About Indoor Navigation

As you know, traveling indoors requires similar but different skills than traveling outdoors. For example, when walking indoors, you might need to shoreline with your cane to figure out where the wall is and to follow it while you walk. Outside, on the other hand, you might need to shoreline to determine where the sidewalk stops and the grass begins.

Using apps to help you travel indoors is different than using apps to navigate outdoors. Apps like Apple Maps and Google Maps, use GPS, which is made up of a network of satellites and receiving devices that determine your location and then give you directions. However, GPS only works outdoors.

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To support indoor travel, apps need to use a different system to accurately get turn-by-turn directions to a destination. For example, some apps use beacons installed in the building that communicate with a device like your phone to locate your position and help you get to where you want to go. However, the GoodMaps app uses your phone's camera to identify where you are inside a building.

For camera-based positioning to work, technicians must first visit a school and walk through the building with what's called a "LiDAR scanning device." The LiDAR camera collects thousands of 360-degree pictures and videos, as well as building measurements. All of those images go into a database and are matched with a map of the building. When you use GoodMaps to help you navigate a scanned building, the app uses your phone's camera to compare images of where you're standing, where you're walking, and where you want to go to the images in the database.

GoodMaps is designed to help you travel from one place to another independently, safely, and confidently.

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