Abstract
Abstract. Indoor mapping is an essential process in several applications such as the visualization of space and its utilization, security and resource planning, emergency planning and location-based alerts and, last but not least, indoor navigation. In this work, a completely free and open-source (FOS) approach to map indoor environments, and to navigate through them, is presented. Our tests were carried out within Sapienza University of Rome public buildings; in detail, Letters and Philosophy faculty and Engineering faculty indoor environments were mapped. To reach this goal, only open source software such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) and open-source platforms like Open Street Map (OSM) and its indoor viewer, Open Level Up (OLU) were adopted. A database of indoor environments of the two faculties, completely compatible with OLU, was created through QGIS. In this way, a public territorial information system of classrooms, offices and laboratories is accessible to everyone who can, hence, add or modify the information, following the principle of crowdsourcing and of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). The developed procedure is now standard and its outputs accepted by the OSM community. Hence, the long-term developments of this project are the proposal for the volunteered and cooperative indoor mapping and design of strategic buildings and infrastructures (hospitals, schools, public offices, shopping centers, stations, airports etc.), starting from the available information (indoor layouts) and knowledge acquired through experience of people who normally work inside them and/or visit them frequently. In this context it is possible to state that the development of VGI for internal maps for strategic buildings, infrastructures and denied GNSS environments, not only supports and improves internal and external navigation without interruption, but can also have a significant positive impact on security and emergency management.
Highlights
Indoor mapping is an essential process in several applications such as the visualization of space and its utilization, security, emergency and resource planning and location-based alerts and, last but not least, indoor navigation (Sonnessa et al, 2020)
Nowadays companies and industries are investing in indoor mapping and positioning: Google (GOOGLE, 2020) and ESRI (ESRI, 2020) are just some of them, but it is important to highlight that these solutions are not open source
The tool developed is based on OpenStreetMap (Open Street Map, 2020), an open source collaborative project aimed at creating free content maps of the world
Summary
Indoor mapping is an essential process in several applications such as the visualization of space and its utilization, security, emergency and resource planning and location-based alerts and, last but not least, indoor navigation (Sonnessa et al, 2020). For these reasons, nowadays companies and industries are investing in indoor mapping and positioning: Google (GOOGLE, 2020) and ESRI (ESRI, 2020) are just some of them, but it is important to highlight that these solutions are not open source. The particular aim is to develop an interactive tool based on open source software; the project can be inserted in the wider context of online cartography. The VGI is the collective development of a project aimed at collecting geospatial information from numerous people outside the entity that conceived the project and who actively participate in it
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