[Webinar Highlight] Mastering Digital Map Management with Pointr Cloud

Technology

Les Blythe

17/04/2023

To coincide with our launch of Pointr Cloud V8, we hosted a live product demo session to dig deeper into some of the enhanced functionality this adds to our market-leading location platform for smart buildings.

In a journey of indoor mapping, one of the challenges associated with indoor mapping is how to scale quickly and efficiently while keeping maps up-to-date and available for easy integration and customization. We meet this challenge with Pointr's MapScale® - an AI-powered smart mapping solution that can digitize thousands of raw floorplans into user-friendly interactive digital maps.

Other challenges include managing maps and map content, keeping it all updated without redoing everything for minor errors or changes, working on multiple platforms (Web/Mobile: iOS, Android), enabling easy 3rd party integrations on top of existing SDKs, and making customization straightforward.

In the "Mastering digital map management with Pointr Cloud" webinar, you'll discover our answers to all these challenges and more.

Pointr’s smart mapping solutions

Pointr provides a smart end-to-end mapping solution using a combination of:

MapScale® - our map production platform that leverages machine learning algorithms to quickly automate the map conversion process from raw CAD floorplans to user-friendly, interactive digital maps.

Pointr Cloud Dashboard - Pointr's Cloud content management system (CMS) helps users easily create and manage map content in one place without coding knowledge.

Pointr SDK (Software Development Kit) - available for Mobile and Web applications, our SDKs let you roll out map content to your end-users' console or consumer apps without a hassle.

Three aspects of Pointr’s mapping solution were demonstrated in the "Mastering digital map management with Pointr Cloud" product demo session, starting with a demonstration of the Pointr Cloud Dashboard.

Did you know?

For a 20,000 sqft building, it'd take 6 hours for manual mapping, and it only takes MapScale® 6 minutes to achieve the same result with high accuracy and beautiful rendering results.

In this product demonstration, Eva, our Product Marketing Manager, showed how easy it was to create map content directly on the Pointr Cloud Dashboard. She explained the data hierarchy in Pointr Cloud, including sites, buildings, and levels, with a real-world medical campus as an example.

She highlighted that POIs (points of interest), walls, walkways, and various map objects were all interactive and easy to use and edit directly from the Pointr Cloud Dashboard. Eva demonstrated how to create a new map layer (floor/level) from a GeoJSON file and how straightforward the process was.

Did you know?
You can get the GeoJSON that works perfectly with Pointr Cloud from MapScale® (for large-scale projects) or our mapping team (for special request projects).
GeoJSON data have the advantage of easy integration with 3rd party GIS (Geographic Information Systems), leading to smooth indoor-outdoor transitions. Maps comply with real-world WGS84 systems that work with most major outdoor map providers).

Edip, our Mobile SDK Lead, demonstrated how to initiate Pointr Mobile SDK and showcase the map updates made by Eva from the previous Pointr Cloud Dashboard product demo on our same Mobile application. Each POI is interactive. By tapping on it, users could get more information or search for individual point-of-interest using keywords or the external identifier (editable via the Pointr Cloud Dashboard). He also touches on how Pointr's positioning and dynamic wayfinding systems work on the mobile application.

Did you know?

Pointr’s Mobile SDK is highly customizable and works on both iOS and Android. To know more information, visit our documentation center - Pointr Docs.

Mesut, our Web SDK Lead, showcased the web map updates made by Eva, and he's able to zoom in/out and see maps in 2D and 3D. He also showcased how static wayfinding works on an example Web application (create paths from point A to B with no blue dot).

He then explained how to customize Pointr's Web SDKs leveraging the adds-on feature "Category" using the existing map content. With Pointr's customizable Web SDKs, you can create customized categories to group the POIs within site and source 3rd party for location tracking on the Web application.

Did you know?
The "Category" for Pointr's Web SDK is available to download from our documentation center - Pointr Docs.

Deep dive into Pointr Cloud

Pointr Cloud consists of two components:

Pointr Cloud Dashboard - an easy-to-use user interface that lets users manage their wayfinding and maps, including POIs, furniture, building layout, geofencing, and beacon topology, intuitively without the need for any programming skills.
Pointr Cloud REST API - a powerful tool designed for developers to automate and streamline the production workflow for map data. With this API, users can manage their map data directly, synchronizing seamlessly with the Pointr Cloud Dashboard and both Pointr's Mobile and Web SDKs. Additionally, the API is highly customizable, allowing for easy integration with 3rd party platforms.

Publishing maps efficiently with our optimized publishing mechanism

Eva described Pointr's optimized publishing mechanism, which consists of two stages for creating output.

Pointr Cloud API has the "built-in" function to automatically convert GeoJSON data into vector-tile-based maps without the dependency on 3rd party platforms that often charge for such additional services. While users are publishing maps from the Pointr Cloud Dashboard, the GeoJSON data in the database is being updated and converted into vector-tile-based maps simultaneously. Vector-tile-based maps have the advantages of more optimized caching and shorter time to load, resulting in better map performance and user experience.

All these advantages compound and deliver better performance for consumer apps, with results shown in the end user's applications (Web or Mobile) within minutes. Our optimized publishing mechanism allows Pointr Cloud to outperform most map CRMs on the market resulting in shorter load times, higher accuracy, smoother indoor and outdoor transitioning, a more intuitive user interface, easier integration, and more.

How Pointr’s Mobile SDK works with our Cloud API

Edip explained that Pointr's Mobile SDK calculates location information by listening to Bluetooth beacons and leveraging sensors on the user's phone, such as gyroscope accelerometers for indoor positioning, wayfinding, and even cameras for augmented reality functionalities. By leveraging these data and map content from the Pointr Cloud, Pointr's SDK can calculate the best paths for users, taking into account walls, non-walkable areas, and important locations such as POIs (Points of Interest).

How to initiate the Pointr Mobile SDK

In order to initiate the Pointr Mobile SDK, you need the SDK itself, which you can get from Pointr’s documentation center, you need the license key, and you need the content archive (PointrContent.zip) which you can get from Pointr’s documentation center - Pointr Docs.

With these assets in hand, you proceed as follows:

Add the SDK to your own project.
Type in your license key for the SDK.
Ensure you have the content archive in place.
Get a callback from the Pointr instance (Pointr Cloud API) - the state is running.
Launch the map and wayfinding widget on your app.

Our easy to integrate & highly customizable Web SDK

The Pointr Web SDK is easy to integrate and highly customizable. You only need a few lines of code to initiate the Pointr Web SDK on your Web apps. With our flexible UI, you can manage zoom level, add 3rd party functionality (e.g., asset tracking), add cluster data (for a better user experience), and add customized buttons, links and images to anything you want to highlight on your Web map.

You can find guides and more information in our documentation center - Pointr Docs.

Our customizable Web SDK project showcased

We provide you with a customizable Web SDK that makes it easy to customize and add additional features. Mesut showcased a customized web page built with our Web SDK.

It’s easy to use if your developers are you’re looking to customize your maps (with customized categories, icons, and images). Although this is not an out-of-box feature, it's super easy to implement. Again, you get started leveraging our resources in the documentation center.

Step-by-step, here’s what you need to do to customize your Pointr Web Maps:

Visit Pointr Web SDK's “Category” page.
The URL of your Pointr Cloud instance.
clientInternalIdentifier (provided by Pointr).
clientSecret (provided by Pointr).

And here’s the process:

Run and build your instance locally by following the guide on the “Category” page on Pointr Docs.
Customize your categories based on your POI types (typeCodeList) - you can find your type code from your POI’s type on the Pointr Cloud dashboard; see image below.
Launch results to your local app - for more information on how to add additional details such as filter, address, or image, visit our documentation center - Poitnr Cloud, for a complete guide.

Why the new Pointr Cloud (V8)?

The new Pointr Cloud (V8) represents a significant enhancement to the Pointer Deep Location® Platform for smart buildings, already the market leader in the field. With our new Pointr Cloud, you can look forward to:

A more friendly UI with no need for coding - every map content is interactive and easy to update and manage.
Better support vector-tile-based 3D maps.
A better browsing experience for users - cross-sites, -buildings, -levels, and based on a world map.
20% more accuracy with our upgraded indoor positioning algorithms - especially in narrow spaces such as corridors in office buildings.
Smoother indoor/outdoor wayfinding - the new mapping system we apply to our updated Pointer Cloud is based on the real-world longitude/latitude system, so it improves indoor-outdoor transition.

Important note

In order to future-proof your system, it's recommended to upgrade to Pointr Cloud V8, as the upcoming new integrations and features will only apply to the new version.

The Pointr Cloud roadmap - highlights

Looking to the future, you can expect continued product innovations and enhancements from the Pointr team.

Starting from the integration between Pointr Cloud Dashboard and MapScale®, customers will be able to create indoor maps by simply placing a request on the MapScale® API. This functionality will be integrated into the Pointr Cloud Dashboard, allowing users to drag and drop their raw CAD files directly on the Pointr Cloud Dashboard to create interactive digital maps that are ready to be edited or published automatically.

Virtual geofencing will soon be available (now available!). Users can manage from the Pointr Cloud Dashboard directly to trigger proximity notifications, alerts, or send data to 3rd party platforms when real-time location data is detected entering or leaving a predefined zone using Pointr Geofencing.

The upcoming integration with Auto-Path-Generation will soon be available on Pointr Cloud Dashboard, allowing users to create paths (for wayfinding) automatically by leveraging Pointr's patented machine-learning algorithms via Pointr Cloud Dashboard. Users will be able to enable their maps and wayfinding for their smart buildings in a heartbeat.

Lastly, Pointr Deep Analytics is also in our upcoming product roadmap for the new Pointr Cloud version.

Summary

We hope you enjoyed these highlights from the “Mastering digital map management with Pointr Cloud'' product demo session, and we answered any questions you might have concerning Pointr Cloud. The launch of the new Pointr Cloud V8 is a significant milestone on a mission to consistently deliver the best mapping experience available anywhere in the world today.

Watch the full product demo session

Watch webinar

Get in touch

Pointr Boston

+1-(978) 222-7929

contact@pointr.tech