Tag: 2D map design

3D Wayfinder supports now GLTF for 3D floorplans and SVG for 2D floorplans. This provides new features and better-looking maps.

Now there is a support for new 3D model format GLTF for 3D maps and also integrated support for SVG (vector-based images) for 2D maps. GLTF enables smaller files size and new possibilities to make 3D maps better-looking. SVG at the same time makes 2D map creation easier, as SVG is vector-based format. This allows to upload maps with mark ceilings or areas (by SVG polygons). Therefore with our wayfinding software these ceilings can be link with locations and they can be clickable and highlighted.

We will write about SVG benefits in new post also we will provide short tutorials, how to use SVG in 3D Wayfinder. Here we will cover GLTF as this opens up a whole new world for 3D maps.

In the dynamic world of web development, technology is constantly evolving to create richer and more immersive experiences for users. One such innovation that has been making waves is the GLTF (Graphics Library Transmission Format) format for 3D. GLTF is changing the game by enabling efficient and seamless integration of 3D graphics into web applications, paving the way for a new era of interactive and visually stunning online content. Now we have also GLTF support in 3D Wayfinder.

GLTF stands for Graphics Library Transmission Format. GLTF is an open standard file format design to store and exchange 3D scenes and models with the purpose to optimize transmission and rendering across different platforms and devices. The format is Develop by the Khronos Group (same consortium behind widely use standards like OpenGL and Vulkan). The goal of GLT is to remove limitations of existing 3D file formats and enabling efficient delivery of 3D content on the web.

Advantages of GLTF

• Compact File Size: GLTF employs efficient compression techniques to minimize file sizes without compromising on visual quality. This is crucial for web applications, as smaller files ensure faster load times and smoother user experiences. With 3D Wayfinder, it will make loading 3D maps faster. Also, there is no need for converting 3D models, when uploading maps to 3D Wayfinder.

• Ease of Integration: GLTF files are specifically designed to work seamlessly with modern web technologies like WebGL, making it easier for developers to integrate 3D content into their websites without extensive workarounds or plugins.

• Support for PBR: Physically Based Rendering (PBR) is a technique that simulates how light interacts with surfaces in the real world. GLTF supports PBR, allowing for highly realistic and visually captivating 3D graphics.

• Animations and Interactivity: GLTF supports animations and allows developers to define interactive elements within the 3D scene. This capability opens the door to creating engaging interactive experiences that go beyond static visuals.

Please stay tuned, as we will write more about SVG support also in near future.

We are currently developing voice recognition feature for 3D Wayfinder. It will allow visitors to use wayfinding software without using touch-screens. Just say where you would like to go and wayfinder software will show you the way.

Voice recognition is becoming more popular and as the quality recognizing words is becoming better and mobile screens becoming smaller. It would be convenient to use voice orders instead of using touch-screens. Of course, there are privacy issues, as most of the voice recognition is done in servers. But for wayfinding software this is not an issue, as the wayfinding screens are public and nobody will make their private conversations near wayfinding screens.

How voice recognition for wayfinding works?

Let’s say you are looking for closest exit, toilet or just want to get a beer. So you just say “Exit”, “Closest toilet” or “Wayfinder, where can I get beer” and 3D Wayfinder can show you the route.

3D Wayfinder will use keywords and location names for voice recognition, the same way search functionality works. More keywords defined in wayfinder make the vocabulary larger. But definitely there will be AI implement in future. This will give much more possibilities. For example visitors canaska pint of Budweiser without “Budweiser” being entered as a keyword and still get to place where they can buy beer. Might be that the beer is not sold by pint. But at least they can get beer.

We can use languages for voice recognition, that are select in Wayfinder software. Languages can be add under settings in 3D Wayfinder administration panel. If possible, voice recognition can be active for all languages simultaniously. If not, we can use default language for voice recognition without selecting anything. After selecting prefered language wayfinder can switch also language for voice recognition. This depends capabilities of kiosk or touch-screen PC. Also, the challenge is to filter out background noise as wayfinder screens are usually in main entries and places where are more people around.

In future, voice recognition in wayfinding software will be available for all customers. It has to be turn on under settings and it would also require template that allows voice search. We will add this feature to our basic templates. So far, we can implement it in custom templates. So if you order custom template from us, we can also make search by voice available.

We have added CDN support in 3D Wayfinder. CDN makes loading 3D Wayfinder application faster especially outside Europe. Currently it is available only for custom projects, but soon it will be option for all 3D Wayfinder customers.

CDN or Content Delivery Network is a geographically distribute servers that cache content close to end users. A CDN allows for the quick transfer of files, media etc. It works best for static content. In 3D Wayfinder it is basically possible to load all wayfinding content including maps, location data, images, application files etc. CDN is widely used by sites with huge traffic like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.

CDN is currenlty available for 3D Wayfinder custom projects and we have to make manual changes to make it work. We would like to open it for all 3D Wayfinder users, but this will still need some development and testing.

CDN server network copies files to more than 200 locations over world and when the wayfinding application is load, the files will be served from closest server.

During the testings we got loading improvement more than 60%. Lodaing speed was around 6 seconds from CDN compare to 16 seconds from 3D Wayfinder server.

Delivering content over CDN needs static content. This means that the content from databases has to be cached first. For any live-data like positioning or statistics, CDN cannot use. As wayfinding maps don’t change that often, it is easy to make the location information and maps to be as static content. Just after every change in 3D Wayfinder administration panel, the content has to be submit to CDN network also.

If you are already 3D Wayfinder customer and like your wayfinding to be load over CDN, please contact our sales department or your contact person in 3D Wayfinder. We will keep you posted through our blog and let you know when CDN-option will be available for all users in administration panel.

ISE 2023 Expo is probably most important technology expo in Europe. This year it was biggest yet. ISE 2023 attracted 58,107 unique attendees from 155 countries, making 133,606 visits to the show floor. Especially busy was Multi-Technology hall. There we had most fun meeting companies too. Special thanks goes to for citizens of Barcelona. Even with limited English they left to us superb expression. We were pleased that the event was in city where people are kind and helpful for the first time visitors.

ISE 2023 Expo organization

ISE 2023 Expo experience is that was really well organized Expo. There were large halls and easy to access booths. The catering was also very well organized and managed. We saw some very unique solutions. Especially interesting was 4K LED screens with IR touch. Making it suitable to use in interactive digital signage and 2D or 3D wayfinding solutions.

In two days we when we visited expo, we got a lot of positive feedback for our software. Companies were most interested in our 3D maps that we have built for indoor navigation. Some of the companies we visited needs to be highlight also in our blog.

Nice meetings at the event

With representatives of Cisco we quickly found a common topic of conversation. We talked about smart rooms and today’s business environment. We understood in that moment how right our direction has been for years. Also especially happy to see that we have yet to offer more opportunities then international corporations like Cisco can do. This motivates us to keep working hard.

Highly interested meeting we had was with BrightSign. Their digital signage players were interesting that can be potentially used for our software. We talked about to give better hardware tools for our clients. Especially interested us plug and play solution. Also it may be solution for our clients, who have little experience with digital signage and players for interactive screens. If everything goes well then we will have also hardware for our clients that is reliable with good price range.

We also visited booths of Clebex and Telelogos. Both are big IT companies and with very interesting field. They are definitely worth to explore. We started of right a way with productive talks and of course our topic was about potential of 3D Wayfinding. 3D Wayfinder software gives additional tools build powerful business solutions for end-clients!

Interactive displays manufactures at ISE

We got new and interesting knowledge in Chinese display manufacturer HCTek. Interactive displays is what future holds. HCTec is large interactive display manufacturer providing OEM, ODM and OTM solutions. Many well known display brands get their interactive displays from that factory. For us it was important to know what future brings. Talking was very productive and we had good laughs and took picture!

Then we met LED manufacturer AOTO. In our talks we covered many aspects of today digital signage market directions. Also we both agreed that future will be LED. Especially in indoor and outdoor digital signage field. We were also invited to their 30th anniversary celebrations to Happy Hour.

Our sales director Rainer Saar shared his experiences.

In this post, we will introduce different options for designing 3D map. A map mostly serves the task of guiding people, but there are many different ways to design a map. When designing a map, a lot depends on what the map is designed for, which people use it, what kind of user experience they expect and what added value the map should create.

Detailed designing of 3D model

With 3D Wayfinder, you can design your own 3D map, but we also offer a complete solution with several detail levels. One way is to create very detailed designing 3D map. These are models where the textures are precise, so that it looks as real as possible. Such a 3D model is important for advertising apartment buildings, so future residents can get a very accurate idea of ​​their home.

It is not always necessary to create detailed models for the purpose of selling houses or apartments. For example, the building of the University of Applied Sciences in Tallinn has historical value. They wanted to bring a historical feel to the 3D map as well. Therefore, a detailed and realistic model was created for them.

Funway 2D map

A complete opposite to the realistic models are 2D maps. This is a map drawn using the FunWay method, which does not convey a real image, but has a nice design and is understandable to all users.

We have also prepared a detailed 3D model for them, which is much more realistic and the icons on the model are slightly more emphasized.

Simplified map view

Everyone is probably familiar with the feeling of getting lost in a hardware store and spending time for lookinf certain products. We have prepared an interior map for the hardware store in Estonia, by shelves and departments. Pins for products from specific companies have been added to the shelves and departments, which makes it much easier for customers to search for specific products. Creating such a card is quick and easy. For customers, it makes the experience of visiting a hardware store more pleasant.

A similar simplified map is suitable for shopping centers, where different businesses can advertise themselves by the logo attached to the map, and it is much easier for the customer to find the desired location.

Color based design

The designing 3D map can be based on the colors of the website or logo. For example the Kuwait Oil Company hospital map is inspired by the dark blue color of their website and logo.

Similar to the color scheme of the Kuwait hospital, a map has also been created for IdeaPark based in Finland. The color scheme of the IdeaPark shopping center is green, and a map was made for them with the same color scheme.

In addition to 3D models and maps, 3D Wayfinder also offers the option of creating a mobile app. The Ülemiste Center in Estonia has requested such a solution. Clients of the center can use the map application on a personal mobile device. The background of the Ülemiste Center mobile application map is displayed in a dark color to make it more visible on a small screen.

As you have seen, 3D Wayfinder can design very unique looking maps. In addition to the big picture, there are many options for fine tuning. For example, it is possible to choose colors of the ceiling, floor, walls and other similar surfaces. It is also possible to change shapes and colors of the road guidance, shape and color of the adjacent menu and much more. All this affects the user experience and creates value for the branding of the building or company.

We have added a couple of improvements for 2D floor plans, that make uploading 2D floor plan images easier. We are also working on couple of new features. That will make using 2D maps much easier.

3D and 2D maps share the same data in 3D Wayfinder. This is for using 3D and 2D side by side.

As 2D maps will be shown in 3D Wayfinder editor as textures on a plain. There are couple of requirements that have to be filled, like texture shape and size.

2D floor plans

Now we have added automatic texture resizing. So 2D map images don’t need to be square-shaped anymore. The longest side should still be at least 1024 pixels, if its less, the map will be resized to this value.

We will also resize the map to the closest larger power of two when none of the sides is 1024, 2048 or 4096 pixels. The ratio between the sides will stay the same so the map image will not be distorted after resizing.

We require the longest side to be 1024 pixels. But if you want to have a large and good quality map, then uploading an image with 4096 pixel side is a way to go.

2D floor plans are a good start for wayfinding solution since they often already exist, so no extra effort goes into creating a map.

Right now our system allows uploading only raster files like PNG or JPG. Soon we will add new feature which enables uploading vector files like SVG. This means that maps could be zoomed in as much as needed and areas can be made clickable automatically.

We are also working towards the goal that 2D and 3D maps wouldn’t need separate templates anymore. It can be specified in the settings if you want to use the map as 2D or 3D.

This means that in the future it will also be possible to use both maps at the same time. 2D in mobile and 3D in kiosks.

We have tested 3D Wayfinder integration with Digitalsignage.com software. Integrating wayfinding with digital signage media management gives additional purpose for advertising screens.

DigitalSignage.com is created by MediaSignage Inc. It is free digital signage software. Including signage player and media content management. Their software is used in over 200 countries. Since the first release, the software has been installed on hundreds of thousands of PCs.

DigitalSignage.com software is web-based. So it is really easy to use 3D Wayfinder as a part of the media player screen layout. Let’s say, that there are top and bottom advertisement banners on the portrait screen and wayfinding application is set-up on the middle of screen.

Screensaver mode

More advanced integration is switching advertisements with wayfinding application. This is something, we call “screensaver mode” when creating layouts for 3D Wayfinder. With Digital Signage software the simple way is to switch between wayfinding and advertising screen. Digital signage itself lets you create switching timelines, channels and content. We do not go into that much. Because there are plenty of examples in their documentation.

More sophisticated way to change between 2D map and screensaver can accomplish with event and triggers. Under Digitalsignage.com documentation http://docs.digitalsignage.com/ look for remote values. It describes what should be include in your app to be able to send event to their server.

Two functions that are important in 3D Wayfinder events case are ‘onSessionStart’ and ‘onSessionEnd’. They both are used by our statistics module. But if you do not have any need for statistics then you could overwrite these functions.

With signage free version you can use our 2D map with ease. Just include HTML component into your campaign and add link to your project.

From documentation we could find out that signage players HTML component does not support webgl. But according to docs we should be able to get out 3D maps working with Browser component and signage player should be working on windows machine. Browser component is available for enterprise users.

We have recently experimented with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, to see how it can work as media player for digital signage display or wayfinding information kiosk. As a result we can say, it works well with 2D wayfinding maps and with 3D Wayfinder Advertisement Module.

What is Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi is a small credit card sized linux based open source computer. It is equipped with:
– Broadcom 64-bit quad core CPU clocked @ 1.2 GHz,
– 1GB of RAM,
– built-in WLAN and BLE modules,
– HDMI output.

But everything is soldered to the board hence there is no option to upgrade, except for the microSD card. You can also have a nice box for it, so it doesn’t look like a hackers development board.

Compared to other small form factor computers like Intel NUC or Gigabyte BRIX, it is much cheaper. Raspberry Pi with a nice case and microSD card would cost about 50..70 USD. The NUC or BRIX boxes start at 110..130 USD new, and you still need to equip them with a hard drive (SSD/HDD) and memory module(s) (DDR3/DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM) which would cost you about an extra 30 USD for a 32GB SSD and ~25 USD for DDR3 or ~30 USD for DDR4. Totalling up to about 165..190 USD.

Raspberry PI plays in Full HD, so it is not a problem to use large resolution screens.

Enable WebGL

For 3D the Raspberry is still a bit weak and by default it doesn’t have WebGL enabled. To enable WebGL you have to:
1. Open up the terminal application (or command prompt if you prefer to call it that)
2. run command sudo raspi-config
3. navigate to Advanced Options
4. enable GL support.

The GPU on the Raspberry PI 3 Model B doesn’t support floating point textures, so we cannot use transparent textures.

To build wayfinding or digital signage project based on Raspberry Pi you need to use a special linux distribution that opens a browser in full-screen mode instead of the regular desktop interface.

At the same time the kiosk based on Raspberry Pi is quite bullet-proof. There’s no need to worry about excessive power consumption as it actually only consumes about 3.7W under full load and only about 1.4W when playing a FullHD video, which is roughly 10% of the Intel NUCs ~38W while under full system load and ~18W while watching a FullHD video.

It boots up fast from a microSD card which can be easily replaced when it wears out or breaks.

Although remote managing a kiosk that uses a Raspberry Pi can prove to be quite a cumbersome task as you cannot use regular GUI remote management tools like Teamviewer or LogMeIn. The fastest way to remote manage the Raspberry Pi is to use SSH, which is a CLI (Command Line Interface) and this might scare-off most of the users that are not used to poking around via a CLI.

Our sales team can help You to find the best wayfinding solution for You or Your customer. We can help You with creating 3D floorplans, designing a custom template and integrating wayfinding with other software. Now you can request for a 3D Wayfinder demo. 

We have made getting to know our software and our projects even easier for you than before. You can now find the request for a 3D Wayfinder demo button on our homepage.

Exploring 3D Wayfinder with your own resources is the most common way of getting to know our software. But it is even simpler if you ask for a demo and can have an interactive conversation with our people to clear out all the details of your floor plans creation needs and wayfinder requirements.

We will show you the basics you need to get started and will answer all of your questions about the software. During the demo we can also discuss any custom solutions and requests you might have.

We have updated path finding functionality and path calculation. Now it is possible to change the weights of navigation nodes in 3D Wayfinder floor plan editor.

Path-finding application calculates automatically the shortest route from the starting node to the required location. In mobile applications, the Kiosk node can be your position inside the building. With 3D Wayfinder, the shortest route is calculated in a 3 dimensional room. It means the shortest path through all the floors.

Now it is possible to change the weights of the connection nodes. With this wayfinding application calculates optimal route, which doesn’t have to be the shortest. For example when you would like to guide your visitors to use the path inside the building instead of going around the building. Then you can set the weight for outdoor nodes higher. The weight is basically virtual length that will be added to the route, when passing the navigation node with a weight.

To use the weights you have to select the navigation node in 3D Wayfinder floor plan editor and change the node weight from the text box. By default all the weights are 0.

For example lets, say that waiting for the elevator takes usually 3 minutes. Lets assume, that visitors are moving with a speed of 3 km per hour, which is 50 meters per minute. So with waiting the elevator, visitor can pass 150 meters (3*50). If we would like to take account this in path calculation. Then we can add weight of 150 to the navigation node, that is marked as elevator.

Pathfinding functionality comes bundled in an add-on you can order from 3D Wayfinder Administration panel. It is also included in the Pro plan.

Read more about 3D Wayfinder’s path-finding capabilities.