IT Innovation Contest

A team-based contest for creative IT solutions

Mapping UCSF “inside” and “out” Pilot

Proposal Status: 

All of us are familiar with the search feature of the online map, such as Google Maps. Finding a site in UCSF is just a click away from our fingers (or just search out loud over your mobile phone). However we are most often stopped at the front door of the building. If we need to find a place, say a conference room in a building (even worse if you are looking for a printer), we are back to our old technology – either looking for a directory or asking people.

In 2011 Google I/O conference, a session (Mapping your Business Inside and Out) was presented with approaches to mapping all of the business locations, not just on the outside. Using these techniques, we may overlay the indoor floor plan on Google map presenting different floor plan on each floor. People may drill from the top of the building in the map to the inside floor plan and easily associate any location inside to the building outside. Additionally, the benefit of the indoor map is not limited to identify a location. We may build a geo-location data store for the University’s properties, such as medical devices, library books, printers etc. Once the property has been in place, a user may create the geo-location for the property and other people may effortlessly identify their location in Google map.

 

Deliverables

Web application provides:

  1. Navigation from Google map to UCSF premises (A couple floors in one of 24 UCSF sites in San Francisco will be selected based on the availability and accuracy of the indoor plan)
  2. Floor plan for each floor
  3. Create a proof of concept geo location store of the UCSF properties
  4. Search capability to identify the location of the property

Due to resource and time constraint, indoor street view is not in the scope of this proposal.

 

Impact on UCSF's mission and/or community

Goal is to provide indoor map to public for public accessible buildings and restricted access for private premises. Patients, visitors, neighbors would be able to find stores, restrooms, patient rooms etc. in UCSF public buildings.

 

Benefits:

  1. Locations are easily searchable by keywords and destination
  2. Reduce time to look for a destination or equipment – customer satisfaction
  3. Improve UCSF image
  4. Provides a foundation for future applications requiring indoor locations, such as indoor navigation

 

List of team members and their roles

  1. To be recruited: Responsible for co-ordination, communication, outreach, security policy, privacy documentation
  2. To be recruited: Responsible for web design and implementation
  3. To be recruited: Responsible for building and converting floor plan, overlaying on Google map, building tiles
  4. Freddie Tai: Responsible for design, integration and implementation

 

Estimated time devoted by each team member

  1. Person 1: 60 hrs
  2. Person 2: 80 hrs
  3. Person 3: 80 hrs
  4. Freddie Tai: 80 hrs

Comments

I was just discussing this with Rich Trott, who developed the UCSF Mobile app. He suggested that I talk to Paul Franke in Planning, so I will make the same recommendation to you. Any attempt to properly map UCSF would help every enterprise network initiative, too, so you might want to see if someone from ENS wants to help.

Hi Freddie, We had the same idea at SIS, particularly because I'm new to UCSF and this was one of my first questions. Do you want to join our team? Or do you have individuals already? Our proposal is listed under "UCSF Room Maps/ Locator."

Hi lisa, definitely we should talk about it. As you may already know, Google allows public to load their floor plan images to their google map and provides professional photographic service for taking pictures used in streetview. That's why I am trying to put more emphasis on creating the geolocation store. The indoor map implementation is to lay out the foundation. We may then provide a service for users/applications to input and search their properties' geolocation. Think about a new printer is placed, the system folk may want to know where it is in the future. And when you just join and you need to access a printer but you may not have an idea where it is. So the data store (may be stored in LDAP) will help us better manage and access the properties.

I can't count the number of times I have stopped to help poor, lost looking souls find their destination (especially difficult is finding the Koret Vision Center - I always see people wandering the hallways looking for that destination). This would be an invaluable service to UCSF.

We ahve done some useful content for this. e.g. Lat/long building corners in GIS format. Let's talk. Paul Franke, Campus Planning

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