Techniques for merging virtual and physical floor maps

Abstract

Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques to merge a virtual map derived from sensors of computing devices moved about an interior of a structure with a corresponding physical map. An apparatus to merge maps includes a processor component; and a merged map generator for execution by the processor component to merge a virtual map and a physical map to generate a merged map, the virtual map comprising indications of virtual pathways through an interior of a structure based on sensors, and the physical map comprising indications of physical pathways of the interior. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

1 - 25 . (canceled) 
     
     
         26 . An apparatus comprising:
 a processor component; and   a merged map generator for execution by the processor component to merge a virtual map and a physical map to generate a merged map, the virtual map comprising indications of virtual pathways through an interior of a structure based on sensors, and the physical map comprising indications of physical pathways of the interior.   
     
     
         27 . The apparatus of  claim 26 , comprising an error calculator for execution by the processor component, the merged map generator to repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to a pathway map and the error calculator to determine a degree of error representing a sum of differences of locations between features of the virtual map and features of the pathway map for each manipulation of the virtual map, the pathway map indicating locations of the physical pathways. 
     
     
         28 . The apparatus of  claim 27 , comprising:
 a display communicatively coupled to the processor component; and   an anchoring component for execution by the processor component to visually present a request for an indication of an anchor point at which the virtual map and the physical map coincide on the display, and to correlate a location of the anchor point on the physical map to a location on the pathway map.   
     
     
         29 . The apparatus of  claim 28 , comprising a scaling component for execution by the processor component to scale the virtual map to multiple sizes relative to the pathway map while maintaining the anchor point, the error calculator to determine a degree of error for each size of the multiple sizes to determine which size of the multiple sizes provides a best alignment between the virtual map and the pathway map. 
     
     
         30 . The apparatus of  claim 27 , the features of the virtual map comprising points at which two or more segments of a virtual pathway meet, and the features of the pathway map comprising points at which two or more segments of a physical pathway meet. 
     
     
         31 . The apparatus of  claim 26 , comprising a pathway extractor for execution by the processor component to generate a pathway map comprising indications of locations of the physical pathways from the physical map. 
     
     
         32 . The apparatus of  claim 31 , the merged map generator to repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a first stage in coarser increments to determine a best alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map and in a second stage in finer increments to determine a still better alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map. 
     
     
         33 . The apparatus of  claim 32 , comprising a rotation component for execution by the processor component to rotate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in the first stage in increments of a first selected quantity of degrees of rotation and in the second stage in increments of a second selected quantity of degrees of rotation, the first selected quantity greater than the second. 
     
     
         34 . The apparatus of  claim 26 , comprising an interface communicatively coupled to the processor component to transmit the merged map to at least one of the computing devices. 
     
     
         35 . An apparatus comprising:
 a processor component; and   a merged map generator for execution by the processor component to align segments of virtual pathways of a virtual map with segments of physical pathways of a pathway map, the virtual pathways comprising pathways of an interior of a structure based on sensors, and the physical pathways comprising pathways enabling physical movement through the interior.   
     
     
         36 . The apparatus of  claim 35 , comprising a pathway extractor for execution by the processor component to extract indications of the physical pathways from a physical map of at least a portion of the structure to generate the pathway map. 
     
     
         37 . The apparatus of  claim 36 , the merged map generator to correlate an alignment of the virtual pathways with the physical pathways to an alignment of the virtual map to the physical map, and to merge the virtual map and the physical map to generate a merged map. 
     
     
         38 . The apparatus of  claim 35 , the merged map generator to repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a first stage in coarser increments to determine a best alignment of the virtual pathways with the physical pathways and in a second stage in finer increments to determine a still better alignment of the virtual pathways with the physical pathways. 
     
     
         39 . The apparatus of  claim 38 , comprising a rotation component for execution by the processor component to rotate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in the first stage in increments of a first selected quantity of degrees of rotation and in the second stage in increments of a second selected quantity of degrees of rotation, the first selected quantity greater than the second. 
     
     
         40 . A computing-implemented method comprising:
 generating a virtual map comprising indications of virtual pathways through an interior of a structure based on sensors; and   merging the virtual map and a physical map comprising indications of physical pathways of the interior to generate a merged map.   
     
     
         41 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 40 , comprising:
 generating a pathway map from the indications of the physical pathways of the physical map;   repeatedly manipulating the virtual map relative to the pathway map; and   determining a degree of error representing a sum of differences of locations between features of the virtual map and features of the pathway map for each manipulation of the virtual map.   
     
     
         42 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 41 , comprising:
 visually presenting the physical map, the virtual map and a request for an indication of an anchor point at which the virtual map and the physical map coincide on a display; and   correlating a location of the anchor point on the physical map to a location on the pathway map.   
     
     
         43 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 42 , comprising:
 rotating the virtual map relative to the pathway map about the anchor point to multiple orientations, and   determining which orientation of the multiple orientations provides a best alignment between the virtual map and the pathway map.   
     
     
         44 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 41 , comprising:
 repeatedly manipulating the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a first stage in coarser increments to determine a best alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map; and   repeatedly manipulating the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a second stage in finer increments to determine a still better alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map.   
     
     
         45 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 44 , comprising:
 scaling the virtual map relative to the pathway map in the first stage in increments of a first selected percentage of size of the virtual map; and   scaling the virtual map relative to the pathway map in the second stage in increments of a second selected percentage of size of the virtual map, the first selected percentage greater than the second.   
     
     
         46 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 41 , comprising:
 correlating an alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map to an alignment of the virtual map with the physical map; and   transmitting the merged map to at least one of the computing devices.   
     
     
         47 . At least one machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to:
 generate a virtual map comprising indications of virtual pathways through an interior of a structure based on sensors; and   merge the virtual map and a physical map comprising indications of physical pathways of the interior to generate a merged map.   
     
     
         48 . The at least one machine-readable storage medium of  claim 47 , the computing device caused to:
 generate a pathway map from the indications of the physical pathways of the physical map;   repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to the pathway map; and   determine a degree of error representing a sum of differences of locations between features of the virtual map and features of the pathway map for each manipulation of the virtual map.   
     
     
         49 . The at least one machine-readable storage medium of  claim 48 , the computing device caused to:
 visually present the physical map, the virtual map and a request for an indication of an anchor point at which the virtual map and the physical map coincide on a display of the computing device; and   correlate a location of the anchor point on the physical map to a location on the pathway map.   
     
     
         50 . The at least one machine-readable storage medium of  claim 48 , the computing device caused to:
 repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a first stage in coarser increments to determine a best alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map; and   repeatedly manipulate the virtual map relative to the pathway map in a second stage in finer increments to determine a still better alignment of the virtual map with the pathway map.