BUILDING STRUCTURE DISCOVERY AND DISPLAY FROM VARIOUS DATA ARTIFACTS AT SCENE

• US 20110270584A1
• Filed: 05/03/2010
• Published: 11/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Chen, Henry, Plocher, Tom
• Granted Patent: US 8,990,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/13 Architectural design, e.g. computer-aided architectural design [CAAD] related to design of buildings, bridges, landscapes, production plants or roads

Abstract

An approach for developing information about a building of which little or no information is known at a time when firefighters need to enter the building. The approach may incorporate obtaining an image of the building from a publicly available resource. An outside boundary of the building may be determined from the image. The number of floors may be determined. A 3D floor plan may be generated from the boundary and the number of floors. Structural components may be added to the 3D floor plan, which are deduced from movements of firefighters, and the movements may be deduced from their locations. The locations may be transmitted by devices on the firefighters. Structural components of the building indicated by persons in the vicinity of the building may also be added to the 3D floor plan.

Claims

1. An approach for developing information about a building of which little or no information is known at the time when firefighters need to enter the building, comprising:

obtaining an image of a building from a publicly available resource;

determining an outside boundary of the building in the image;

determining a number of floors of the building;

generating a 3D floor plan of the building from the boundary and number of floors of the building; and

adding structure components of the building to the 3D floor plan during the time that the firefighters are at the building.

2. The approach of claim 1, further comprising registering the 3D floor plan on a location system.

3. The approach of claim 2, wherein:

a reference point is indicated on the 3D floor plan; and

the registering the 3D floor plan is at the reference point.

4. The approach of claim 1, further comprising adding structure components deduced from movements of firefighters in the building.

5. The approach of claim 4, wherein:

the firefighters have location devices which indicate their locations;

the locations of the firefighters are entered graphically in the 3D floor plan; and

the movements of the firefighters are inferred from their locations.

6. The approach of claim 1, further comprising adding structure components indicated by persons in a vicinity of the building.

7. A system for a nearly immediate rendering of a building structure for conducting emergency operations in the structure, comprising:

a module for downloading an image of a site of a building structure from a publicly available resource;

a module for obtaining an outline of the building structure from the image and indicating a number of floors in the structure; and

a module for generating a 3D wireframe image of the building structure.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a module for registering the 3D wireframe image at a reference point in the image.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a module for locating one or more emergency service persons in the building structure; and

wherein the module comprises;

a locator transmitter situated with each of the one or more persons; and

a receiver for indicating locations of the one or more persons in the building structure.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a module for deducing structural components from locations of the one or more persons in the building structure and entering symbols representing the structural components in the 3D wireframe image.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a module for accepting information from other persons in the vicinity of the building structure, equipment situated in the structure, and other sources, and deducing structural components from the information and entering symbols representing the structural components in the 3D wireframe image.

12. A method for generating a quick approximation of a building structure, comprising:

downloading a publicly available resource image of a structure;

determining a number of floors in the structure;

taking a structure outline from the image and the number of floors from a perspective view from a publicly available resource image or other source;

generating a 3D floor plan of the structure from the structure outline and the number of floors; and

updating the 3D floor plan to show components of the structure as they are discovered.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising registering the 3D floor plan to a locator system at an origin point indicated on the 3D floor plan.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

adding components of the structure to the 3D floor plan inferred from emergency service people'"'"'s positions and/or movements in the structure; and

wherein;

emergency service people wear location equipment that transmits their locations in the structure; and

movements are deduced from the locations.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein each location on an image has some distribution.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein a location with a boundary is put on an image.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the distribution is a Gaussian distribution.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein:

some value beyond a certain threshold number of locations identifies a component of the structure for entry as a representative symbol in the 3D floor plan; and

the floor plan is normalized.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein:

trajectories of persons are inferred from the locations;

components are inferred from data fusion; and

data fusion comprises;

trajectories of a person at different times; and

/or

trajectories of different persons as data from various sensors.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein multiple trajectories identify rooms and hallways of the structure.