Mapify - Indoor Campus Navigation

by Joshen Lim,
published on

Similar to the previous project, Insite, Mapify focuses on building an extensive indoor navigation system for campuses, ensuring that you'll know where to go right down to the doorsteps of your classroom. This idea was created for NTU's SCSE Tech Fest'18 Singtel Hackathon.

As freshmen beginning our transition to university after all the excitement from orientation camps, attending lessons are nonetheless an integral part of tertiary education. Most of us probably have no problem getting around campus with many navigation guides from physical maps given out during orientation events to digital systems like Google Maps. However when it comes to finding our way within buildings, perhaps even overhead signboards aren't enough - and Google can't help you with that, yet at least. And that's what Mapify is all about - extensive indoor navigation to guide you to your lessons.

Main screen UI of Mapify

With reference to the screen above, users may search for their classrooms ont he app in which Mapify will then proceed to direct you accordingly. Furthermore you may also upload your class schedule to Mapify to receive notifications about upcoming lessons, so will know where to go and when to go.

Navigation is divided into 3 phases:

  1. Towards the building
  2. Within the building
  3. On the floor levels

Users will also be given a maximum of 3 options for their preferred mode of transport to decide if they'd want to get to their destination as fast as possible or as comfortable as possible.

3 modes of transport given as options

As an addition to the main functionality of navigation, Mapify presents a community feature too where you'll be able to see where your friends are on the map if they're nearby. Friends, or groups, are managed within the app as well:

Manage groups of friends and identify them with different coloured markers

Friends can only be added via a friend ID that can be retrieved via the profile page or side menu. Upon adding a friend, a 4 digit number will be displayed and the other party has to enter that value when prompted on his or her phone before both parties are linked - this is in efforts to maintain an acceptable level of privacy, such that only authorized people will be able to view your location (if you are nearby). Users will also have an option to not appear on other friend's maps should they prefer it that way.

Side menu showing the friend ID

The application was developed with Ionic 2 Framework and designed using Sketch. Unfortunately we only managed to develop to the point where the application could simulate the intended application flow - actual navigation functionality still needed working on but due to lack of time we were unable to completely finish the product. Feel free to give the application a run on Ionic View with the ID: 409cfa64.