Tag: wayfinding

According to Google, self-service is becoming the new norm – 1 in 3 shoppers use their smartphones to find information instead of asking the store employees. 74% of adult smartphone owners aged 18 and older say that they use their phones to get directions or other information based on their current location. (Source: Pew Internet)

Way finding outdoors is easy, because there are so many different navigation softwares guided by the GPS. But people also need an indoor wayfinding solution because buildings nowadays have become very complicated. There is a great need for a simple indoor wayfinding solution for mobile devices. Therefore we offer 3D Wayfinder mobile app for Android and iOS. Soon it will be available on Windows Phone as well. It helps people to navigate indoors and get the latest deals. It is a tool for retailers to advertise their brand or product on the map. The solution has many benefits:

People move, think and experience the world in three dimensions. The majority of media channels are using 3D technologies to attract people’s attention more and more. Nowadays, 3D has become an icon that is written on many products, even on toothpaste. There it serves a marketing purpose, but in IT sector we can make use of it.

One Estonian company, called 3D Technologies R&D has developed the first wayfinding software using WebGL. The company calls themselves a WebGL pioneers, because this technology is in its baby shoes. Most solutions that you can find at this point are usually object demos or games. They may be cool, but not practical. However, 3D Wayfinder is a very practical solution. It is a web-based service for creating building directories for large public buildings.

What is WebGL?

WebGL (Web Graphics Library) in its most basic level is a graphics library that allows us to create real-time rendered interactive 3D graphics inside browser, so it is browser-based. With it, you can experience rich 3D content within any compatible web browser, without installing additional plugin. Most modern browsers support WebGL technology to deliver hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. The HTML5 and WebGL platform allow direct access to the graphics card. That means much faster load times and smoother operation on PC and on mobile devices. According to the WebGL stats, we can show you some statistics about supported desktops and mobile browsers. Data is assembled from over 15 million visits on more than 615 participating sites over the last 60 days.

Source: http://webglstats.com/

As we can see from the diagrams, almost ¾ of the personal computer users, who have visited WebGL participating sites, use browsers that support that graphics library. Mobile devices percentage is low, but it is increasing on daily basis as more power is put under the hood.

WebGL Advantages

WebGL is the best solution enabling to display 3D content on every browser and platform. It is plug-in free, memory management is handled automatically and, it is royalty free web standard for low-level 3D graphics. WebGL is supported in most of the operating systems (Windows Vista or later, Mac OS 10.6 or later, Linux and Chrome OS) and browsers. Unlike other 3D graphics technologies, such as Unity 3D, Flash.

WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composites. This enables to design and integrate according to personal needs in combination with other technologies and content. It all together offers endless possibilities for designers and developers.

3D indoor wayfinding software

3D Technologies R&D created FRAK engine to ease up the 3D content development process. FRAK is a JavaScript 3D engine for creating interactive 3D applications. With this engine, you will have the power to build the next generation application. WebGL and the power of HTML5 gives cool designing and functionality opportunities for the future projects.

Today we are presenting 3D Wayfinder at Hospitality Technology Day in Meriton Grand Conference & Spa Hotel.

It’s a first time event specialized on introducing the possibilities of Digital Signage in hospitality sector.

Where is people there’s always a question of orientating – 3DWayfinder for hotels and spa’s.

3D Technologies R&D presented it’s 3D Wayfinder software at Rock IT Con 2013 fair from 24-25 of August. It was a first time event specialized on bringing together IT companies from Russia and Estonia. Our software got a lot of attraction by many companies and also by visitors from the street. We had a good opportunity to present some of our projects on our partners ML Novator’s kiosk.

It’s so fresh that its even warm yet. All you Android users can download the Lõunakeskus wayfinding application from Google Play.

Excuse us iPhone users but Apple makes his own rules and you have to wait at least 24 h.

We have created a Google+ page for 3D Wayfinder to get You a better way to get up to date  information about 3D Wayfinder, indoor navigation, building directories and digital architecture related news. Please go and follow us or +1 our posts.

After finishing WebGL version of 3DWayfinder software we are planning to create one very useful tool for administrating the content. This is Map Generator, which enables users to create and change 3D maps by themselves. Hopefully this tool will be ready to use from third quarter of 2013.

More and more shopping centers are using 3D maps to provide indoor navigation to their visitors in Norway.

Bergen Shopping Centre, Strømgt. 8, 5015 Bergen, Norway

City Nord, Stormyra, 8008 Bodø, Norway

Our reseller in Norway, Easy Touch AS has delivered our wayfinding solution for Jekta Storsenter.

Our very first project in Norway, Farmandstredet shopping center is now launched.  The map is very beautiful and intuitive. This is the first portrait layout for 3D Wayfinder with a custom alphabetical shop directory.