YYZdata
SignalsThe availability layer
CONCEPT WALKTHROUGH

The model already knows where every rack and room is. The cameras know what is in them.

Availability is not a new sensor problem. A campus that has been scanned and modeled already holds the geometry: where the racks sit, how many each holds, which rooms seat how many, what the walk between them is. What the model cannot say is what is there at 10:14 on a Tuesday. That is the only part cameras add. Put the two together and you get a count that a student can act on and a planner can spend against.

Building footprint Zone from model Zone reconstructed Camera coverage
Willowdale College · campus core · 14 zones
What the model gave us, and what it did not

Delivered architectural models frequently arrive with no space objects at all: geometry is complete, but there are no named rooms and no areas to read. In that case the plan above is not taken from the model's room schedule; it is reconstructed from the wall and site geometry, then named against the campus space list. Both paths end in the same table, and the table is what everything downstream counts against.

A
Named spaces read directly
Where the model carries space objects, names and areas come across untouched. Nothing is redrawn.
From model
B
Zones reconstructed from geometry
Walls, doors and site edges become closed zones, measured and named. This is what fills the gap when the space objects are missing, and it is repeatable across a whole portfolio of delivered models.
Reconstructed
C
Capacities confirmed in the field once
Rack capacity and seat counts are set on a single walk, then they hold. They are a property of the place, not something to re-survey every term.
Field set
Camera coverage, solved against the model

With the zones in a coordinate system, existing camera positions can be tested rather than guessed: which zones are already seen, which are half seen, which need one more camera and where it should go. On this campus core, eleven of fourteen zones are covered by cameras already on the network.

Covered now11 of 14
Partial2
Needs a camera1
The zone table
Why this table is the product

Every later question resolves to a row in it. Free spaces is capacity minus a count. Utilization is occupancy against area. A work order routes to a zone, not a camera number. Build the table once from the model and the rest stops being bespoke integration work.

Willowdale College is an invented campus and every figure on this page is simulated. The model handling described here reflects a real workflow run against delivered architectural models.

Tuesday, 10:14 a.m. Where is there room?

The same plan, with counts on it. Tap any zone for what is behind the number.

Bike spaces free
51
of 214 across six racks. Library South has been full since 9:20.
Study seats free
146
Quietest right now: Sawyer Library, level 4.
Commons line
6 min
Peak in about 40 minutes on a normal Tuesday.
Structure B
88
Vehicle spaces free of 300. Levels 3 and 4 are empty.
Room to spare Filling up Full
Counts refresh continuously · updated 12 seconds ago
Asked and answered
What is being counted

Bikes in a rack, people in a room, cars on a level, a line at a counter. Objects and counts against a zone, held as numbers. The camera frame is not the record; the count is.

Processing placement is settled per deployment during the site survey: on site, cloud, or a mix.

Ten weeks of the same count is a capital argument.

A student wants the number now. Planning wants the number every hour for a term, which is the thing a clipboard survey in October can never produce. Same sensor, same zone table, different time horizon.

Bike rack occupancy by hour, weekday average, weeks 1 to 10

Percent of capacity. Two racks are pinned through the middle of the day while a third never passes a third full, four minutes' walk away.

Study space against the published schedule
Sawyer L491%
Sawyer L274%
Peart lounge58%
Science atrium24%
Mann mezzanine19%

Weekday average, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Two rooms carry the load and three are quiet enough to reassign or close on Fridays.

What it pays for
Rebalance before you build

Library South and Quad North run full from 9 to 3. Structure B rack sits at 22% four minutes away. Move 24 hoops before quoting a new cage, and hang wayfinding off the live count so the walk is a known quantity rather than a gamble.

Illustrative: a 60-space covered cage runs roughly $40,000 to $60,000 installed. Relocating existing hoops is grounds crew time. Both figures need a campus quote before anyone relies on them.

Close the Friday wing

Three study spaces sit under a quarter full every weekday afternoon. Consolidating Friday hours into two buildings is a utilities and staffing line for this term, and the occupancy record is the evidence that it will not strand anybody.

Stop guessing at the commons

The line peaks in a 35 minute window that moves with the class timetable. Staffing the counter to the actual curve, and publishing the wait to the student app, moves the peak instead of absorbing it.

The part planning keeps

Occupancy by zone by hour, held against the model's own geometry, is a layer the institution owns. It ages with the building and gives a delivered model a reason to stay current instead of freezing on handover day.

The student side is one screen and no login story.

Everything below is the same zone table, read the other way round. This is the surface that makes people believe the campus notices them, and it costs nothing extra to produce once the counts exist.

TS
Tom S.
Willowdale College · second year
On campus
Nearest free rack
Quad North · 6 spaces

Three minutes from where you are, and it has not gone full before 11 a.m. all term. Library South is full.

Somewhere to work
Sawyer Library, level 4

18 seats free and the quietest of the five spaces open right now. Science atrium has 40 free if you want to talk.

Sawyer L418 free
Science atrium40 free
Peart lounge21 free
Lunch
Mann Commons · about 6 minutes

The line usually doubles at 11:50. Going now is the cheap option; the north counter is the shorter of the two.

Driving today
Structure B · 88 spaces

Levels 3 and 4 are effectively empty. Ground level has been full since 8:40.

Getting home
Shuttle in 6 minutes

Evening walk escorts run from 7 p.m. and the north walkway is lit end to end.

What standing this up actually takes
  1. One model export per areaglTF or FBX of the architectural model, interiors only, plus IFC if it exports cleanly. One building or one quad is enough to start.
  2. The camera listWhat exists, where, and what system runs them. Coverage gets solved against the model rather than walked and guessed.
  3. One walk to set capacitiesRack hoops, seat counts, counter positions. Half a day, and it holds.
  4. Three weeks to a live countZone table, coverage map, and the first availability surface running against real cameras on one area of campus.
Where it goes after that

The same zone table carries the rest of the campus story without a second install: after-hours presence and door state for the safety team, occupancy against the registrar's schedule for space planning, work orders that route to a zone with the clip attached for facilities.

Thermostats, building management and scheduling systems join the same table as further inputs rather than as separate dashboards. Availability is the visible half; the table underneath is the asset.

Simulated campus data on an invented campus. The model handling, coverage solve and zone table reflect a real workflow.  ·  signals@yyzdata.com  ·  yyzdata.com