is a process involving various elements, few of them falls within the scope of our team such as the modelling of the process of spatial reasoning of the rescuer and the geovisualization of multidimensional and uncertain information for decision-making. After having reviewed the various scientific challenges we propose a prototype of interface. The strengths of our approach are the transformation of location clues into a list of spatial filters, the addition of these filters within a search scenario to create probable location area(s) as well as the simultaneous management of competing search scenarios. We also present the results of user tests, validating the interest of such an approach to objectify the area of probable location of the victim and obtain a more precise area than during the traditional search approach. Finally, we will discuss the improvements underway on the basis of this prototype, in particular how we plan to better account for the uncertainty in the decision-making process and how we plan to allow a future prototype to suggest questions to the rescuer in order to help him/her refine his/her research.