Navigation systems are doing well when it comes to vehicular travel and regular satellite mapping. But when it comes to giving directions indoors their is barely anything. Maybe because for the most part getting to a building is like 70 percent of the process right? But we can get lost inside places. Actually getting lost in some places is much easier than finding where you would like to go and that is far from great. A good navigation system would be helpful for those times too.
Researchers at the Technical University of Munich are running an experiment with creating NAVVIS, and indoor navigation system that uses pictures to give directions. The first navigational route was created by utilizing a trolley, a scanner and a 360 degree scanner. This contraption was then reeled down their main campus’s corridors taking pictures every few seconds and scanning the location as it did so.
With the data gathered by said contraption, they were then able to do 3d mapping of the area using the photos they had taken. Using a app created particularly for NAVVIS anyone going down the corridors, could then take pictures which the system would recognize and overlay directions on.
Though only in it’s experimental phase, NAVVIS is no doubt very promising and in the right hands could have so much potential and it seems it is. The researchers are looking to the future with an open, imaginative and productive mind.
