Tag: wayfinder mobile integration

What if you lose your car in parking house? It might have happened to anybody and it is not a pleasant discovery. But with wayfinding software these kinds of situations can be avoided. Look up your car on wayfinding map or by your car number – no more hassles and another good reason to use wayfinding software in large buildings.

Losing your car in a parking house can be a frustrating experience and make you really anxious. It’s a scenario that many people can relate to, especially in large, multi-level parking structures where rows upon rows of vehicles can seem to blend together. Lately we have completed many wayfinder projects with features for looking up parked cars. There are different options for this and below we will give short overview.

Easiest solution is to use QR-codes near each parking space or area. By scanning the QR code user will initialize 3D Wayfinder with right place on map (where the car was parked). This is kept in mobile browser cache, so the Wayfinder maps don’t even have to be kept opened. Next time user opens Wayfinder application, all they have to do is press a shortcut pointing to parked car and directions can be automatically displayed to get to their car. QR-codes are easy to print and 3D Wayfinder provides option to get printable QR-codes from 3D Wayfinder administration panel.

More advanced way is to integrate wayfinding software with camera software that automatically detects all car numbers. In case visitor forgets where the car is parked, all they need to do is to open wayfinding application on touchscreen kiosk or mobile application and enter the car number.

3D Wayfinder can be easily integrated to any software that supports communication over web-based protocols. We have integrated 3D Wayfinder with Park Assist and by just looking up the car in parking house, visitors can also see the route to the right place.

To learn more about parking place options with 3D Wayfinder, please contact our sales team.

Having a wayfinding solution, for any type of establishment, is a sure way to take the visitors’ experience to a new level. Wayfinding allows people to save time and reduce stress by making navigating easy. You can get acquainted with the building and find the fastest routes. At a time of a pandemic, wayfinding also makes things safer. However there is so much more that 3D Wayfinder has to offer withour integrated solutions! For instance, let’s talk about wayfinding advertisement.

Making Full Use of Your Platform

When choosing 3D Wayfinder, you have a choice between an on-site kiosk solution, mobile application or a website integration. Or all of them! It is our view, that once you’ve chosen to have a wayfinding solution for your venue, it is silly not to apply it to it’s full potential. The two main benefits of wayfinding advertising are making the visitors’ experience more pleasant and getting a return on your investment.

Making Shopping Easier

The most obvious way to use wayfinding advertising is through banner ads displaying videos, images or animations. But we can create even more useful solutions.

For example, imagine just going shopping without a specific item to buy in your mind. You check the nearby kiosk to see what stores there are in the center. The intuitive 3D model and building directory will give you an understanding of the building, but in addition to that, the shops with an ongoing sale are highlighted. It is also possible to develop an option to search for specific items in the mall or to browse all the items on sale. You can also give high priority stores a leg up by displaying their items first.

Another clever way to notify customers is through indoor positioning and mobile apps. As the customer is moving through the venue the mobile app can send them notifications about sales in stores that they’re passing. If the app has more detailed information about the user, like age, gender or interests, it can send out even better targeted notifications.

In conclusion, there are nearly endless ways to further integrate our wayfinding and venue management solutions into your enterprise. These innovations allow you to save money and streamline your operations. In addition the upgraded customer experience will surely keep people coming back!

To find out more you can contact us here or apply for a quote here!

Now it is possible to order indoor positioning demo application. For demo we will send you required amount of iBeacons devices and create custom 2D or 3D floor plan. With 3D Wayfinder mobile application it is possible to see indoor positioning with wayfinding functionality.

iBeacons are Bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices that can broadcast their identifier to nearby portable electronic devices such as mobile phones or tablets. Also iBeacons don’t cost much and their batteries can last over year which makes them perfect for indoor positioning.

We can provide you with a custom demo map with pre-installed iBeacon locations. We will also send beacons for the demo floor plan, usually 3-6 is enough for a 1-2 room demo.  

By installing 3D Wayfinder mobile app, you can test and see iBeacon-based positioning on your real building. To order demo map with beacons, please fill the request form.

Read more about 3D Wayfinder mobile app, iBeacons and indoor positioning.

There are lots of different wayfinding software and it might be difficult to decide which solution to pick. We have used our experience and gathered some suggestions that will help you choose the best wayfinding application.

Over all the best wayfinding software application is always the one that adapts exactly to your specific needs. Having more options and can help to cater this.

Best Wayfinding software should be..

Wayfinding application should be easily integrated with other applications. One of the most common integration is showing social media content in wayfinding applications. As shopping malls and other public building usually have their news already on Twitter, they would like to include the news feed also in wayfinding.

Have a look at our wayfinding possibilities here.

You can choose to buy the product and do all the hosting and managing yourself. Or you can pay for this service. In that case make sure how much you can control the app once it’s up and running. Are you able to change the opening and closing times yourself? Can you add a new location and generate a path way? Or do you need to contact the company for every little change.

Look and feel customization is also something that should be provided. Choosing from existing templates is more cost effective than custom designs but even then it should be possible to change the basic things like the font, it’s size and colors.

Nowadays you can pretty much always choose between 2D or 3D maps. 3D maps are effective and showy on the screen, but it could be costly and time consuming if you want to change the location of the kiosk. The best wayfinding software should provide the option to use both.

You should also check how accurate and detailed the maps are going to be. Although the best way to ensure accuracy is to provide correct data yourself.

Even if you want to use only information kiosks in the beginning, it never hurts to be prepared. If you choose the application that is also mobile friendly, it will save time and money in the future.

Indoor positioning and navigation

The indoor positioning and navigation ability is a must while using the wayfinder mobile app. Right now the iBeacon technology, that uses smartphone’s Bluetooth connection seems to be the most reliable one. Navigation system can also use WiFi networks but it is cost effective only in places like big malls, where every shop already has their own network.

When visitors are searching for something, targeted ads are most impactful. Customers can be attracted by giving out coupons, offering special deals, providing additional information. While nobody is using the information kiosk for wayfinding, the whole screen could be used to display ads.

And last but not least, the pricing. Make sure to find out beforehand what are you going to pay for. For example: will it cost more when you want to add another kiosk later?

There are some other questions you should ask:

Can you use the app online?

Is multiple language support provided?

Can the specific routes for disabled access be displayed?

Will the app collect user data for statistics?

To find the answers to these questions contact: info@3dwayfinder.com.

Have a nice summer,

3D Wayfinder Team

The development of our new 3D Wayfinder mobile applications for Android and IOS is in the final stages. It will be available in a short time. You will be able to create 3D Wayfinder applications for your venues and enable the download for people that will make it easy to find the way.

The app is based on the popular Ionic framework (Web based). Ionic is a very easy to setup and customizable mobile app framework. It uses AngularJS and Cordova. We will OpenSource the application source code so you can make Your own version.
We will also add Geolocation and iBeacon based positioning support in the near future.

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.

We have published overview of integration possibilities with other software. Also short description of 3D Wayfinder application server architecture.

3D Wayfinder is fully web-based wayfinding solution, with modular architecture, customizable templates and powerful Javascript API.  Read more about integrating wayfinding with other software, including digital signage and social media plugins.