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Im quite confused about creating an IndoorMap for our company to display it on iPad's. Regarding to the new IndoorMaps-Program from Apple I thought I found the perfect solution. Nice examples are shown at some airports in the official Maps App. But the more I dig deeper into this topic, I understand less and less.

  • At airport indoor maps, provided by Apple directly, the max. zoom level is nearly disabled. You can zoom insanely deep into the indoor map (close to 5m). When I am creating a map with MapKit I can zoom not even close enough to a building, to fill it fullscreen. Is it even possible to get that zoom level as a private developer?

  • In the documentation about IMDF-files they mentioned, that as an private developer,

    you will need to create IMDF yourselves. The good news is there are a number of third party platforms and tools that can make creating and updating IMDF easier. See section on third party platforms below.

    So I studied these third party platforms and noticed, that I can only create IMDF, when I am using it together with their provided software and map-SDK's. So I would make me dependent to another platform and SDK, which isn't in my interest. I didn't found anything about one platform/software to simply convert some floor plans to IMDF. Where is the trick? Am I thinking to complicated?

  • The most confusing part of IMDF is: What is IMDF exactly? Third party platforms advertise it with the new file for indoor maps. Apple on the other hand, mentioned that

    IMDF is a data model that is used to describe an indoor space. IMDF is output as a set of GeoJSON files.

    So is it a file or a format? Would it be enough to get a tool to create GeoJSON-files?

Maybe somebody got a little bit experience with this topic and can get me some hints for my questions or can even suggest another simpler and better solution to display indoor maps for example warehouses.

RobLabs
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Chris
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    IMDF is documented. It uses GeoJSON plus files that provide landmark and facility details. To integrate properly with Apple Maps your indoor map IMDF files need accurate latitude and longitude for your buildings so that you can zoom inside as well as details of rooms and entrances. There are a number of tools that can convert from common CAD formats to IMDF. – Paulw11 Feb 08 '20 at 00:17
  • @Paulw11 do you have any example tool? The ones from the documentation aren't very helpful – Chris Feb 08 '20 at 12:01
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    https://www.safe.com/fme/fme-desktop/ is one – Paulw11 Feb 08 '20 at 12:04

2 Answers2

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The Indoor Mapping Data Format is Apple's way of modeling how to map indoor spaces. An IMDF archive is one manifest.json file with many .geojson files which are tightly related to the id property in some of the GeoJSON.

See the IMDF Sandbox link to get a sample IMDF archive from Apple

If you are building indoor maps for your example warehouse, and you want to stay independent of other parties, then you need to create your own GeoJSON. You would use the IMDF Sandbox from Apple to validate and/or report any issues you may have with your IMDF archive.

You mentioned a few links above, let me summarize your links plus a couple of others that we used to learn development of our IMDF solution.

I apologize that this was downvoted by someone, it's likely that someone deemed it not a programming question. I thought it a worthwhile question enough to answer.

To answer your questions:

  • What is IMDF exactly?

  • Is it possible to create IndoorMaps like airports from Apple with IMDF?

    • Yes, See the IMDF Sandbox link above, as they have an example of Victoria YYJ International Airport

  • Is it even possible to get that zoom level as a private developer?

RobLabs
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If you are familiar with GIS solutions, ESRI has a own indoor mapping template using which you can create Indoor maps and then export them into IMDF format.

The process should be:

  1. Map you components and path using the ArcGIS Pro of ESRI and store them in a geodatabase. Getting Started with ArcGIS Indoor Maps
  2. Complete you map test the paths and openings using navigation tool to make sure everything is perfect.
  3. Export the existing geodatabase into IMDF format using the Generate Unit Openings tool. Export Indoor Maps data to IMDF
Arun Doss
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