Hertzian Space

Last week we were asked to map the hertzian space of an area as the start of a project into Hertzian space for IDAT106. For this task I decided to map the wifi networks in Alexandra Works, the student accomodation which we are staying in. I chose this as I have a wifi network in my room, and I was intrigued to find out how many other people had decided to do the same as me, especially being that sharing networks is disallowed in the building. I therefore downloaded some stumbler software and took my laptop around the building with a floor plan for each floor to find all the wireless networks and log what I found. The results of this were quite surprising as I found at least 30 networks in the building which only has around 45 cluster flats, meaning that almost every cluster flat has at least one wifi network within it. Below is the list I accumulated from this and then the prototype map I made from the data I could use:

When producing the prototype map on paper for this I chose to use circles to resemble the edge of the area which the network could be reached within. The networks themselves are not shaped in an exact circle, due to the effect of walls and other objects which cut through the space, but I decided that, theoretically, without those obstacles the network should be basically cirular. This also enabled me to map the networks as their distorted shape would be very difficult to define with the technology I have available. I also layered all of the floors on top of each other so that the networks were seen from a birds eye view.

Once I had drawn this, I decided I would translate the prototype to a 3D image so that the idea of a spherical boundary within which a network is available could be more easily portrayed. This image I colour coded similar to that of the 2D map above to demonstrate their relation. Below is this image from 4 different angles in this order (front, back, left, right):

I then showed this to my IDAT106 tutor who suggested that in its current state the 3D map was difficult to understand and read as there was no information explaining what was what and where within the space. I may have been able to understand the image because I knew the space but no one else did and so better communication of the image was needed. I therefore drew up the following image to help solve this:

I could also have chosen to place the floor plan of the space onto this image in relation to the wifi spheres to give a better understanding of the layout, but the angles needed for this would make the image more difficult to read and so I stuck with just displaying where the levels were for each floor in relation to the networks.

The next step for this project is to use GPS to further investigate the hertzian space of the chosen area. I am therefore going to re-do this project in order to make this more accessible for me as the location I have chosen is 20 minutes away from my lectures and so I feel it would be quite difficult to do the GPS mapping efficiently. I am instead going to do another map of the Bluetooth that can be found in the Roland Levinsky building of the university. When I begun this project I had an interest in studying Bluetooth but instead tried to go for something more obscure. By doing the project again in the Roland Levinsky building with Bluetooth, it will make the GPS part of the project more achieveable whilst developing my knowledge further of the hertzian space.