Introduction

In this how-to guide, you will learn how to place anchors on to an already configured floor plan and localize tags using the Wirepas Network Tool (WNT) Client.

What you’ll learn

• How to place anchors node on an existing building floor plan
• How to drag tags on an existing building floor plan so they become automatically localized

What you’ll need

Prerequisites

This how-to guide assumes you already have:

• A configured and working backend (either self-hosted or Wirepas hosted) with Wirepas Positioning Engine (WPE) installed (to calculate the position of tags).
• WNT Client installed and configured to connect to your backend as described in the document ‘Wirepas Network Tool Client User Guide’ [1] (WNT v3.x) or [2] (WNT4).
• A configured building and floor plan in WNT, as described in the document ‘How to create and configure a building floor plan in WNT client’ [5].

Getting started

In this how-to guide you will set up Wirepas Massive nodes on a fully configured building floor plan so that tags become automatically localized.

To achieve this the following two steps are needed:

• Step 1: Place anchors on the floorplan
• Step 2: Approve tags

For this guide the test_building floor plan is used, which is the outcome of [5].

The following section will explain the configuration process.

Step 1: Place Anchors on the floorplan

The first thing to do is to approve the Anchor nodes.

“Node Approval” is a WNT Client and WPE concept which mainly defines:

• to WNT Client if a node should be displayed on a building map.
• to WPE
  • For Anchors nodes (Routers): it also declares the position of the Anchor (please note that unapproved Anchors are not used to compute position)
  • For Tags (Non-Routers): it will trigger the node to be properly placed on the map each time WPE provides an updated position 

The “Node Approval” process for Anchors node in the WNT client is done as follows:

• select the Wirepas Massive network available in your building as explained here. In this how-to guide the network name is test_building_network.
• go to the Settings → Node Management menu. You can see a world map where all your georeferenced buildings will be displayed (the building name can be seen by hovering over building icon with the mouse cursor) at the correct location, as shown in below WNT Client screenshot.

Note: to get more information click help, which is located on the right hand side (center) of the WNT Client.

In case you have already approved some nodes, you can remove them in the Nodes menu by right clicking on some node(s) (multiple nodes can be selected at the same time) and choose the “remove approval“ option as shown in the below WNT Client screenshot

• Click on your building. You will have a new menu where you will be able to see and select the building’s floor plan(s) in top right menu. An example is shown below:

Note: to see how to change floor plan/building from this menu see this section and this one in [1]

• To approve an Anchor node simply drag and drop it onto the selected floor plan at the proper location as explained in the help menu and here. 

Anchors should be placed roughly on the floor plan in the location where they are expected to be placed in real life. This can be done by selecting with the mouse left button then dragging and dropping. You can change the position of an Anchor by just moving it to a new position on the floorplan in the Node Management menu.

Note: you can adjust the displayed node’s icon size with the slider bar in the bottom right hand corner of the WNT Client. 

Note for WNT4 Only : In WNT4, Anchor role must be explicitly specified. Only nodes set as Anchor will be declared and used by Wirepas Positioning Engine. It allows to exclude some nodes from the position computation such as Gateways.

• To set a node as Anchor, please check the box “Positioning anchor node” prior to drag and drop the Anchor on the floorplan.

• Position Role can also be changed from the Nodes menu. Right click on the node (or on a group of nodes with either Shift key + Left Click or Ctrl Key + Left Click) and select the proper Anchor positioning role as shown in the picture below :

The WNT Client has two mode views:

• Normal mode
  • Positioning mode
• The Positioning mode view graphically removes the lines (mesh connections) between the nodes, which helps you to more easily distinguish between the node types (Anchors and Tags).

The legend (on the right hand side) provides a description of the node type.

• Once all the Anchors are placed the process is finished.

You have now successfully placed anchors accordingly. The final step is to approve tags so that they are automatically positioned onto the map.

Step 2: Approve Tags

The “Node Approval” process for a Tag is essentially the same process as for an Anchor except that Tags just need to be dropped to a floorplan at any location.

Tags positions are then automatically updated on the proper floorplan location each time the WPE computes a new position.

In the picture below we can see four Anchors configured with one Tag (where position is automatically computed by WPE).

Note: Please note that Tags will only be located in the delimited polygon formed by anchors i.e if anchors are all aligned then the tag will not be visible on the plan. 

You can see the position computed by WPE by double clicking on a Tag (Non-Router nodes in WNT) and looking at the position data as per below screenshot. The “Position time” shall change at the configured tag localization interval.

Going further

The guide showed how to set up a simple infrastructure to be able to localize tags within the WNT Client. All operations done with the WNT Client can also be done using the WNT backend API described in “WNT v3 backend API“ [3] or “WNT v4 backend API“ [4] depending on which WNT version you have.

Troubleshooting

Cannot see Anchors and/or Tags displayed on floorplan in “node management” or “map” menu

Check that the Tags filter and Anchors filters are not enabled i.e. the buttons are green, as shown in the below screenshot.

References

[1] Wirepas Network Tool Client V3 User Guide

[2] Wirepas Network Tool Client V4 User Guide 

[3] WNT 3 backend API

[4] WNT 4 backend API

[5] How to create and configure a building floor plan in WNT client

Revision History

Legal Notice

Use of this document is strictly subject to Wirepas’ Terms of Use and Legal Notice.

Copyright © 2021 Wirepas Oy