Is Indoor Mapping a Reality?

By Vijay Bansal, Published on: 28th April 2017

It was 9 PM and I was running from one floor to the other in a posh mall in Delhi, quickly glancing through the shops, while passing by, scampering to find a Kid’s Clothing Store. It was my daughter’s birthday the next day and I had promised her a pretty dress as her birthday gift. Unfortunately, I had landed back from an official trip only the same day and in the hectic schedule of the day, completely forgot about my daughter’s dress. After much running around in the mall, at last I saw a small kiosk installed with the floor plan of the mall. I easily navigated through the plan and traced a big children’s clothing store to fulfill my small but very important commitment.

Most people today are at ease of using one or the other ‘Navigation Map’ apps when they travel from one location to another, within or outside the city. However, the increasing complexities and sheer vastness of buildings these days has led to the need of applications which can help you carry ‘indoor building maps’ on your mobiles and assist you to easily navigate within a building premises.

These Indoor maps are created using modern GIS techniques and carry detailed information to help you reach a precise location, may it be exits or entry points, restrooms, restaurants fire exits, or any other part of a building. These maps are an extension to the Road Navigation Maps and operate on the same logic of calculating the path between two locations. This allows you to determine the shortest route between these locations in real time.

These applications serve as your personal navigation assistant and store directories. They help you to navigate from one place to another within a building and save you from getting lost in huge and complex building premises.

With the arrival of indoor mapping technology, such maps are now just a click away on your smart phone.

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