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When a WLAN for a multi-floor building is
being designed, the virtual model must take into consideration
signal “leak” from the adjacent floors. This is important for two
reasons. First, it is a common practice to provide connectivity to
the adjacent floor by means of the APs that are deployed one floor
below or above (usually below, because APs are typically placed on
the ceiling, and, therefore, are closer to the floor located
above.) Second, if providing connectivity by this method is not
planned, it is important to make sure that the signal that
penetrates the floors does not cause interference. With TamoGraph,
you can create and analyze multi-floor models as explained
below.
Creating a Multi-floor Project
To create a multi-floor project, you should
first follow the steps that you follow when you create a standard
project; you must add a floor plan to the project and calibrate it.
You can begin with the first floor. Once the standard project with
a single floor plan has been created, you can use the
Plans and
Surveys tab on the
right panel to manage floors and define their characteristics.
Click Add => Floor
to create a new floor level and
then drag your first floor plan to the newly created floor item.
After that you can click Add => Floor
again to create a new floor
level. If the floor plans are identical for all the floors in your
model, you can duplicate floors after drawing walls and other
obstructions on the first floor plan and placing alignment points;
this is described in detail below. If the floors are not identical,
you should add individual floor plans images in one of the
supported graphic formats for every floor by selecting the
corresponding floor and using the Add => Plan…
command. New floor plans must
then be calibrated. Note that for each floor, you can add
multiple floor plans that might have different scale and
orientation.
Once the floors have been
created and the corresponding floor plans have been added and
calibrated, you should specify floor heights and a few other
characteristics. New floors are added with default floor materials
and heights; to specify correct values for your building,
right-click on any of the floor items and select
Properties
or click on the
Floor
Manager button. You can
also use this dialog to rearrange floors.
When the floor properties have been
defined, you should take care of floor plan alignment as explained
below.
Aligning Floors
When you work with a
multi-floor site model, TamoGraph can analyze Wi-Fi signals that
come from the adjacent floors. To be able to take advantage of this
functionality, you need to perform floor alignment. Floor plan
alignment is necessary because floor plans might have different
scale, orientation, or offset. While floor alignment is not
mandatory, TamoGraph will use only the data from the current
floor unless you perform
floor alignment. To perform it, please do the following:
·Right-click on the
first floor plan and select Align Floor
Plan.
·Choose a few locations
on the floor plan that will be easily identifiable on the plans of
other floors. This could be elevator shaft corners, building
corners, staircase corners, or anything else that you can easily
find on all the floor plans that you use in the project.
·Click
Add
point to place a new
marker on the floor plan, and then move the marker to one of these
locations. Create at least two markers. Each marker is assigned a
unique number. If you made a mistake, click Delete point
or Clear
all.
·Once you have placed
two or more alignment markers, click Apply.
·Repeat this operation
for all the floor plans that you would like to have aligned. The
markers must be positioned exactly below or above the corresponding
markers on the adjacent floor. For example, if marker #2 on the
5th
floor is placed in the bottom
right corner of the building, marker #2 must be also placed in the
bottom right corner of the building on the floor plan of the
6th
floor.
To check the current floor alignment
status, select Properties
or click on the
Floor
Manager button. The
floors that are properly aligned are marked with a green checkbox.
The floors that have not been aligned yet are marked with a yellow
exclamation mark. Just like map calibration, floor alignment must
be done only once.
Floor Duplication
If the floor plans are identical for some
or all the floors in your model, you can simply right-click on the
first floor and select Duplicate Floor
to create a copy of the first
floor with exactly the same floor plan. If the walls and other
obstructions, their placement, and materials are identical for all
floors, you can calibrate a single floor plan, draw walls, perform
floor alignment as described above, and then use the
Duplicate
Floor command; that way,
you will not need to recreate the same virtual floor model for
every floor or align the floors, because duplication includes the
walls and alignment points.
Analyzing Data
Data analysis for multi-floor sites is
similar to data analysis methods for single-floor predictive
surveys; they are described in the Applying
Visualizations chapter. However, there are some
peculiarities that should be noted. In addition to the signals from
the APs located on the floor being analyzed, TamoGraph will also
analyze the signals that penetrate from the APs located on the
adjacent floors, taking into account their position, height above
the floor, and the material of the ceilings. The APs located on the
adjacent floors are displayed on the AP list (the left pane of the
main TamoGraph window), but the names of such APs are shown using a
pale blue font color. This allows you to identify the APs that do
not belong to the current floor. Note that you cannot change the
properties of such APs or delete them. If you want to change
properties of an AP or delete it, first select the floor to which
it belongs using the Plans and Surveys
tab.
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