How-to guides

Wayfinding & directions

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Wayfinding & directions

Set up wayfinding & directions

Give visitors turn-by-turn directions from A to B on your map, with an estimated walk time, an optional step free (wheelchair) path, and distances worked out from your own GPS coordinates.

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Wayfinding & directions

Connect floors with lifts and stairs

Place Stairs and Lift markers to link levels. The same name on two floors joins them, lifts stay usable step free, stairs are avoided.

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Wayfinding & directions

Control how fast the wayfinding line draws in

The Animation speed field sets how quickly the wayfinding line sketches itself across the map when a visitor chooses directions.

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Wayfinding & directions

Draw an accurate path network

The walkable lines you draw into each level's artwork are what wayfinding follows. Here's how to draw a path network that produces clean, believable directions.

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Wayfinding & directions

Draw on your map: paths, barriers and connectors

Draw the walkable network straight onto your map with wayfinding lines, Barrier lines and Stairs or Lift markers, on both vector and image floors.

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Wayfinding & directions

Draw walking paths onto your map

Use the wayfinding line tool to draw the walkable paths your directions follow. Tap along each corridor, keep it connected, and let touching lines join.

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Wayfinding & directions

Drawing wayfinding on image maps

Wayfinding is not only for vector maps. Draw paths, barriers and floor connectors straight onto a photo or scanned floor plan.

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Wayfinding & directions

Fix drawn wayfinding that does not connect

A path that will not form almost always means lines that do not touch, or floor connectors that are not named the same. Here is how to find the gap.

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Wayfinding & directions

Fix wayfinding that won't draw

A checklist for when directions won't draw — from disconnected path islands to stranded destinations and mismatched cross-level portals.

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Wayfinding & directions

Get accurate walk times

The "Est. N min" shown on directions is only as good as the scale behind it. Learn how distance is worked out, and how to make the estimate trustworthy.

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Wayfinding & directions

How estimated walking time is worked out

The Est. minutes and metres on directions come from your scale and walking speeds. Here is the calculation and the fields behind each part.

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Wayfinding & directions

Import wayfinding lines from your SVG

Already drew wayfinding in your SVG artwork? The Edit SVG lines button copies the open floor's lines and connectors into editable objects.

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Wayfinding & directions

Make paths connect at junctions

Mapvera works out where visitors can walk from the geometry of your lines, not their names. Learn how two paths are judged to meet, and how to avoid disconnected islands.

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Wayfinding & directions

Make places wayfinding destinations

A wayfinding path needs somewhere to end. Learn the two ways a place becomes a wayfinding destination, and how the path network has to reach it.

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Wayfinding & directions

Mark steps and barriers for step free wayfinding

Draw Barrier lines across steps or blocked ways. Normal directions cross them, step free directions go around them.

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Wayfinding & directions

Round the wayfinding corners with Smoothing

The Smoothing field rounds the corners of the drawn wayfinding line so it reads as a natural walking path rather than a jagged polyline.

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Wayfinding & directions

Set a fixed "You are here" start

Pin all wayfinding to one starting point — ideal for a wall-mounted kiosk or a printed QR at the entrance, where you already know where the visitor is standing.

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Wayfinding & directions

Set the colour that marks stairs and barriers

The break colour tells step free wayfinding which parts of your map are stairs or blocked ways, so wheelchair paths go around them.

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Wayfinding & directions

Set up step free wayfinding

Offer visitors a wheelchair-friendly path that avoids stairs. Learn how to mark step barriers in your artwork and switch the step free option on.

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Wayfinding & directions

Set walking speed for accurate times

The Walking speed field turns the path distance into the estimated minutes shown on directions. Match it to your visitors for realistic times.

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Wayfinding & directions

Style your wayfinding line: colour and width

Set the wayfinding line colour, the step free line colour and the line width in the Wayfinding settings so directions read clearly over your artwork.

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Wayfinding & directions

Style your wayfinding lines

Colour, width, smoothing and animation of the drawn wayfinding line — with the defaults and the choices that keep the wayfinding line readable over busy map artwork.

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Wayfinding & directions

The wayfinding settings, field by field

A quick tour of every field on the Wayfinding settings panel and what each one does, with links to the detail for each.

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Wayfinding & directions

Turn on the step free (accessibility) option

The Enable step free checkbox adds a wheelchair-friendly toggle to directions that avoids stairs and barriers on your map.

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Wayfinding & directions

Use a slower speed for step free wayfinding

The Accessible speed field sets the slower pace used to estimate time when a visitor is in step free (wheelchair) mode.

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Wayfinding & directions

Wayfinding across multiple levels

When a journey spans two floors, wayfinding needs a portal — a stair or lift — that links the levels. Here's how to set portals up so cross-level wayfinding just works.

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