Indoor maps have, in various forms, been in use for years. Airports, for example, have been using large, poster sized maps for decades. However, modern digital indoor maps are a relatively recent innovation, and are finding rapid adoption across a number of industries.

The fundamental reason companies need indoor maps is that they can be enormously useful across a wide range of use cases. In indoor locations that users tend to visit infrequently, and that they need to move through quickly and efficiently, such as airports or hospitals, maps can offer peace of mind as visitors navigate complex spaces. Even in locations that customers may visit regularly, such as a retail store, indoor maps can help them to quickly understand and incorporate layout changes (such as where a particular item is shelved) into their plans, vastly improving the customer experience.

Furthermore, the availability and experience of using maps in general has been greatly enhanced in recent times by programs such as Google Maps. These systems have raised the bar for consumer expectations from their maps, but in general don’t service indoor locations. The companies that are able to meet the growing expectations from users for both the quality and availability of indoor maps will be the ones who set themselves apart from their competition.

The most important features of an indoor map vary by use case. However, some features are universally accepted as important to a map’s usefulness:

• Design - A well-designed map can display various pieces of information in an intelligible, intuitive manner. A poorly designed map can make even the most simple of indoor spaces difficult to understand

• POIs and important information - Perhaps even more so than outdoor maps, indoor maps must convey critical pieces of information, such as points of interest and important pieces of architecture such as stairs and elevators, in an effective manner. Failure to do so will result in a map unlikely to help the end user in a meaningful way

• Interactivity - While static maps (such as those found on billboards or on print-outs) do serve a purpose, the rise of interactive outdoor mapping applications has led to expectations for indoor maps to do the same. Interactivity can enable users to zoom in to a specific location to better understand where they’re situated, zoom out to get a better sense of how far away their destination is, or to look for specific details, such as what specific products are located in which aisle, or the reviews for a particular store or restaurant in a mall

Creating an accurate, detailed indoor map can be a laborious process to say the least. Unlike many outdoor maps, which may go years before requiring an update, indoor maps tend to also require frequent tweaks, such as when a grocery store alters the locations of their products.  In one case that Pointr encountered, one major US chain of stores was relying on image editing software and a long cycle of constant updates, which meant that once one store had had its map updated, it was sometimes more than a year before it was reviewed again.

Clearly, this system was unsustainable, and it was situations like this that led Pointr to develop MapScale®, our state-of-the-art tool which leverages both AI and Pointr’s years of experience in smart building technology. Using MapScale, we are able to create and update hundreds of indoor maps in a matter of minutes. 

Yes, we support IMDF. Initially created by Apple Maps, the IMDF format is increasingly used in GIS and we fully support this format.