Apparatus, tool, and method for modifying a portion of a floor plan based on measurements made by one or more sensors

• US 20120253725A1
• Filed: 03/31/2011
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sensopia, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Francis Ruben Malka, Gilles Jean Desforges
• Inventors: Malka, Francis Ruben, Desforges, Gilles Jean
• Granted Patent: US 9,151,608 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/94
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 15/00 Surveying instruments or accessories not provided for in groups G01C1/00 - G01C13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/206 specially adapted for indoor navigation
• 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 apparatus, tool, and method for modifying a portion of a floor plan based on measurements made by one or more sensors. The apparatus comprises a correction unit for compensating the sensor measurements for instrument errors and a layout unit for improving the conformity of the portion of the floor plan to a set of layout rules. The apparatus may also comprise the sensors that made the measurements.

Claims

1. An apparatus for modifying a portion of a floor plan based on measurements made by one or more sensors, the apparatus comprising:

a correction unit for compensating the sensor measurements for instrument errors;

a layout unit for improving the conformity of the portion of the floor plan to a set of layout rules.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising at least one of the sensors that made the measurements and wherein the sensor is one of the following:

a gyroscope;

an accelerometer;

a laser distance meter;

a sonar;

a compass;

a theodolite;

a camera;

a rotary encoder.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein some of the sensor measurements come from a gyroscope and the correction unit performs the following computation or its equivalent:

computing an angular drift by subtracting the angle between two gyroscope measurements from the expected angle between said gyroscope measurements;

computing an angular drift velocity by dividing the angular drift by the time elapsed between the two gyroscope measurements;

for all gyroscope measurements, computing a compensated gyroscope measurement by adding to the measurement an angle equal to the time integration of the angular drift velocity from a reference point in time up to the time of the gyroscope measurement;

modifying the floor plan using the compensated gyroscope measurements.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the correction unit applies a scale factor to elements comprised in the portion of the floor plan, the scale factor being obtained by one of the following:

a biometric property of the user holding a sensor;

a distance between a sensor and a reference point;

a distance between a sensor and a reference plane;

a ratio between an expected distance and the same distance computed using sensor measurements;

a triangulation using sensor measurements made from two locations separated by a known distance;

a combination of the above.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the layout unit improves the conformity of the portion of the floor plan to at least one of the following layout rules while ensuring that the modified portion of the floor plan remains substantially similar to the original:

maximizing the number of square angles between the walls;

maximizing symmetry between two series of walls;

making angles square or non-square based on user specifications;

preventing wall segments from intersecting anywhere but at their extremities;

preventing flat angles between connected wall segments;

minimizing a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan;

ensuring that a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan does not exceed a given threshold;

aligning walls to axes of one or more orthogonal coordinate systems;

minimizing the difference between the floor plan and a reference floor plan;

maximizing the correspondence of properties of the floor plan to a set of properties extracted from a database of reference floor plans;

maximizing an objective function combining several of the above rules.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the measurements that would have yielded the modified portion of the floor plan are compatible with at least one of the following:

the error model of the sensors;

operation errors while making the measurements.

7. A tool for modifying a portion of a floor plan based on measurements made by one or more sensors, adapted to run on an electronic device, the tool comprising:

a correction unit for compensating the sensor measurements for instrument errors;

a layout unit for improving the conformity of the portion of the floor plan to a set of layout rules.

8. The tool of claim 7, adapted to run on an electronic device further comprising at least one of the sensors that made the measurements and wherein the sensor is one of the following:

a gyroscope;

an accelerometer;

a laser distance meter;

a sonar;

a compass;

a theodolite;

a camera;

a rotary encoder.

9. The tool of claim 7, wherein some of the sensor measurements come from a gyroscope and the correction unit performs the following computation or its equivalent:

computing an angular drift by subtracting the angle between two gyroscope measurements from the expected angle between said gyroscope measurements;

computing an angular drift velocity by dividing the angular drift by the time elapsed between the two gyroscope measurements;

for all gyroscope measurements, computing a compensated gyroscope measurement by adding to the measurement an angle equal to the time integration of the angular drift velocity from a reference point in time up to the time of the gyroscope measurement;

modifying the floor plan using the compensated gyroscope measurements.

10. The tool of claim 7, wherein the correction unit applies a scale factor to elements comprised in the portion of the floor plan, the scale factor being obtained by at least one of the following:

a biometric property of the user holding the sensor;

a distance between a sensor and a reference point;

a distance between a sensor and a reference plane;

a ratio between an expected distance and the same distance computed using sensor measurements;

a triangulation using sensor measurements made from two locations separated by a known distance;

a combination of the above.

11. The tool of claim 7, wherein the layout unit improves the conformity of the portion of the floor plan to at least one of the following layout rules while ensuring that the modified portion of the floor plan remains substantially similar to the original:

maximizing the number of square angles between the walls;

maximizing symmetry between two series of walls;

making angles square or non-square based on user specifications;

preventing wall segments from intersecting anywhere but at their extremities;

preventing flat angles between connected wall segments;

minimizing a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan;

ensuring that a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan does not exceed a given threshold;

aligning walls to axes of one or more orthogonal coordinate systems;

minimizing the difference between the floor plan and a reference floor plan;

maximizing the correspondence of properties of the floor plan to a set of properties extracted from a database of reference floor plans;

maximizing an objective function combining several of the above rules.

12. The tool of claim 7, wherein the measurements that would have yielded the modified portion of the floor plan are compatible with at least one of the following:

the error model of the sensors;

operation errors while making the measurements.

13. A method for modifying a portion of a floor plan based on measurements made by one or more sensors by maximizing an objective function combining several of the following rules while ensuring that the modified portion of the floor plan remains substantially similar to the original:

maximizing the number of square angles between the walls;

maximizing symmetry between two series of walls;

making angles square or non-square based on user specifications;

preventing wall segments from intersecting anywhere but at their extremities;

preventing flat angles between connected wall segments;

minimizing a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan;

ensuring that a translation, a rotation, or a scaling of elements comprised in the floor plan does not exceed a given threshold;

aligning walls to axes of one or more orthogonal coordinate systems;

minimizing the difference between the floor plan and a reference floor plan;

maximizing the correspondence of properties of the floor plan to a set of properties extracted from a database of reference floor plans.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the measurements that would have yielded the modified portion of the floor plan are compatible with at least one of the following:

the error model of the sensors;

operation errors while making the measurements.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein maximizing an objective function in performed by at least one of the following:

a Monte Carlo method;

particle swarm optimization;

Newton'"'"'s method;

a quasi-Newton method;

a gradient descent or ascent;

a genetic algorithm;

a simplex algorithm;

simulated annealing;

brute-force search;

a combination of the above.