ADVICE & OPINION
INDOOR MAPPING
FMJ AIMS TO SUPPORT TECHNICAL EXPERTISE IN THE FM MARKET
Developments in digital mapping are allowing universities to make buildings smarter
and introduce new e ciencies in how they operate. Dr Addy Pope, Higher Education
Manager at Esri UK, examines the growth of indoor mapping in higher education
Landscapes, cities and buildings
have long been digitally mapped,
allowing better decisions to be
made about how they are managed.
But now mapping is moving inside
the buildings themselves. From
campuses to o ices, airports to
hospitals, indoor mapping gives users
an interactive, real-time operational
view of any indoor space. Challenged
to achieve more with less, indoor
mapping is now helping university
estates and facility managers tackle
rising costs, optimise space usage and
streamline maintenance tasks.
WHY DO WE NEED INDOOR
MAPPING?
Traditionally, estates managers have
relied on CAD drawings (computer-aided
design) to depict building interiors or
route contractors to where work needs
to be done. Yet these static illustrations
have limitations and o en don’t reflect
the current situation. Firstly, it’s hard to
share this data, whether it’s analogue
drawings or trying to share a digital 3D
model with sta who do not have the
specialist so ware required to view it.
O en, CAD images also reflect the
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design and not the real-world building,
which might have been altered since
construction, while looking at di erent
floors can mean having to view di erent
drawings in di erent formats. These
factors present a challenge when
locating rooms, assets and making
the best use of space and it’s di icult
to query the data and make it truly
operational for day-to-day use.
INDOOR INTELLIGENCE
Primarily used for facility, estates or
building management, indoor mapping
gives an instant understanding of an
indoor environment, capturing and
visualising any type of information in a
digital interactive map, from floorplans,
rooms and spaces, to maintenance,
HVAC and IoT sensor data. But it can
also visualise people to improve
wayfinding and navigation within a
university, or help to find important
assets more quickly.
Some users are benefitting from
bringing their BIM (Building Information
Modelling) and CAD data into an indoor
mapping environment because it gives
a complete situational awareness of
an entire site. This means they now
have the context of a building’s
surrounding environment, plus
the macro level interior detail of a
building, down to individual floors,
rooms and spaces. CAFM (Computer
Aided Facilities Management) systems
and FM databases can also be linked
to indoor mapping, to make building
management even more seamless and
connected.
Indoor mapping can help optimise
space and capacity planning, or
the allocation of rooms and desk
reservations. It can also monitor
the health of a building to ensure
sta and students are in a safe and
productive environment. Any type of
sensor data can feed into an indoor
map, giving sta a 3D interactive view
into how well a space is performing
against carbon emissions or energy
consumption targets, or humidity,
carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide
levels, or other factors such as noise
pollution.
WHERE AM I?
To have truly e ective location
intelligence inside, people also need
to know their current location and see
relationships between sta and assets
that are moving in space and time.
Demand is starting to grow for mobile
maps that show an individual their
precise location inside a building.
When indoor mapping is linked to
maintenance systems for example,
sta gain improved work order visibility
and greater accountability. By showing
and sharing the location of problems
and directing maintenance teams or
contractors to those jobs, via maps on
their mobile phones, workflows become
more streamlined. Knowing where
your workforce is inside a building also
improves collaboration, safety and
workforce management overall.
This is where IPS or ‘Indoor Positioning
System’ technology is starting to prove
invaluable as GPS-enabled mobile
phones lose their accuracy indoors.
IPS systems are needed to provide
indoor navigation and wayfinding
capabilities, which use a combination
of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons to give
the accuracy required. In a similar way
to GPS outdoors, they place a blue
dot on indoor maps to show users
where they are and allow real-time
indoor navigation, location sharing and
tracking.
COMMON OPERATING PICTURE
Trailblazers in this market include the
University of Oxford, which recently
upgraded its estates management
processes with a new indoor mapping
system, providing more e icient
methods of maintaining asset data and
how it charges university departments
and other tenants for the space they
use. O ering easy access to property
and interiors data across 300+ buildings
and 35,000 spaces, the new solution
combines over 2,000 floorplans into a
single interactive map.
Another innovative example can be
found at the University of Edinburgh,
who are exploring how the concept of
indoor mapping can promote active
travel across campus, help students
find quiet study space, measure green
infrastructure and visualise energy
consumption.
Just as with outdoor mapping,
everything that happens in a building
is tied to a location and bringing it all
together in one map makes sense.
Ultimately, indoor mapping provides a
common operating picture for university
sta , giving them a better understanding
of their estates so they can manage
them more e iciently.
FAST FACTS