User manual for the program package WLAN Visual Assistant
Contents
1. Start Interpolation The interpolation process will take a while you may follow the process while it steps through the floors of the building After the interpolation has finished you will see the interpolated map of each floor The colors may differ but the default setting is green good quality red bad quality The darker the color of one point is the more reliable its interpolation is If you want to know the interpolated quality of a special point on the floor plan just put the mouse arrow over it You will see a tool tip that shows the quality of this point You can disable this behaviour by deselecting View Interpolated Quality You may now save the building for later use or changes Note You may choose between 4 interpolation methods in the Interpolation Method menu which are constant exponentiell linear and square interpolation Constant is the only method which does not need any stations set on the map 2 9 Export With the WLAN Visualizer you are able to export your interpolation results into HTML code to present it in the internet or intranet This can be done by simply clicking File Export A dialog opens where you can set a destination folder 10 2 9 Export Figure 2 4 A sample interpolation 11 2 WLAN Visualizer for the HTML and image files After the export has finished your standard browser ist automatically opened with the result of2. You can save your newly created building by clicking Save in the File menu or by clicking the disk button in the tool bar Later on you can load it again by clicking on the folder symbol in the tool bar or by Load in the File menu 2 4 Adding Measuring Points and Stations 2 4 Adding Measuring Points and Stations For an analysis of the WLAN network measurements need to be done It is easy to mark the points where you want to measure One way is to choose Edit Add Point an then click on the floor surface to place the point This is quite difficult if you want to place many measuring points For this purpose the pen button in the tool bar is used Click it to get into draw mode you can now place a measuring point with every click on the surface of the floor For most interpolation algorithms there are also stations WLAN access points needed You should place them in the main screen according to their placement in reality Use the menu point Building Add Station or the blue point in the tool bar for this purpose WLAN Visualizer Fraunhofer ajaja Ele Edit Building view Interpolation Help Osa 018 3 023 Station 3 Computer room oll a 048 Computer room uy Note 2 description of this coordinate Figure 2 3 A sample floor plan with measuring points 2 5 Transferring the D
3. cause a loss of efficiency since every drawing takes a little time A value to high will cause more efficiency but less fluent images The recommended setting is 4 2 23 4 Introduction to the Interpolator 24 5 Templates 5 1 Creating own templates Templates are great for designing user specific layouts In this case these templates are used for the HTML export The users is able to create his own design and layout To do this he has to keep in mind some things Therefore we take a closer look at the given templates 5 2 Templates Structure The HTML export of the WLAN Visualizer is based on different HTML templates which can be defined freely by the user To success the user has attend some things First we take a closer look into the templates directory within the programms directory It should look like figure 5 1 Name css ima Si Floor Floor menu ES index Figure 5 1 The templates directory The img directory contains all the images needed the css directory contains the style sheets to format the HTML page So there are three files left The index html later becomes the start page of the export For each floor a HTML page is created with floor html and floor_menu txt In floor_menu txt you specify a menu structure to link between the different floors on each page So how the whole thing works Each of these files contains different tokens which are lat
4. images of the floor maps in an appropriate format i e BMP or JPEG 2 WLAN Visualizer Go to the menu entry Building Add Floor and the Add Floor dialog will open 2 2 In the upper field you can indicate a unique name for the floor and give the floor an altitude in meters This altitude should conform to the relations in the real building In the lower field of the dialog you may select a graphics file that means a map that represents the floor Select the right one and close the dialog with Finish EB Add Floor Floor Properties Specity a unique name for the floor Basement Specity the altitude for the floor meter Graphics File Select the graphics file you want to be associated with this floor D Floolmages Ww 01 07 Model bmp Cancel Finish Figure 2 2 The Add Floor Dialog If all went right you should now see the floor map in the main screen and some additional information in the property grid at the right The menu View Change Groundplan allows you to change the image of the floor plan later Feel free to add additional floors to your building With View Floors you can select the floor to be shown in the main screen With the magnifying glasses in the tool bar you can zoom in and out of the map Predefined values of the scale can be reached in the View Scale menu 2 3 Opening And Saving Buildings
5. the export The output of this export can be dramatically changed by the templates See section 2 2 10 The Property Grid One central tool to change the behavior of the program is the property grid on the right side of the screen It not only shows information about the building the floor and the measuring points you may also change important values here E B El Interpolator Edit nested properties here Color E 255 0 0 Color050 1 255 255 0 Color100 E 0 255 0 CreateDummys True DistanceCoefficient 2 5 InvalidateRange 4 ua pa predict_exp RelativeResolution predict_constant RelevanceDistance predict linear StepWidth predict square Name Scale iA Figure 2 5 The property grid First of all go to View Building info in the menu Now some information about the building is shown in the property grid you may change the name of the building or the scale as well The scale is the pixel to meter factor you may enter a value by hand here or do the following Go to Building Calibrate Scale a dialog box is opened Now zoom into your map to find an imaginary line in the building you know the length of Click on one point of this line drag the created line to the endpoint of your imaginary line and click there again Now enter the length in meters into the input field in the dialog box and press OK The program now calculates an appropriate scale Quite interesting might be the Interpol
6. User manual for the program package WLAN Visual Assistant FHG 1 08 07 2003 Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 General Notes and 1 2 Installation on PC 2 WLAN Visualizer Requirements 2 2 2 Co EEE aid PDA x mr 4 4 588 Oe a A 2 1 Creating A New Building nn 2 2 Adding A Floor eirt fe gr o O Da EN 2 3 Opening And Saving Buildings o 2 4 Adding Measuring Points and Stations 0 008 4 2 5 Transferring the Data to the PDA 0 2 6 Measuring with the PDA o 0 0002000 2 7 Transferring The Data Back To The PC 2 22 2 8 nterpolating Ta a E A are A e Ee Sele Cok al 2 9 EXDO a ane Sa See id 2 De a we ed de aa 2 10 The Property Grid ioe bake ye 0 nenn OS eS a 3 MobileWLANAssistant Measuring with the PDA 3 1 Opening A Building 2 000000002 ee 3 2 Configure The Look o 0 00 05 0 200084 3 3 Measuring Quality 3 4 Adding Moving Removing the Measuring Points 4 Introduction to the Int 4 1 Quality Prediction erpolator 4 2 Distance averaging cu a a a nd aaa O e 43 Relevance 4 4 Image Production 5 Templates 5 1 Creating own templates 5 2 Templates Structure nn 5 8 Example e Bei eo a a hdd ae eee tr Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 General Notes and Requirements The WLAN Visual Assistant is a tool for analyzing WLAN netw
7. all you should notice that the interpolation is a four step process Each step has its unique settings all of which together produce a valuable interpolated image 4 1 Quality Prediction The first step deals with the prediction of quality from one station and measurement to every other position This is done by a prediction function that describes the quality to be expected depending on the distance from a given station The application provides you with four choices of prediction constant linear square and exponential The function are shown in the graph below each adjusted to fit a measuring point with a Quality of 60 in a distance of 2 meters prediction functans constsal equate Figure 4 1 The prediction functions The prediction function can be set both in the properties window and the menu The recommended setting is exponential 21 4 Introduction to the Interpolator 4 2 Distance averaging As you can easily imagine different station measurement pairs will produce different predictions for a questioned point Therefore the final quality at this point is de termined by averaging over these different predictions depending on the distance of the measuring point who made them In this process a function is needed that will return the weight of a measurement in this average depending on its distance For this purpose an exponential function was chosen This leaves you with another parameter to set which
8. ata to the PDA If you have created a building with all the measuring points you need you should save it under an appropriate name The floor map images are stored seperately in a subfolder 2 WLAN Visualizer of the directory where the building file is located In the Edit Preferences menu you can change the name for this subfolder the default is groundplan Now for transferring the data to the PDA you have to copy the wlan building file and the folder with the images For copying an established blue tooth connection is required Now go to the File Explorer of your Windows operating system you should be able to explore part of the file system on the PDA Just put the needed files see above from the location on your PC to a suitable location on the PDA 2 6 Measuring with the PDA See the part of the handbook dealing with the PDA 2 7 Transferring The Data Back To The PC It is the same as in point 5 Transferring The Data To the PDA but the other way around Only here it is enough to copy the wlan file back 2 8 Interpolating Before you interpolate you should set a sensible value for the Scale entry in the building property grid See section The Property Grid and the extra documentation about the interpolator settings If you have measured all you wanted and transferred the data back to the PC open the building file with the measuring data Then go to Interpolation
9. ator subbox Here you can change the interpolation color method and parameters See the extra documentation about the interpolator parameters for details 12 2 10 The Property Grid If you have changed the color of the interpolation you might be unsure which color stands for what To help you a legend is integrated in the program just choose View Show Legend in the menu If you click on the floor map you will see the floor properties on the right side Change what you want You are also able to hide the interpolation to view only the map of the floor If you click a measuring point on the map the property grid will show you the measured quality yes you can change it with the measuring date and an additional note 13 2 WLAN Visualizer 14 3 MobileWLANAssistant Measuring with the PDA In this section you will learn how to collect the data the WLAN Visualizer needs to do an Interpolation that means how to measure the WLAN quality at special points in your building with the PDA 3 1 Opening A Building First of all you need your created building file and the images folder in an appropriate directory on your PDA see section Transferring the data to the PDA in the WLAN Visualizer chapter Now start the MobileWLANAssistant With File Open you get into a dialog where you can choose your building file If all went right you now see the floor plan of your first floor including the m
10. easuring points 3 2 Configure The Look The View menu has some interesting functions First you can hide the measuring points depending on if they are already measured or not that can be useful to orien tate in the floor plan Do this by unselecting View Measured Points or View Unmeasured Points Select those menu entries again to make the corresponding points visible The same applies to the menu entry Stations By the Floor sub menu you can choose the floor that shall be shown in the main screen If the floor plan seems to be too big or too small you can change that with View Zoom If you click there a dialog opens where you may choose in the upper field or enter into the input box below a zoom factor Just pick a good one 3 3 Measuring Quality This is what the MobileWLAN Assistant is all about Before we actually measure one setting is quite useful Go to Options Number of Single Quality Measurements You now may choose or enter similar to the View Zoom dialog the number of measurements the WLANAssistant should do to evaluate the quality of one single point A higher number means more accuracy but also more time you have to wait for the result A good value to enter in this dialog is 15 which is also the default setting That means the WLANAssistant will wait for 15 measuring results to evaluate the WLAN quality of your posi
11. er replaced by the dedicated information A whole list of these tokens is listed in table 5 1 25 5 Templates Table 5 1 Token Overview Token name description HEADTITLE the title of the document appears in the window title bar of the browser CONTENT here all information about the interpolation is placed BUILDINGNAME the name of the building FLOORMENU here the contents of floor_menu txt are placed COUNT use this token to enable for example rollover images AHREF where to link to i e another floor FLOORNAME use this to place the floor name use only in floor_menu txt YEAR there the date and time of the export is printed FLOORIMAGE there the image of the floor is printed TITLE the floor name is printed at this location it s nearly the same like FLOORNAME but use this token as a title use only in floor_menu txt 5 3 Example Have look at the following HTML source code lt html gt lt head gt lt head gt lt body gt Hello World lt body gt lt html gt All it does is to print out the text Hello World Now we want to modifiy this source code to create a very basic template First save this file to a location you wish and call it index html Next we want to insert a clear page title so insert the following line between lt head gt and lt html gt lt title gt HEADTITLE lt title gt The export module will replace the HEADTITLE toke
12. essary to have the ipaQWLANUtil dll in the Windows directory This dll file is also distributed with the WLAN Visual Assistant To be sure it is in the Windows directory copy it there see section 2 5 2 WLAN Visualizer After the program is launched a blank field and an empty property grid on the right are on the screen To do anything useful it is best to start with 2 1 Creating A New Building In the File menu there is an entry New Building Go there or click on the button in the toolbar with the blank white paper on it Now the New Building dialog is opened Setup a new building ES This wizzard will help you to setup a new building First you need to specify a name for the building In the second step you need to specify the location where to save the building Building Name Specify a name for the building Fraunhofed Cancel Next gt gt Fish Figure 2 1 The New Building Dialog In the first step of this dialog you can specify a suitable name for the building you want to create Click Next to specify a filename to store the building into Be aware that a subdirectory will be created for the images of the floors You can set the name of this subdirectory in the Edit Preferences dialog Click Finish to actually create the building 2 2 Adding A Floor If you have created or opened a building you now are able to add floors to the building You now need the
13. hem before you create larger measuring projects Information about the position of WLAN access points The logical structure of the program data is quite easy The almighty basic module is the whole building consisting of some floors one upon the other The WLAN Visualizer expects all the maps of the floors to be in the same scale and if two points 1 Introduction in different maps have the same coordinates they should lay in top of each other in the real world too The floor plan should be black on white background Each floor itself contains some measuring points who contain the measured quality values and other properties 1 2 Installation on PC and PDA The installation of both programs is quite easy For the WLAN Visualizer a setup wizard is delivered with the program Just start the setup exe and the wizard will guide you through the installation process If you want to uninstall the WLAN Visualizer you can do that in the Windows System Settings simply by clicking on the Remove Button in the Software part For the MobileWLAN Assistant it is necessary to transfer the cab file to the PDA If you don t know how to do that see section 2 5 Once you have copied the cab file to the PDA just tip on it in the File Explorer The installation process will start immediately To uninstall the Mobile WLAN Assistant go to the Settings and then to Remove Programs there you can uninstall it On the PDA it is also nec
14. irements 222222 5 Altitude discs 8 s Plan 6 eee e es 5 10 15 SCRE iis a ick 10 SEAL are en 9 H HIME al a 25 T Exp ft die eu esdasd satis 25 Templates 12 25 29 Greater last e O aa 25 Example asus dass eus a 26 Structure Lo 25 Token tesa 25 Transfer Spanair ees 9 10 W WLAN Visualizer 2 2 7 Installation comia esse 6 30
15. is called DistanceCoefficient The higher this value the softer the exponential function will fall thus causing mea surements that are farther away to have an effect on the averaging The lower the value the steeper the function falls thus only very close measurements have an ef fect on the questioned point in extreme only the closest measurement has an effect producing rather funny looking splits in the image A recommended setting in a well calibrated map is 2 5 0 5 4 3 Relevance The algorithm so far will generate an interpolated quality for each point It is easy to see that there will be points for which no statement can be made Therefore the third step introduces relevance calculated for each point to make this difference visible In the properties window you can set a RelevanceDistance which states the range in meters around a measurement where relevance will be one For mere elegancy relevance will not fall to zero immediately but descend slowly causing a fade out in color A recommended setting in a well calibrated map is 4 0 5 4 4 Image Production After each quality and relevance has been computed the actual color for the pixel to be set will be calculated In this process a number of settings is used all of them rather important for the result The first three setting you will notice are Color0 Color050 and Color100 Those settings specify the colors used for 0 50 and 100 All co
16. lors in between emerge from a linear mixing of the two colors on either side of the value i e 25 will be in the middle between Color0 and Color050 A recommended setting is the predefined red yellow green color scheme A very important value is the RelativeResolution It defines how fine you want the interpolation to be A value of 1 means that the interpolated image will have as many pixels as the ground plan Accordingly 0 5 means only half the width and height thus only a quarter the pixel count of the ground plan With this setting the performance of interpolation can be heavily improved A recommendation for this value is hard to make since it depends on the size of the ground plan However setting 22 4 4 Image Production the value to 0 5 rather than 1 will speed up interpolation by a factor 4 producing an image with a negligible loss of information The next rather useful setting is the StepWidth user in rasterizing the output For instance if you only wish to have 10 different output levels 0 10 20 etc chose a value of 0 1 1 10 thus setting the width of one output level to 10 Accordingly a value of 0 05 will produce 20 levels each with a width of 5 A value of O will show the interpolated quality without leveling and is the predefined setting A less important setting is the InvalidateRange It defines how often during interpolation the image in progress will be shown A value to small will
17. n with the building name Next we insert a two column table where we want the information and the images to be placed Insert between lt body gt and lt body gt the following first you can remove the Hello World text lt table border 1 gt lt tr gt 26 5 3 Example lt td gt Interpolation info lt td gt lt td gt CONTENT lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt The CONTENT token will be replaced by the interpolation information Now comes the tricky part Because the export module does not know how many floors you have in your building we need to define the following table rows in a separate file which the export module takes for each floor and insert the desired information So create a plain text file called floor menu txt and save it right with the index html file Put the follwing lines into this new file lt tr gt lt td gt FLOORNAME lt td gt lt td gt lt img src FLOORIMAGE gt lt td gt lt tr gt This line means that the floor name is printed into the left column and the image into the right Now we need to modify the index html telling the export module to place the above line in the table Insert FLOORMENU right before the lt table gt statement That s it Your export should now look something like 5 2 If not look whether you have choosen the right templates in the preferences dialog To learn more about creating your own templates you can take a closer look into
18. orks especially de signed for buildings It consists of two programs the WLAN Visualizer for a Windows PC the second one the MobileWLAN Assistant for a PDA The program s basic idea is the following in a building with a number of floors a WLAN network is to be build or is already installed An administrator can now load existing maps of the floors into the main program and mark different points where he intends to measure the quality of the network After the transfer of this data onto the PDA the administrator will now go to those measuring points and will actually measure the quality of the WLAN network after the measuring the data is transferred back to the PC Here an interpolation can now visualize the measured data Based upon this visualization the administrator can now make decisions about application and the position of WLAN access points The up to now only briefly described procedures will be explained quite in detail in this handbook We start with the requirements in hardware and software which are needed for the program e PC Windows with NET framework at least version 1 1 Bluetooth connection and correctly installed drivers e PDA PocketPC 2002 operating system Bluetooth e Misc Maps of the different floors of the building needed in JPEG or BMP format The best resolution during test was 700 x 560 If you have very big images you should first test the functionality of the program with t
19. se Reject Quality in the context menu If you are content with the measurement you may continue with the next unmea sured point Just choose one If there are only few of them left on the map and you have difficulties finding them the function Edit Find An Unmeasured Point can help you It just centers the view onto an unmeasured point 18 3 4 Adding Moving Removing the Measuring Points 3 4 Adding Moving Removing the Measuring Points Sometimes it may happen that you have misplaced some points in the WLAN Visualizer or you have placed too many or too less points For those cases the Edit menu was designed If you click on the first entry Add Measuring Point the program will switch in draw mode that means clicking on the floor plan will place a point You can leave this mode by disabling this menu entry The same is true for Measuring Points Movable select this entry to be able to drag the points over the floor and disable it to go on with measuring By clicking Remove All Measuring Points you may delete all points in this floor Be careful with this option You probably already noticed that you can give each point a note The last entry in the View menu helps you to find Points by their note 19 3 MobileWLAN Assistant Measuring with the PDA 20 4 Introduction to the Interpolator In this chapter the interpolator and its possible settings will be described First of
20. the given templates which are installed along with the program 27 5 Templates 28 Building File Name Fraunhofer wlan Interpolation Method Exponential Distance Koefficient 3 Relevance Distance 5 interpolation info Invalidate Range 4 Step width 0 05 100 Color DDD 50 Color 0 Color HS Keller Figure 5 2 Export with example template Index Symbols I SAHREE an ante 26 Interpolation 9 10 21 BUILDINGNAME 26 Columna 10 22 SCONTENT p us run a ais 26 InvalidateRange 23 SCOUNT unsre ann 26 Legend 222222c eee 12 FLOORIMAGE 26 Method o oo oooomo ooo 10 SFLOORMENU 2 26 Prediction 21 SFOORNAME van 26 Oase ren 10 HEADTITLE 26 RelativeResolution 22 ESA BU A Ri A DADA PD A are 26 StepWidth dao names arte 23 IS A shan acer 26 interpolation Relevance o o ooooo o 22 B Building essa er 5 M M COSUTING ann nn 15 Create sera 7 Ss 18 Load ah unmeasured point OMG eterno aan 6 9 PO nas uke gerne i RLS ds 8 i RN 19 Peer 15 Move een 19 Save Remove 22220 19 LOSEREEZZERZZEZEEZZZER EZ 8 MobileWLANAssistant 15 PDA see eee eee 15 Installation 6 E P Export ar eat 10 Property grid 8 12 Scaler et 10 12 F No o RR dee he 5 R CS ps aq amo dum A o cor Ses 7 Requ
21. tion and that will take about 5 to 10 seconds 15 3 Mobile WLAN Assistant Measuring with the PDA Da PA fraunhofer wlan 7 pa N l v Measured Points v Unmeasured Points Stations Figure 3 1 The Mobile WLAN Assistant with the View menu opened 16 3 3 Measuring Quality fraunhofer wlan 1 13 E IA h Figure 3 2 the measurements dialog 17 3 MobileWLAN Assistant Measuring with the PDA Now choose one unmeasured point that are the red ones on the screen and go to the position in the real building You should now stand at the exact position of the red point in the floor plan with the PDA in your hand For opening the context menu of a point you may tip on it and release the pen on the same position In the context menu choose Measure Quality Now if all requirements for aWLAN measurement are met i e the WLAN on your PDA is activated the MobileWLAN Assistant will measure the quality at your position This will take some seconds depending on your settings see above When the program has completed the measurement it will show the result Click OK i z Measure Quality Reject Quality Remove Show Description Edit Description File Edit Yiew Options Figure 3 3 the context menu of a point If you don t trust the result you may repeat the measurement with the same steps If you want to mark the point unmeasured again you can choo
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