Kamloops researchers develop software to help prevent lone-wolf shooter attacks

After the 2017 attack in Las Vegas wherea single gunman opened fire on concertgoers from his hotel room window, killing dozens researcher Andrew Park wanted to use his skills to help in some way.

Park, an associate professor in the computing science department at ThompsonRivers University in Kamloops, got to workcreating a computer program to try to detect wherea shooter might situate themselves at future events.

Park has spent the past couple ofyears working with a team to develop a 3D computer program to help police visually analyze the possible vantage points from whicha lone-wolf attacker could operate.

"This is related to all public safety and counter-terrorism. So any people who are related to this domain can take advantage of this kind of system," said Park.

The program allows users to pick a location, and thenit creates a 3D environment to help users visualize what a place looks like.Then,using an algorithm, it calculates the most likelypoints from where a gunman could potentially shootand hit targets.

Karthik Vedantham is aresearch student from India who was paired with Park through theMitacs Globalinkprogram, an international research internship program, and has been working on the program for the past few months.

Vedantham hasalways been fascinated with new technologies in visualization, he toldDaybreak Kamloops'Courtney Dickson.

"This project, it seemed like it had a lot of social value to it because I would be doing something that actually contributes in helping people."

For 'close circles'

Vedantham and Park hope their work will help security teams or police check out locations for potential threats more efficiently.

"With this, you can do a virtual analysis and you can literally interact with that environment in 3D as many times as you want, and you can do this without actually setting foot there," saidVedantham.

Their goal is to create better predictions for possible attacks and prevention strategies, he added.

Eventually, they would like to make the software more dynamic by making itavailable in a virtual reality format, which wouldmake it even more realistic.

They're aiming to have theprogram ready by the end of summer, and when it is,it will only beavailable for"close circles oflaw enforcement and military," saidVedantham.

They want to ensure the program can't be taken advantage of by potential attackers, he said.

They hope the programcan be used at future events in the city.