Constructing Hierarchical Representations of Indoor Spaces

Indoor spaces pose many challenges for spatial information systems, amongst them appropriate spatial communication. Compared to typical outdoor spaces, indoor spaces are clustered, have a fragmented social structure, and diverse groups use the space in different ways, which results in different conceptualizations and communication needs. This paper presents a hierarchical representation of indoor spaces that accounts for different use roles. The hierarchization exploits structural, functional and organizational dimensions and allows for communicating different aspects of the space in a way tailored to the specific user groups.