IO-SPACES 2014 - International Workshop on Interfacing Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

The interaction of indoor and outdoor spaces, how they connect and separate, is an under-researched topic in GIScience. This is true for many aspects, from human behavior and cognitive processes to formal models and location-based services. Seamless navigation, evacuation of people, or services provided by autonomous robots or drones require a model of the surrounding environment, usually a combination of outdoor and indoor spaces. However, moving from indoor to outdoor spaces or vice versa provides a range of physical, cognitive, and technical challenges.
This full-day workshop will address these issues, approaching them from an interdisciplinary perspective. We welcome contributions from anyone who is interested in better understanding and integrating the interface between indoor and outdoor spaces. A particular focus will be on information processing and presentation under time pressure and/or high cognitive load (e.g., in evacuation situations).
The workshop itself will be an interactive day with a mixture of presentations and demonstrations aiming at lively discussions and fostering collaboration amongst the participants.
Topics relevant (but not limited) to the workshop include:
Cognitive principles involved in switching from indoor to outdoor spaces (and vice versa)
Cognitive effects of sudden changes of environmental visibility and accessibility, as they typically occur in changes from indoor to outdoor environments
Ways to guide people across the two environments, e.g., services that can assist in both environments
Ways to guide people with special needs, e.g. route descriptions for visually impaired or wheelchair users
Efficient communication in evacuation situations
Visualizations of indoor/outdoor transitions
Data structures, algorithms and modeling tools that allow for bridging between the two types of environments (e.g., for routing) that match the user’s cognitive model of indoor and outdoor spaces
Modelling indoor, outdoor and transition spaces for machine and human use
Seamless positioning mechanisms that allow for localization in in- and outdoor environments
Frameworks that allow mobile navigation systems to connect to the buildings’ infrastructure to access doors, lights, and elevators. This is particularly relevant for accessibility issues
On-mobile navigation between indoors and outdoors
Crowdsourcing indoor and outdoor maps and routes, including routes between indoors and outdoors