Finding Stuff Indoors

05/16/24 • 49 min

1 Listener

The MapScaping Podcast - GIS, Geospatial, Remote Sensing, earth observation and digital geography

Mappedin started as a school project and evolved into a leading indoor mapping company, working with malls, airports, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies.

You guessed, today's podcast is all about indoor mapping, why it's hard, what are the use cases driving it, what the state of the art looks like today and what we can expect in the future.

Key points discussed include:

1. **The Challenge of Indoor Mapping**: Unlike outdoor mapping, indoor environments are complex due to the density of objects and frequent changes. Moreover, indoor spaces are mostly private property, making it difficult to collect data comprehensively.

2. **Importance of Indoor Maps**: Despite the challenges, the need for indoor maps is growing. Applications range from wayfinding in malls and airports to optimizing logistics in warehouses and creating better guest experiences in various venues.

3. **Mappedins's Approach**: enabling non-experts to create and maintain indoor maps. Their tools are designed for everyday users, allowing them to update maps as easily as they would a document in Google Docs.

4. **Technological Advances**: While technologies like LiDAR and digital twins offer detailed 3D models, are they really practical? .

5. **Indoor Positioning**: Accurate indoor positioning is crucial for the success of indoor maps, similar to how GPS revolutionized outdoor mapping. However, this remains a challenging area due to signal interference and the complexity of indoor spaces.

6. **Future Outlook**: Digital indoor maps become as ubiquitous as Wi-Fi, providing essential data for various applications and improving overall user experience ... but we are not there yet!

Try Mappedin for yourself https://www.mappedin.com/

or connect with Hongwei here https://www.linkedin.com/in/hongweil/

Recommended Listening

Where does the blue dot come from ( how Google knows your location )

Hyper Accurate Indoor Location

Using the Geomagnetic fields of buildings to navigate indoors

I am working on a new project https://quickmaptools.com/ and would really appreciate some feedback!

Mappedin started as a school project and evolved into a leading indoor mapping company, working with malls, airports, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies.

You guessed, today's podcast is all about indoor mapping, why it's hard, what are the use cases driving it, what the state of the art looks like today and what we can expect in the future.

Key points discussed include:

4. **Technological Advances**: While technologies like LiDAR and digital twins offer detailed 3D models, are they really practical? .

6. **Future Outlook**: Digital indoor maps become as ubiquitous as Wi-Fi, providing essential data for various applications and improving overall user experience ... but we are not there yet!

Try Mappedin for yourself https://www.mappedin.com/

or connect with Hongwei here https://www.linkedin.com/in/hongweil/

Recommended Listening

Where does the blue dot come from ( how Google knows your location )

Hyper Accurate Indoor Location

Using the Geomagnetic fields of buildings to navigate indoors

I am working on a new project https://quickmaptools.com/ and would really appreciate some feedback!

Previous Episode

What is humanitarian GIS?

Hugo Powell, from immap.org shares his expert insights on how GIS technologies are leveraged to analyze data, visualize scenarios, and facilitate rapid decision-making during emergencies.

Here are the key tools mentioned:

1. **Kobo Toolbox**: An open-source tool used for data collection in humanitarian contexts. Kobo Toolbox allows for both quantitative and qualitative data collection and is operational offline, which is crucial in areas with limited internet connectivity. It supports geospatial data collection and can be used for needs assessments in settings like refugee camps.

2. **ODK Collect**: Similar to Kobo Toolbox, ODK Collect is an open-source mobile application used for field data collection. It is widely used in humanitarian efforts for its ease of use and the capability to work offline.

3. **QGIS**: A free and open-source geographic information system used for viewing, editing, and analyzing geospatial data. Hugo notes that QGIS is core for mapping and data analysis in humanitarian operations.

4. **Tableau and Power BI**: Business intelligence tools mentioned for their use in analyzing and visualizing data. These tools help in making data-driven decisions during humanitarian operations.

5. **Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)**: An open platform for sharing data across crises and organizations, which helps in avoiding duplication of efforts and enhances coordination among humanitarian actors.

6. **Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)**: Provides crowdsourced geospatial data which is extremely valuable in humanitarian settings for its accuracy and timeliness.

7. **Esri’s Living Atlas and other Esri tools**: While not open-source, Esri’s tools are sometimes used for their comprehensive geospatial data, particularly in natural disaster contexts like earthquakes.

8. **Humanitarian Spatial Data Center**: Managed by IMAP, this tool aggregates and processes data, providing access to data, analytics, and visualization tools all in one place. It has been particularly successful in deployments like Afghanistan.

This episode was sponsored by scribblemaps.com

https://youtu.be/CDkG9eS6H2M

Recommended Listening

Geospatial Support For Humanitarian Emergencies

A Self-Contained Environment For Open-Source Geospatial Tools

GGIS Offline And In The Field

The Business Of Web Maps

Peer to Peer Mapping And Digital Democracy

I am working on a new project over at QuickMapTools.com

and any feedback is really appreciated!

Next Episode

GeoParquet For Beginners

Cloud-native geospatial, range requests, chucks, COGs and COPCs ... [ insert confusing acronym here ]

Sometimes It feels like we need to learn a whole new vocabulary and if you have been doing #geo for a while you might be wondering how much of this is actually going to impact me. What bits of this are the ones that I need to know about?

I don’t think that anyone is going to be talking about cloud native in 10 years, in the same way, no one talks about digital cartography or computer analysis because where else would you do your cartography? And how else would you do your analysis?

Maybe the names won’t be as important but the concepts will and while this episode is focused on Geoparquet it does so within the context of cloud-native geospatial - and this concept is not going away!

You can connect with Kyle Barron here https://x.com/kylebarron2 or here https://kylebarron.dev/

If you want to learn more about cloud-native geospatial I can highly recommend these episodes

https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-optimized-point-clouds/

https://mapscaping.com/podcast/introduction-to-cloud-native-geospatial/

https://mapscaping.com/podcast/planet-scale-tiled-maps-without-a-server/

https://mapscaping.com/podcast/what-is-modern-gis/

https://mapscaping.com/podcast/the-planetary-computer/

I am working on a new project called https://quickmaptools.com/ like the name suggests it is a bunch of browser-based map tools. So far we have created several different conversion tools and will continue to add more to the list. Check it and let me know what you think!