Digital representation of building interiors for individuals with vision impairments

For people with visual impairment (VI), prior exploration of unfamiliar places is an advantage before visiting a previously unfamiliar environment. For this group of people, it is particularly important to acquire spatial knowledge of the environment, a so-called cognitive map, in order to orientate with maximum efficiency and possible independence. The first challenge is that information for such training is less readily available. Another difficulty is that information, to be useful, must be tailored to the needs of specific people with VI. In addition to expected requirements such as relevance and completeness, it must be adapted to different forms such as textual description, tactile maps, audio format, etc. A flexible data format and an editor that allows the data to be edited are needed to create such information sources. Our idea is to create an editor that allows the creation of datasets with a focus on indoor spaces without additional study of the nuances of the domain. In tandem with the popular open-source data format, the project is intended to simplify work with geodata, allowing to customise existing or newly created datasets for different tasks with a focus on people with VI.