Enhanced 3D Visualization Techniques in Support of Indoor Location Planning

Indoor environments are challenging spaces to handle in location analysis and Geographic Information Science. In this paper, new techniques to visualize solutions of location models used for the optimal indoor placement of emergency devices are proposed in support of location planning decisions. The analysis compares and contrasts extensions of traditional 2D visualization techniques to display diverse aspects of the service coverage of demand nodes by devices in the form of canonical and network-based spider maps, areal and volume coverage. Other innovative approaches are suggested to visualize the spatio-temporal relationship of multiple facilities serving multiple demand nodes across a multi-story building. User surveys suggest that the proposed 3D visualization techniques are preferred to their 2D counterparts in terms of quickness, effectiveness, easiness, and usefulness.