

Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself - navpatel
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.footprint.quickmap

======
sray
Constructive criticism: After reading the description, I don't understand what
this application does. I am not initmately familiar with indoor
mapping/positioning or WiFiSLAM. The term "indoor mapping showcase" is vague
to me.

I think it lets me build maps of indoor locations? Somehow? Based on the
screenshots, maybe by walking around my room? It seems like it could be neat,
but I don't want to go through the trouble of downloading an app if I don't
know what it does.

~~~
jdhuang
Fair enough. We have a 90 second video on YouTube that should give you a sense
of what you'll get: www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_GdXp_Swjs

But basically, yes. It lets you build indoor positioning by walking around my
room.

~~~
insane_man
Not everyone has time to watch videos, especially at work. A simple text
description would work a lot better.

~~~
navpatel
you're right. we're working on a blog post describing the app, and should
probably get a better description on google play

------
navpatel
We built this because we felt Indoor Location technology is too inaccessible.
There's lots of buzz about indoor location, and many canned demos, but very
few people seem to put it out there.

We've built some cool tech, and we want people to try it out first hand.

------
untog
I'd love to know a little more about what's going on here. Does it use
accelerometers or just wifi signals? One key question: could I share these
floorplans? That is to say, using the sensors on HTC Android device #1, could
I sent a floorplan to my friend Samsung device #2 and have them be able to
similarly track their location?

Does it only work indoors, or is that just for demonstration?

~~~
darintay
The floorplans are definitely transferable! Once you’ve mapped a location
once, it works automatically on all devices.

In fact, if you walk into a location that someone else has already mapped, the
“Where Am I” will automatically load that map up on your device and start
showing your position.

If you’d like to do more advanced stuff with your floorplans, make a WiFiSLAM
SDK account here (access.wifislam.com) and we can get you started.

~~~
0x0
What's in the SDK? I looked around and there was not even a mention of ios
versus android. Is it a set of armv7 ndk android libraries? Or something else?
Can I use it on simulators running on OS X?

~~~
navpatel
The current WiFiSLAM SDK is an Android java library, available as an Eclipse
project with sample code snippets that allow you to add your location to any
existing Android app.

We have an iOS SDK that works, unfortunately since Apple disabled WiFi
scanning in iOS 5 we can no longer publish it. It still works on jailbroken
devices, but not a big target audience. We have a workaround in the works that
will incorporate iOS devices

------
GFischer
The explanation on the Play Store didn't make sense to me, only by watching
the video could I understand what it did.

Actually, a coworker thought it worked the other way round :) (build a map by
walking around).

I don't have a floor plan of anywhere, they're not required here in Uruguay.

Btw, video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_GdXp_Swjs>

~~~
navpatel
A lot of people just scribble down a drawing on paper, and then use the "I
Want To Take A Picture With My Camera" option. The floorplan is just a
reference point, so you can makeup whatever floorplan makes sense for you. For
example:
[https://lh4.ggpht.com/Y1z9Qt5EggwNdg0Caua9dJGWV8dZmnYhioten1...](https://lh4.ggpht.com/Y1z9Qt5EggwNdg0Caua9dJGWV8dZmnYhioten1FKnRIMrCSO3n9cFEgc0i8QVzscMQ)

~~~
GFischer
Thanks :) , I can do that :) .

Will try it out at home. Looks cool, and sounds like it could lead to
interesting use cases.

------
FrojoS
Sounds really great! I appreciate you put an App out there so we can try it
out ourself and not just read a paper or watch a video. I tried it, but
unfortunately my old HTC Wildfire is so slow that it becomes unusable. I was
able to take a picture but I can't even place the cursor on the map. Of course
I don't expect you to support such an old and crappy phone. I will try to get
hold of a faster Android phone.

I also downloaded the SDK. Is it possible to use it on a Laptop, too? Maybe,
by emulating Android? I have no clue but I would have a few ideas on how to
use it with a Laptop.

As Gee has pointed out, there is also <http://www.indooratlas.com/> which uses
the magnetic field for indoor SLAM. Do you have any info on how your system
compares to theirs?

Anyway, thanks for sharing this!

------
jdhuang
If you don’t have time to try the app, watch this video instead. It’s 90
seconds. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_GdXp_Swjs

~~~
jdhuang
Oh also, if you're up for learning more about the technology/platform in
general, take a look at blog.wifislam.com

------
Geee
IndoorAtlas is similar, but doesn't require WiFi in the building. It utilizes
magnetic variations to detect the location. <http://www.indooratlas.com/>

------
pdx

        Error reading floorplan
    
        There was an error reading your floorplan from storage
    

Nexus 1, trying Windows7 Paint generated .png and .jpg

~~~
navpatel
Does it work if you try again? Looks like this is an issue with mod_python,
which cannot accept chunked encoding
(<https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MODPYTHON-222>)

We’re not sure under what conditions the client decides to send chunked vs
not, but in our testing if you retry it should get through.

------
commanda
I just want to point out that I first mis-parsed the name of the technology as
"wif islam".

~~~
jdhuang
Heh. Not the first time it's happened :P

------
philip1209
Aisle 411 is doing indoor location: <http://aisle411.com/>

~~~
navpatel
Yeah, Aisle411 is definitely doing some cool stuff with indoor location, and
are the types of partners that make a lot of sense for us. Indoor location is
made up of two key components: Real-time positioning (e.g. WiFiSLAM) and
point-of-interest databases (e.g. Aisle411)

------
K2h
What happens if the WiFi base station has dynamic power levels - or are most
bases left with fixed power?

~~~
jdhuang
In our experience, we've found that most access points do in fact have a fixed
power. Either way, the system can accomodate some amount of dynamic changes.

------
leishulang
doesn't work for my on campus wifi. any requirements on the wifi network? My
phone is htc one x.

~~~
navpatel
No specific requirements for wifi at all. Which part didn't work exactly?

~~~
leishulang
when I was walking the cursor does not move along. I think my campus wifis are
using signal repeaters.

~~~
navpatel
it should still work with signal repeaters. Did you map the location first? If
this is a new location (i.e. someone else hasn't mapped it yet), then what you
want to do is select the floorplan in "Browse Floorplans". You should see a
button to start mapping, hit it & follow the on-screen instructions (basically
walk around and hit the "mark point" button or the volume up/down button after
positioning yourself on the map). once you are done, hit stop mapping & hit
yes to upload it to our servers for processing. after some time (maybe 2-5
minutes depending on load) you should be able to hit "Where Am I?" on the home
screen to have it track your position.

Let us know if it's still not working for you.

------
playeren
Did you write image recognition from scratch yourselves, or is it based on a
lib?

~~~
jdhuang
It's actually based on the ambient Wi-Fi signature of the airwaves around you.
There is no image recognition involved!

~~~
playeren
Ah ok, so the *floorplan you supply just acts as a "background/walking-guide"
for your mapping?

~~~
navpatel
yup, that's right

~~~
playeren
Ok, thanks. Was looking for a img rec lib for floorplan drawings when I fell
upon your post - hence the question.

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nantes
Crashes on startup. HTC Evo V 4G, Android 4.0.3. Reported via Google Play.

~~~
darintay
Thanks for the report and sorry about the crash!

Any chance your sdcard/external storage is mounted or otherwise unavailable?
We're supposed to have a popup to prompt you for that, but it looks like some
code slipped in before the prompt :(.

~~~
nantes
Sorry, missed this for a couple of days. Hmm, I may have been charging via USB
to the computer at the time. Will try again later.

------
aklofas
Does this adapt it's map on the fly like a true SLAM, or does it only work off
the access points detected during the configuration phase?

~~~
navpatel
We’ve found good results using only the configuration phase; we have versions
with full SLAM but it tends to work well without it. The QuickMap app uses
only access points detected during the configuration phase.

