Everything You Need to Know About Mapping Indoor Spaces
Are you looking for an intelligent solution to map indoor spaces? All you need is the right indoor mapping tools and you too can have a detailed map of your indoor space to be used in every aspect of your building.
Indoor maps are becoming widely used and proving instrumental when first responders need a heads-up about the space they are entering. They can also greatly benefit employees, customers and tenants by providing a detailed map of your building. Let’s take a look at indoor maps, the tools required, and the process of turning your indoor map into a valuable and important visual aid.
What is an Indoor Map?
An indoor map is any given indoor space. An indoor map can make sure all the people who live in an area that has been mapped are accounted for and safe. First responders are finding indoor maps quite useful as they attempt to locate and save lives in an emergency.
Everybody knows how GPS has revolutionized the way we navigate around in our daily lives. GPS can also be a tool for mapping movements and trends that can affect everything from how we buy to what we buy.
Indoor mapping is a process where we can apply indoor venues and spatial data to a 2-D or 3-D map. This data allows us to show where places, people, and assets are on a digitized map that enables such solutions as indoor positioning and navigation. Your indoor map can also be uploaded into a arcGIS or other cloud-based system for further integration.
These are the types of applications that businesses can utilize to map indoor spaces. This can not only optimize your buildings workflow but be beneficial to your employees and customers. Indoor maps are also valuable for large indoor spaces, for instance, hospitals where patients and staff could benefit from knowing how to get to different departments in the building.
Indoor maps can be created from blueprints or drawn manually using specific indoor mapping solutions provided by various third-party vendors. You start by making notations about where specific things like walls, doors, and windows are, then you further add to the map the necessary labels and other information essential to the space.
What is the Difference Between Indoor Maps and Indoor Wayfinding?
The digital representation of an indoor space is the indoor map. Indoor wayfinding is the process we use to navigate within that indoor map.
Indoor wayfinding comes in handy when you need to navigate yourself from one building to another. Wayfinding is also helpful in enhancing the visitor experience in shopping malls, convention centers, university campuses, and hospitals.
What is Indoor Positioning?
Indoor positioning is a tool used as part of an indoor mapping solution. Indoor positioning allows the user to pinpoint locations of people or places inside a building in real-time. It can assist the user in finding their current location and how to get to their desired location.
If you want a detailed indoor mapping solution, the indoor positioning network of sensors and beacons can be installed in any indoor space and give the user a digital representation of the building on any handheld device upon entering the building.
How to Create an Indoor Map
A detailed indoor map is not as hard to create as you might think. All that’s needed is the right information about the building and then following these basic steps;
- Define your mapping goals. Know in advance what you are looking for in an indoor mapping solution. Suppose you want your map to be used on a mobile device by employees or the customer flow at a kiosk, it is important to know how your indoor map will connect to this information and how you can keep it up to date.
- Decide how to create your indoor map. Then upload your map data or have your intelligent mapping service make one for you if going the paid route.
- Claim your building. As soon as your mapping service has your building’s information, go to the building located on the search tool and claim the building so that you can finish the map.
- Input the interior information of your building. This step can be done by uploading a ready-to-use blueprint. Additionally, an intelligent mapping company can assist you in getting detailed information about your building.
- Identify points of interest. Anything that makes the map of the interior unique needs to go next on your map. Some examples include: doorways, stairs, vents, anything that could be valuable to first responders or your employees.
- Integrate other data sources. This is where the different mapping services vary greatly. This is also where you can feed any data you know about the building into the map. Depending on the degree of detail, you can put as much or as little information as you desire. The more precise and decisive information you have about your map, the easier it will be fully utilize indoor maps.
Indoor maps are becoming the norm and first responders are depending on these new digital assets for life-saving and rescuing operations. Now that you have a bit of information concerning your indoor map let’s talk about the indoor mapping solutions from Maptelligent!
How to Use Maptelligent for Your Indoor Mapping Project
Getting started with indoor mapping from Maptelligent has never been easier! From the initial visualizing of your indoor map to managing and integrating, Maptelligent has the suite of tools you need to make your indoor map a huge success!
Request a demo and start your indoor map project today with the team at Maptelligent!
