Steerpath map creation tutorial and reference

Transcription

1 Steerpath map creation tutorial and reference How to create a DXF floor plan for Steerpath

2 Table of contents Getting started Overview of steps Optional steps Layers Blocks Steps to create a map Step 1. Add a reference image Step 2. Mark area where users can and cannot go Step 3. Mark coordinate reference points Step 4. Add walls Step 5. Add beacons Step 6. Upload to sdk.steerpath.com Detailed element reference Walls Positioning Beacons Map Zones (aka geofences) Keepouts Keepouts and walls SteerpathWorldCoordinate Navigation routes Custom background image for widget Beacon zones Known limitations

3 Getting started The aim of this tutorial is to instruct you in drawing your first map for indoor positioning and navigation for use with Steerpath. The map is created using a CAD tool such as AutoCAD or DraftSight. You can also get an initial version of a map drawn by Nimble Devices, please contact support@nimbledevices.com with an image of your floor plan and the two points marked with GPS coordinates. Overview of steps 1. Set a reference image as a background 2. Mark the area where people can or cannot go 3. Set two reference points in world coordinates (gps anchor points) 4. Add walls as simple lines 5. Add beacons to enable the positioning 6. Upload to sdk.steerpath.com as a.dxf (2013 ASCII DXF preferred). You will get an e mail when your positioning file (NDD) has been generated or a link to an error report if any problems were detected. Optional steps 1. Add geofence zones 2. Add routes and points of interest 3. Add beacon zones, a.k.a. movable zones. 4. Add custom image for the widget Download an example from here: You can use it as a reference guide when designing your floor plan.

4 Layers The typical way to separate different types of content from each other is to have them on separate layers. The layer name tells what the contents of that layer can represent. Following the correct naming scheme is important when naming the layers. Custom naming schemes can be supported in the case of existing CAD files, please contact for further information. The default naming scheme follows the syntax below: floor [floor number] [layer type] floor number Used for calculating the altitude the user is. Ground floor is 0. layer type Type of the layer. Can be for example walls or beacons. See more information in the next section For example a layer for walls on the first floor would be called floor 1 walls. Further examples can be seen in the screenshot below: Using the layer manager you can add the new layers, name them and hide them when needed.

5 You can add multiple floors or levels and snap them into place on top of one another. The map data consists of different information sources which are marked on separate layers in the DXF file. Some of the layers are mandatory and some are optional.

6 Blocks Blocks in a CAD tool are re usable elements and they can have pre defined properties attached to them. With Steerpath, block elements are used to add information to the map. Example of blocks are for example SteerpathNaviBeacon that marks the locations of Bluetooth beacons used for positioning and SteerpathWorldCoordinate that anchors the map to GPS coordinates. You can download the blocks from CAD blocks

7 Steps to create a map 1. Set a reference image as a background 2. Mark the area where people can or cannot go on this floor. 3. Set two reference points in world coordinates (gps anchor points) 4. Add walls as simple lines 5. Add beacons to enable the positioning 6. Upload to sdk.steerpath.com as Save as DXF (2013 ASCII DXF preferred). Step 1. Add a reference image First step in starting to create your own indoor maps is to upload a picture of the floorplan as a reference. This allows accurate placement of walls, beacons, trigger zones etc. on the map. If possible please use a floorplan that includes markers which are visible to outside of the building. Most commonly this is the outer walls of the building. These make it easier to place the required two world coordinate reference points on the map. Insert a reference image (the size doesn't really matter). Insert Reference Image... Once you have selected the reference image you want to use, please check that you have selected Insertion point and Scale to have Specify later checked. Please also select Path type to be relative. After clicking OK you need to click with the mouse a place where one of the corners of the image is and then set the scale of the image by dragging it.

8 Your picture will appear as a background. You can use it as a reference for drawing walls and zones. If you want to use the reference image also as the background image for the map widget, please place the background image into layer with name floor [floor #] image. If you do create the layer with this name, the map background image is automatically created by the system running in sdk.steerpath.com when you create the NDD file.

9 Step 2. Mark area where users can and cannot go Create a layer called floor X keepouts. Set the line color to green to indicate an allowed area Draw the outline of the area for which you want to enable positioning. Optional: Mark any areas where the user cannot go such as maintenance areas or restricted areas. This is done by setting the color to red. Keepouts with and without reference image as background

10 Step 3. Mark coordinate reference points Add block SteerpathWorldCoordinate Place the block and set its latitude, longitude and altitude. Repeat steps for the second reference point. Different floors are aligned on top of each other based on the coordinates. When the user s position estimate is more likely to be on a different floor, the floor / altitude switches.

11 Step 4. Add walls Select the polyline tool Trace the walls from the reference image Leave the doors as gaps in the wall Mark windows as walls. Walls shown with and without reference image

12 Step 5. Add beacons Add a block of type SteerpathNaviBeacon Place the block Set the data Major: The major id of the beacon Minor: The minor id of the beacon Height: The installation height of the beacon. For ceilings this is typically around 2.5m. RSSI1m: A beacon vendor and transmit power specific calibration value or what the received signal strength from the beacon is at a distance of 1m. Typically: Transmitting 0 dbm, rssi at 1m is 55dBm. Transmitting at 12dBm, rssi at 1m is at 67. Setting a correct value for rssi at 1m is critical for good positioning. If in doubt, send your beacon info to support@nimbledevices.com.

13 Step 6. Upload to sdk.steerpath.com 1. Go to and create your account. 2. Go to Venues 3. Create new venue by giving it a name and selecting the right DXF file. Please make sure that the DXF file is saved in R2013 ASCII format. To create the new venue click the Create Development Site button.

14 4. The system will start to analyse the DXF that you uploaded. You can check the status of the processing by clicking at the Go to latest build. You will also get notification when the map processing has finished or if any errors were found during the processing. The analysis and processing of the map data can take from 1 min to an hour depending on the venue size and the amount of beacons used for positioning.

15 Detailed element reference Walls Layer: floor [floor number] walls Elements: Lines, polylines The wall layers contain information about the position and material of the walls in each floor. Marking the walls allows for: Highly improved position accuracy Walls visible in the map widget Easier to place beacons on the correct places Drawing the walls requires that you have an image of your floorplan as background image. Please import one by clicking Insert > Reference image in DraftSight. Preferably insert the background image in a separate layer so that it is easy to hide it when you finish drawing the walls layer. Implementation requirements: Use the Polyline or line drawing tool to mark the walls. Walls are considered as an obstacle that cannot be walked through. So if you place a wall on the map, please be sure that the wall or furniture is not something that can change places easily.otherwise the positioning model will work properly. If a construction can change place, it is better to leave it unmarked. Attribute Type Format Definition material Optional String Define the material of the wall. By default the walls are assumed to be light indoor walls. In case you have a a large construction of a different wall material such as enforced concrete, you can mark the wall segments with this attribute and select the closest match from the material list below: Wall type Light office wall (gyproc, glass, wood) Supporting wall: material light (default) heavy

16 (Enforced concrete, firewall etc.) obstruction, space divider, furniture air Example: material=light

17 Positioning Beacons Element: SteerpathNaviBeacon block Suggested layer: floor [floor number] beacons The beacon layer contains the locations of the positioning beacons of each floor. Steerpath supports multiple advertisement packet formats as source of positioning information. Please remember to set the UUID of the ibeacons to the Steerpath library. Attribute Type Definition major number ibeacon major id. minor number ibeacon minor id. rssi1m number Received signal strength measured at 1m distance from the beacon. This value is affected by the transmit power and model of the beacon used. Please contact for assistance in selecting this value unless the configuration you are using is found from the list below: Vendor / Model TX power rssi1m SNF Extended 0dBm 55 SNF Extended 12dBm 67 height number Installation height of the beacon in meters measured from the floor in meters. Please note that the decimal separator is the period. symbol. Example: 3.0

18 Map Zones (aka geofences) Layer name: floor [floor number] zones Supported elements: Polyline, Rect, SteerpathMapZoneInfo With the zones layer type it is possible to define areas on the map that will raise an event when user either enters or exits the area. The zones can be nested so it is possible to have a zone called floor 1 and inside that meeting room 134. Each zone should be tagged with a SteerpathMapZoneInfo block illustrated Implementation requirements: Use the Polyline drawing tool to mark the zones Zones need to be closed polygons. In practise this means that the Polyline starting point and endpoint are the same point. Tip: have the ESnap in DraftSight enabled to make sure that the polygon is closed (see the picture below) Name the zones with Block SteerpathBeaconZone. Please see image below how the block can be used to indicate a zone Attribute Type Format Definition name recommende d string Gives a name for the zone. The name is given as part of the on entry / on exit event. If the name is not set, please specify the id attribute. Whitespaces are supported. Please note that you cannot use the semicolon since it is used as a delimiter between attributes. Example: name=meeting room 134

19 Keepouts Layer name: floor [floor number] keepouts Supported elements: Polyline, Rect Implementation requirements: Use the Polyline or rect drawing tool to mark the zones. Keepouts need to be closed polygons. In practise this means that the Polyline starting point and endpoint are the same point. Tip: have the ESnap in DraftSight enabled to make sure that the polygon is closed (see the picture at the end of this section) Do not use the plain Line tool as this doesn t create a closed polygon. With the keepouts layer type it is possible to define areas on the map that are either accessible or non accessible. By defining areas where the used cannot be, one can improve the position estimate accuracy and remove possibility for the initial position estimate to exist in impossible area. Typical areas to remove are outdoors (areas outside the building), facility rooms, staff only areas, large indoor halls that span to multiple floors etc. The keepouts can be nested but they cannot intersect. There are two types of keepout zones: green which represent areas that are allowed and red that mark the areas where user cannot be, thus no position estimates are placed on red areas. When nesting the keepouts, the inner zone must be different than the parent zone. In a typical scenario, one would make a green allowed zone that would follow the outer walls of the floor. Then inside that green area that now surrounds the floor it is possible to exclude areas by drawing a red polygon. Keepouts and walls The difference between walls and keepouts is that a keepout is an area within which the user s position estimate will not be placed, while walls are lines which the estimate will not cross. Also walls affect the beacon signal while keepouts do not. If you have a room with 4 walls and no doors, the initial position estimate may guess that you are inside the room. However if the room is also a keepout area, the position estimate will never be placed inside the room.

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21 SteerpathWorldCoordinate Element: SteerpathWorldCoordinate Suggested layer name: floor [floor number] gps With GPS layer the map data is tied to GPS coordinates from two points. Using these points the system will automatically scale and rotate all objects so that align with real world. Map generation will not succeed without these two anchor points. Attribute Format Definition latitude float Latitude of this point in world coordinates (GPS coordinate) Example: longitude float Longitude of this point in world coordinates (GPS coordinate) Example: altitude float Altitude of this floor from the ground in meters. Example: 16.0

22 Navigation routes Layer name: floor [floor number] routes Supported elements: Polyline (route), SteerpathPOI (destination), To enable indoor navigation you need to add Points of Interest (POI) on the map. The POIs are marked with an circle where the center of the circle indicates the exact location of the POI. In order to find your way to the destination (POI), there needs to be a route between where you are now and where the destination is. The set of available routes is drawn on the map using polylines. Please make sure that the graph is fully connected so that the destinations are linked together by the polylines. The navigation algorithm uses the route lines to calculate the shortest route to your destination.this is why it is important to have routes also in those areas where there are no destinations defined, otherwise navigation will not find any suitable route. The destinations support having multiple keywords. One destination can have keywords meeting room and room 321. The application can then request a route to meeting room. The library will return route to the closest destination that has meeting room in its set of keywords. Tips: Make sure that the routes are interconnected. Tip: to make sure that the polylines are joined, use ESnap or snap to grid enabled in DraftSight. This setting can be found at the bottom of the draft sight application and looks like this: The destination (POI) is connected to the route graph by making sure that the polyline has a shared point with the circle s center point. For making sure this happens, please have the ESnap enabled.

23 POI attributes Attribute Format Definition name keywords Comma separated list of strings List of keywords that can be used for routing to this destination. Example: keywords=room1,meeting room

24 Custom background image for widget To get the map visuals into the map widget you have two options. By default, the map background is generated from the CAD information (walls, zones and floor number). The advantages of this method is that you will always have up to date visualisation of your map and you don t need to have graphical artist to create the map visuals. If you want to use the custom background image for the map widget, it can be achieved by doing the following two steps below: 1. Put the reference image into layer named floor [floor number] image For example for the ground floor the layer name would be: floor 0 image 2. Upload the reference images into your venue map project in Click the venue name to get into the individual venue s homepage Add the reference images as resource files. Please make sure that the name of the reference image that you upload as resource file has not changed since you imported into CAD No every new version of the NDD that you generate will have the resource files included

25 Beacon zones Layer name: movable zones Supported elements: Circle Movable zones are essentially ibeacons that work both on ios and Android. You can associate the same kind of trigger names as you can with normal zones (geofences). It is possible to assign multiple zones per beacon. Movable zone (circle) attributes Attribute Format Definition name string Gives a name for the zone. The name is given as part of the on entry / on exit event. If the name is not set, please specify the id attribute. Whitespaces are supported. Please note that you cannot use semicolon since it is used as a delimiter between attributes. major integer ibeacon major id. minor integer ibeacon minor id. Example: name=meeting room 134 distance_in distance_out float or string Defines the radius of the trigger zone. Radius can be defined either in meters or using ibeacon zone names. The distance is defined in meters using a float number. Please note that the distance estimate relies on rssi1m attribute is set correctly. Example: distance=2.0 rssi1m integer Received signal strength measured at 1m distance from the beacon. This value is affected by the transmit power and model of the beacon used. Please contact support@nimbledevices.com for assistance in selecting this value unless the configuration you are using is found from the list below: Vendor / Model TX power rssi1m SNF Extended 0dBm 55

26 SNF Extended 12dBm 67 Example : rssi1m= 55 dwell_in float How many seconds user must have stayed inside the zone before enter event is thrown. Supported in SDK versions 2.1 and newer. dwell_out float How many seconds user must have stayed outside the zone before exit event is thrown. Supported in SDK versions 2.1 and newer.

27 Known limitations Walls cannot contain curves, arcs, circles etc. Geofence zones cannot be circles or arcs.

28 Turning on all the layers will end up looking something like this.