Wayfinding services method and apparatus

A system for discovering space characteristics, the system comprising:

• a data store storing a facility information dataset corresponding to a physical world facility that includes a plurality of physical world spaces, the facility information dataset including a 3D virtual world (VW) representation of the physical world facility that includes a separate volumetric portion for each physical world space and a separate volume specification for each of the volumetric portions;
• an interface device including a display screen located within the physical world facility associated with the 3D VW representation;
• occupancy sensors within the physical world facility for detecting occupancy of the physical world spaces;
• a processor linked to the interface device, the data store, and the occupancy sensors, the processor programmed to perform the steps of:
• accessing the 3D VW representation of the physical world facility;
• presenting a first view of the 3D VW representation via the display screen as a space discovery tool for a user to view;
• visually distinguishing volumetric portions of the 3D VW representation corresponding to physical world spaces that are currently occupied from portions of the 3D VW representation corresponding to physical world spaces that are unoccupied;
• presenting a filter window via the display screen including a list of selectable attributes associated with the volumetric portions of the 3D VW representation that are preferred by a user;
• receiving selection of at least a subset of the selectable attributes via the filter window;
• identifying a set of the physical world spaces that are unoccupied and have the subset of selectable attributes;
• and
• for each volumetric portion of the 3D VW representation corresponding to a physical world space that is unoccupied and has the subset of selectable attributes, presenting a tag spatially associated with the volumetric portion on the 3D VW representation.

A system for discovering space characteristics, the system comprising:

• a data store storing a facility information dataset corresponding to a physical world facility that includes a plurality of physical world spaces, the facility information dataset including a 3D virtual world (VW) representation of the physical world facility that includes a separate volumetric portion for each physical world space and a separate volume specification for each of the volumetric portions, wherein each of the physical world spaces can be scheduled;
• an interface device including a display screen located within the physical world facility associated with the 3D VW representation;
• occupancy sensors within the physical world facility for detecting occupancy of the physical world spaces;
• a processor linked to the interface device, the data store, and the occupancy sensors, the processor having access to scheduling information related to the physical world spaces and programmed to perform the steps of:
• accessing the 3D VW representation of the physical world facility;
• presenting a view of the 3D VW representation via the display screen as a space discovery tool for a user to view;
• identifying an available unscheduled duration for at least a subset of the physical world spaces using the scheduling information;
• and
• simultaneously presenting a time available tag for each of a plurality of the volumetric portions of the 3D VW representation that are associated with physical world spaces that are available for use on the display screen, each tag spatially associated with a different one of the volumetric portions and presenting an amount of time that the associated physical world space is available for use prior to a next scheduled use of the associated physical world space.