The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks comments on an OGC discussion paper, „Requirements and Space-Event Modeling for Indoor Navigation.“

Just as digital technologies such as GPS and Web mapping mediate our awareness of outdoor space, new indoor location and sensor technologies are beginning to mediate our awareness of indoor space. Connecting indoor location with outdoor location is becoming a critical requirement for emergency and disaster response, security, facilities planning and management, real estate finance, insurance, location-based marketing, Building Information Models, the smart grid, energy management, and management of fluid flows (air, water, gas, sewage etc.). The OGC seeks to facilitate the development of interface and encoding standards and best practices that enable seamless connection of indoor and outdoor location in applications of all kinds.

The discussion paper presents a model for indoor navigation that simultaneously addresses route planning, multiple localization methods, navigation contexts, and different locomotion types.

Deke Smith, Executive Director, buildingSMART alliance(TM), explained that, „Few current standards efforts are as critical as having open, international consensus standards that connect indoor and outdoor location. The building industry is entering a period of unprecedented collaboration and transparency regarding finance, energy, security and environmental impact and safety. Makers of phones and apps have everything else in place for an explosion of indoor location services. We encourage all stakeholders to comment on this paper and get involved in not only this standards effort but also the NBIMS-US openBIM standards effort.“

The Discussion Paper can be accessed at http://portal.myogc.org/files/41727,

Comments can be directed to OGC by visiting http://portal.myogc.org/public_ogc/change_request.php.