The Indoor Mapping and Navigation Pilot, sponsored by the Public Safety Communications Research Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will create and advance solutions to complex geospatial challenges related to indoor mapping and navigation for first responders.
First responders typically survey high-risk facilities in their jurisdiction at least once per year as part of a preplanning process. Outputs from preplanning are often in report form, and first responders may annotate available floor plans (e.g. from computer-aided design models) or generate their own hand-drawn maps during the process. Preplanning is time-consuming, inefficient, and inherently complex, considering the information and level of detail that should or could be captured, the lack of automation, and difficulty identifying notable changes to facilities and infrastructure during successive preplanning surveys. ...continued ...