“PI” stands for Place Identifier. A PI provides a unique identifier for features in both the real or virtual world.

Irregardless of either interior or exterior space, one of the outstanding merits is that a PI can be used to freely describe any place information. Examples of place information could include longitude and latitude, a street address, a postcode, a grid reference, interior coordinates, local coordinates, a URI, etc. The temporality of this place information can also be included in the PI.

A PI can also be assigned to every type of digital content. The PI enables place information to be more easily exchanged between digital devices, such as cellular phones, or web site servers, etc. This ability for easy exchange will facilitate the use and creation of more place information.

During the 2005 fiscal year, work on the PI consisted of a needs assessment followed by clarification of design methodology.

Each community, depending on the use of data for either interior or exterior applications, has there own method of displaying geospatial data.

Being forced to use only one rigid specification is often times difficult. We believe it is important to have a defined framework that provides enough flexibility for each community, while maintaining an interoperable flow of information between parties.

The need for a geospatial exchange service is high, however there is no service which supports interoperability between all of the varied communities.

In addition, there is no one system which can facilitate the exchange of geospatial data seamlessly between interior and exterior environments.

Considering these needs, we established the PI project to create a defined framework and a dynamic exchange mechanism that would meet the various requirements and acceptability of each user community.


PI Infomation