Article

Automatic Pre-Journey Indoor Map Generation Using AutoCAD Floor Plan

Accessible maps are very useful for the visually impaired because they can learn maps and routes prior to their upcoming journeys. These maps are usually generated by an existing GIS database, e.g. Google Maps or ArcGIS, which are popular in outdoor environments. Though a pre-journey on an indoor map is useful and encourages the visually impaired to travel independently, the generation of accessible indoor maps still involves a lot of manual work, which makes pre-journey task inconvenient to the users. In this project, we propose a hybrid method to automatically generate indoor maps, from AutoCAD architecture floor plans, which are usually available for buildings made within three decades. Our approach extracts semantic information from AutoCAD files, e.g. location of rooms, exits, other landmarks, etc., which could help to further analyze the 2D floor plan images. It then generates both graph-based topological and traversable maps, which are useful for constructing accessible maps that can be used in pre-journey tasks. Experiments have been performed in an indoor facility to test the performance of the system.

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