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Indoor Mapping Data Format
- vincnetas 6y agoOh well : Apple reserves the right to do any of the following, at any time, without notice: (1) to modify, suspend or terminate access to the IMDF Specification or any portion of the IMDF Specification for any reason;
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- pydry 6y agoDoes this revoke our ability to use it?
- Bedon292 6y agoI am curious about that. It is GeoJSON (RFC 7946). So you can certainly still read it, but you just can't access to the specification itself? You don't need the spec to reverse engineer it, its all in plain text. There are other applications that implement S3 compliant storage. The interface is the same from the outside. Is that because Amazon can't do anything about it, or because they don't mind it? I would think implementing IMDF would be a similar situation. You can't reproduce the spec maybe, but your data can still be compliant with it?
- vincnetas 6y agoLets wait and see if its ok for google to user oracle API (java)
- tjpnz 6y agoThat makes it a non-starter for me. Surely there must be open alternatives to this - perhaps based on GeoJSON?
- berkes 6y agoMaybe one of the projects listed on the OSM Wiki suit your needs?[1]. I did not look into the Apple IMDF, but it sounds like it does almost the same as the Simple Indoor Tagging in OSM[2]. [1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Indoor_Mapping https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Indoor_Mapping [2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_Indoor_Tagging https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_Indoor_Tagging
- trgn 6y agoLooking at it, it seems like the data-format is an extension of GeoJson. What it adds on top is an ontology for indoor features.
- madeofpalk 6y agoIMDF looks like it is based on, or is an extension to, GeoJSON
- vincnetas 6y agoWhat makes "gambling" such a special case to take up 22 out of 71 categories (30%) https://register.apple.com/resources/imdf/Categories/#section https://register.apple.com/resources/imdf/Categories/#sectio...
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- andonisus 6y agoThey likely see casinos as consumers of applications providing indoor wayfinding using this specification.
- vincnetas 6y agoSo "are casinos purposefully hard to navigate" or "is it a tool for casinos to make them easy to navigate"? Sounds contradicting.
- dspillett 6y agoPerhaps both. A tool to make it easy for casinos to navigate you past the things they want you to encounter while trying to get to something else. Much like the careful planning that goes into arranging supermarkets and similar to encourage impulse buys.
- pbronez 6y agoHeh “in capitalist America casino navigates you!”
- oarsinsync 6y agoPresumably you're being downvoted because reddit-style memes are generally not appreciated here. That said, my understanding of the meme is that it's a commentary/exaggeration on a nation state where the state controls all aspects of your lives. I don't think it's terrible to highlight the parallel to the way private businesses are actively profiling all of their users in order to manipulate their behaviour through advertising. While the state has the ability to remove your freedoms, incarcerate you, or even potentially execute you (depending on which state you live in, be it a US state, or a different nation state) that private companies do not have in quite the same way, think about what the implications of losing access to their Google / Apple account would have on the average person, and what 'crimes' are required in order to deliver that 'punishment'. Algorithms or not, we now live in a world where punishments in the form of loss of access to vital services are dished out randomly, by the same people who are profiling and controlling our behaviour. Whether or not this is by design, it's also supremely effective in ensuring compliance. When the exact rules and limits are known, they can be worked around and/or contested effectively. When they are unknown, a wider berth becomes necessary in order to reduce risk. This feels like it could be subject of a more light hearted academic paper investigating if there is a juxtaposition between "In Soviet Russia" memes and the FAANG world we live in today, or if they're similar than we would generally/comfortably like to think.
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- mr_gibbins 6y agoYAPF: Yet Another Proprietary Format.
- Angostura 6y agoIMDF conforms to RFC 7946
- thinkingemote 6y ago= Geojson
- igravious 6y agoiMDF: Apple's first foray into building supplies.
- mxuribe 6y agoIt took me a second there; nice one! :-D
- nly 6y agoMore like: Yet Another "Format" Built Around JSON That Will Never Have Proper Validation, Schema Evolution or a Standardized API. Tooling for N languages would come for free if they just used the JSON serialization of e.g. Protobuf 3
- The_rationalist 6y agoBut isn't protobuf cluttered / verbose?
- swiley 6y agoWhy not publish this as an RFC? Why make it a special apple thing? ew
- Angostura 6y agoIt's Apple's implementation of the RFC
- Igalze 6y agoI`m curious to see if anyone here actually uses in-door maps, when and how much. I just don't fell like there is a strong enough use case here, but I couldn't wrong.
- Milner08 6y agoThe only use case I can think of is for large indoor shopping centres, like Westfield type things. Every so often I want to find a shop in their and have to use the digital maps they have but it would be cool if it was just in Apple Maps ready to go. Maybe the same for a University Campus etc. But most days I have no use for it.
- JacobDotVI 6y ago>it would be cool if it was just in Apple Maps ready to go I have been to some Westfields (or perhaps it was a Simon property) where this is already available. I can attest that it is very helpful!
- Angostura 6y agoHandy in airports too.
- jfengel 6y agoI desperately want it for museums.
- alextheparrot 6y agoIt is one of those things too inconsistent to rely on at this point - most buildings do not have internal maps. If I can’t find the restroom or a place, I look for an analog map or someone to ask at this point. A lot of companies (Apple included) have digital internal maps of their buildings and offices - that’s a use-case I’ve used, likely because I know it is available.
- Someone 6y agoApple clearly sees use for it. https://register.apple.com/resources/indoor/Apple-Indoor-Maps-Guidelines.pdf https://register.apple.com/resources/indoor/Apple-Indoor-Map... says: Who should join the Indoor Program The Indoor Maps Program is appropriate for the owners or operators of almost any large venue, public or private. [table omitted] The exceptions are as follows: • Convention centers: accurate indoor positioning requires a relatively stable Wi-Fi network to be present. In the exhibition halls of convention centers this is generally not the case as the Wi-Fi is commonly changed for each event. • Warehouses: it can be difficult to provide accurate indoor in large empty warehouses. However, if the warehouse is filled with equipment, shelves or other objects this is less of an issue and indoor positioning can be made to work well. • Any small building, office, shop or restaurant: the basic rule is that if the space is so small you can’t get lost, then indoor positioning is not appropriate for that location.
- kzrdude 6y agoWhy does it need a special format? Just make a layer in regular maps
- shellac 6y agoThis literally is geojson (RFC 7946), which they do say (but don't really spell out). geojson basically give you a way to describe a geometry, state its type (e.g. 'lake'), an associate some arbitrary properties with that region. IMDF is Apple enumerating some feature types and stating what properties are required for them. In some fields this is called an 'application profile', a particular use of a format for a specific field of use.
- punnerud 6y agoFinally there is a possibility to shop efficiently in a mall or grocery store: Convert the indoor map to OpenStreetMap, import the map to OSRM (http://project-osrm.org http://project-osrm.org) to make travel time calculations (for the time to walk between shops/isles), export travel-time matrix from OSRM and import this matrix to VROOM (https://github.com/VROOM-Project/vroom https://github.com/VROOM-Project/vroom) for fleet optimization calculations (Me, wife and kids).
- thdrdt 6y ago:) this is great (I kind of hate shopping). But on a more serious note: I work a lot with this kind of software but the biggest problem is reliable map data. It doesn't matter how fast your matrix is generated and how good your fleet/order optimization is, when a truck is routed in the wrong direction of a one way street because the map data was not correct, you might as well draw a route on a map yourself.
- Fnoord 6y ago> I kind of hate shopping Have you considered ordering online and let them deliver it at your doorstep?
- comeonseriously 6y agoIf you know the store already: Use a list. Organize the list by row and items on row based on if you're moving to the back of the store vs to the front. Travel the path, making sure not to go down isles you don't need to, run over anyone who puts their cart in the middle of the isle. Fast enough.
- arkitaip 6y agoI was thinking that this sounds excessive but them I remembered that I recently relented and reinstalled Google Keep to make my grocery store shopping less chaotic by ordering items according to store sections. Waking past the same isle half a dozen times because you can't locate items is just too frustrating.
- Someone 6y agoThey have an iOS app that helps you map a space/spy on WiFi networks (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/indoor-survey/id994269367 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/indoor-survey/id994269367. Requires registration). It might be interesting to see what one can get out of that.
- easton 6y agoYou can register here: https://register.apple.com/indoor https://register.apple.com/indoor
- vlovich123 6y agoNeato. That's the app I helped build when I worked there. If you can intercept the data on-disk you could look at the protobufs that were used to capture all the sensor data (WiFi, IMU etc). None of that data is particularly helpful. I think to get the files you would need to jailbreak & I believe WiFi scanning in code is similarly available anyway once you've jailbroken. The map data that's available to you should just be the maps you've uploaded. The geolocation map building from the signals happens offline on Apple servers & the results of the map are publicly available on Apple's CDN for download by devices.
- oefrha 6y agoHmm, using sphinx-doc without an attribution (which means they intentionally removed it) isn't very tasteful...
- aaron695 6y agoAnyone got proof that this is technically possible at a hardware level on a phone? I'd expect one good implementation as proof, not hand waving it should work. I can think of one place it would be useful - museums/indoors at large monuments and people would pay extra money to use the device so it would be funded. But I've yet to see it.
- sandoze 6y agoI used it as a proof of concept to test the service. Mapped an office space in QGIS. The IMDF format is actually quite nice and portable. It’s really just GEOJSON with some extra properties and can be migrated to any map/service that uses the format. The actual blue dot generated after mapping is pretty spot on. A slight delay while it catches up to you when walking but honestly some of the best in class when it comes to performance.
- aaron695 6y agoCatch is, would it still work next week. Humidity changes, or the wireless situation changes, like someone turns their hotspot on. More people walking around. The carpet is vacuumed. I can't find anyone using it IRL. I don't think the hardware supports it in an usable fashion. The one reason you might look at all this now is for Covid-19 they have turned on some Bluetooth features, but I think they are still not available for non Covid-19 apps anyway.
- sandoze 6y agoGreat question. If I ever go back into the office it would be interesting to retest again. The mapping is fairly straightforward and many of these technologies require periodic remapping. We’ve yet to test (or find) any tech that does a self healing as things change.
- daniellarusso 6y agoSo, if one person activates the hotspot feature on their phone, does it render this inoperable?
- laurensr 6y agoIt's kinda funny this new Apple initiative's abbreviation/name also starts with an "i" ;-)
- Mvandenbergh 6y agoInteresting that this is built on geojson which always uses WGS84 (the GPS coordinate reference system) as its CRS. WGS84 is pretty correct for almost everywhere but is not typically used for local applications like this because physical locations drift relative to it and the WGS84 geoid (shape of the earth) won't give you a guaranteed locally flat surface that actually matches the elevation of the surface. It looks like they are just using ordinal levels relative to the the ground floor (defined as the lowest floor with level access to the outside) which is sensible but I wonder how they will use GPS signal to identify which floor a mobile user is on since GPS has poor vertical resolution and its not clear how much elevation data will be encoded in this format.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI'd assume some sort of fusion between RF triangulation (mobile network and wifi) and barometric sensor would get a proper floor fix.
- Mvandenbergh 6y agoYou'd need to record the elevation of the floors as well relative to your RF reference frame though, otherwise you will know the phone elevation but not what floor it corresponds to. I would guess pico-cells assigned to particular floors in larger buildings.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI’d expect this to occur (recording the elevation data) during surveying to build out the dataset. To your point about pico cells, I could see 5G high station density being beneficial. Very excited to see how data from new Apple mobile device LIDAR sensors are going to play into indoor mapping (hoping it nukes the premium Matterport charges).
- lincolnq 6y agoI don’t think they are relying GPS for any indoor stuff. They are using WiFi triangulation, including a WiFi survey you can upload where you walk around with an app and say where you are on the map. WiFi triangulation should be able to pick out your floor pretty accurately.
- Hippocrates 6y agoI feel like this will be combined with new UWB features in iDevices, maybe with airtags when they come out, and the private and anonymized "crowdsourced" location data of iDevices. There could be some killer indoor mapping, locating and AR features on the horizon. Exciting.
- accurrent 6y agoFor large scale uwb to work one needs to probably use TDoA - In which case we would probably need more than one tag. TDoA is private by default as the phone is a passive listener. That being said I don't believe any of this is really a plus for privacy per se.
- Hippocrates 6y agoI was thinking that iPhones in pockets would suffice as more than one tag, especially in public spaces with plenty of people. With that, the floor plan or walkable space could be mapped out programatically. I agree it doesn't seem to be a plus for privacy, but I hope, and expect that is a consideration. I was recalling the approach taken to find-my: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluet... which seems to protect a users individual location while leveraging location of devices in the environment. I am just speculating here, but I think this is part of a larger play to map out indoor space which could bring amazing new features to maps, "find my", and AR applications.
- seshagiric 6y agoI have trouble understanding how a sustainable business model can be built in indoor mapping? - its indeed a pain to find which aisle your product is at but usually does not take more few minutes to find it (it's not like customers are wasting hours). For cases like neighborhood groceries, customers do develop some knowledge of where to find things are (stores change the ailes but not so much) so not much of repeat usage either. - for grocery and shopping, isn't it good for the Shop to have customers spend more time in the store? "walk through the full store and pick what you want..." I would say some customers also enjoying browsing through the wares (the so called retail therapy) There are definitely some real problems like helping passengers navigate through different gates/ terminals, large office buildings, finding the right department in a large hospital building and so on. However given the investments needed in setting up the different IOT sensors to help the mapping + navigating effort, I really wonder if this indoor mapping can ever have a sound business model?
- gpm 6y agoI think the target market might not be considered. Warehouse's, professional shoppers, emergency services strike me as prime customers. Maybe even office buildings to help people find meeting rooms and people's desks.
- nerdponx 6y agoSurveilling store, airport, etc patrons without their consent or knowledge.
- jedberg 6y agoNow that they have phones with LIDAR, they want everyone to standardize on their format. Good idea. Hopefully this leads to an explosion of mapped indoor spaces.