Digital Signage Wayfinding

Digital signage and wayfinding is changing rapidly as people are trying to solve the problem of indoor way finding.

We at smartLINK are constantly evaluating products and when doing so we put them through a gauntlet to find strengths, weaknesses, and flat out freakish innovations as you will see.

Navigating a large interior environment can be daunting and time consuming. People have tried to solve this with what they call static signage "Non Digital Maps" and this has proved inefficient and seems antiquated. The world is changing fast and smartLINK is at the forefront of this push to make life easier in the city streets, at events centers or in the campus environment.

smartLINK "The worlds smartest kiosk" is designed for the City streets with tons of compute to sit outdoors and provides 2 key components, Experience and Insight.

Our kiosks is IoT central with over 10 sensors ranging from security, environmental, video, wireless, audio and coming soon "LIDAR" with point clouds!

What this allows us to do is accurate understand any environment we are installed in and maximize positive experience for the people who interact with it based on all this data we gather.

Digital Signage:

Now the digital signage has evolved to an intelligent device much like an ALEXA from amazon. Digital signage is a bit antiquated as what good is a TV if it does not have intelligence backing it up. In this day and age people want experience coupled with intuitive service which equates to convenience.

How do you properly tackle touch? Well in the outdoor space this can be difficult and time consuming to find just the right product. We have tested about every variation on the market and came up with our personal favorite which we think is top of the food chain. When implementing digital signage with way finding you need to implement a touch interface for people to come up and navigate the environment which will provide the best experience.

Types of touch interfaces:

Infrared - Infrared touch screens are based on light-beam interruption technology. Instead of an overlay on the surface, a frame surrounds the display. The frame has light sources, or light emitting diodes (LEDs) on one side and light detectors on the opposite side, creating an optical grid across the screen. When an object touches the screen, the invisible light beam is interrupted, causing a drop in the signal received by the photo sensors.

Quick Facts:

Many types, low cost, has problems in direct sun light, slow response.

Capacitive -  Capacitive is composed of a sheet of glass. When a finger comes into contact you get very rapid response along with multi touch capabilities. This is what you will find on your iPhone.

Quick Facts:

Many types, Higher Cost, Potential damage due to hard hits on the glass, extremely fast response.

Wayfinding / Way Finding or Indoor Mapping

This is truly a problem that the entire industry is trying to tackle on the inside of buildings. We are seeing all sorts of things come out from the likes of Google, Microsoft https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/microsofts-path-guide-is-an-unconventional-approach-to-indoor-navigation/ and many more.

Traditionally you have 2 types of navigation.

Type One:

Outdoor navigation. Well the new smartphones or what I call mobile computers now included GPS and Google has pretty much solved navigation with Google Earth, Google Maps, and Waze - https://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2017/07/34311.html.

So without further ado I will go into my favorite Type Two:

Indoor Mapping / Indoor wayfinding.

To start smartLINK utilizes alot of these software packages and really think each one has tons of benefits.

Four Winds - Four winds is great software. It comes with a player so you must use the player to utilize the way finding. The way finding works by taking a CAD drawing and vectoring the lines as step 1. Step 2 is to import the vector image and add attributes to grow the walls inside the software. Step 3 is to add all the attributes for items inside the environment, step 4 is to create your way points. Limited API use is had inside the wayfinding environment.

Quick Facts: This process can take some time. Player supports 4k quality. The quality of the way finding depends on the artists ability to add detail to the environment.

22 Miles - 22 Miles is also great software. It also comes with a player so you must use the player to utilize the way finding. The way finding works by taking a CAD drawing and vectoring the lines as step 1. Step 2 is also to import the vector image and add attributes to grow the walls inside the software. Step 3 is to add all the attributes for items inside the environment, step 4 is to create your way points. The wayfinding can sends nice texts to your mobile device of the route. Limited API use is had inside the wayfinding environment.

Quick Facts: This process can take some time. Player supports 720P quality. The quality of the way finding depends on the artists ability to add detail to the environment. We personally believe this way finding is snappy, accurate and sends nice texts to your mobile device of the route.

Acquired Digital - Acquired Digital comes from the UK and is show cased at Caesars Palace with some absolutely stunning displays which are synced and un-synced in a massive orchestration. This player / wayfinding combo has very nice code with lots of integrations. The wayfinding software is very hard to build but the quality is second to none!

Quick Facts: This process can take some time. Player supports 4k quality. The quality of the way finding depends on the artists ability to add detail to the environment. We personally believe this way finding is snappy, accurate and sends nice texts to your mobile device of the route.

Type 3 - New Breed

Now its time to talk about something new. We are talking full world 3d mapping with indoor and outdoor capabilities.

Welcome to the entire planet in 3d with smartLINK enhancements.

What you get with this new system:

• Indoor and outdoor mapping. New wayfinding on steroids for the entire planet.
• Integrated IoT Services
• Responsive design meaning on the big screen and small
• Games and other community projects
• Data ingest capabilities to track traffic congestion and more.

Here are a few images to leave you with.

smartLINK uses this technology along with a robust analytics engine and sensors on steroids to take your environment into the future!

Welcome to the future and I hope this article was helpful. Digital signage, wayfinding / indoor mapping is a passion for smartLINK and we are proud thought leaders in the space!

Author Information:

Jon Salisbury - CEO @ smartLINK

Visit us @ www.smartlink.city or email us @ [email protected]

Also visit - www.venturesmarter.com or email [email protected]

Or - Cincinnatis Top Tech Firm www.nexigen.com / Cincinnati's Top Development company www.nimblesoft.com