Search bar, need a point in the right direction.

Hi!

I work as an electrician and our company has a storage of equipment, tools, cables etc. and I can't tell you how much time we spend on looking through the shelves in search for different things we know we have laying around and want to use for a job.

What I want is to have a laptop on a desk where the storage is showed in 3D and a search field where we can start typing in what we are looking for, all items containing the search word will show up and by selecting an item with the arrow keys the shelf that contains the item will be highlighted either by changing the shader, light it up or do some particle effects on it, not sure what would work best.

The database containing the items must be easy for a non-developer to edit and add/remove items, either inside the program or something like an Excel document with one column for Item Name and one for Shelf number. Shelf number reference to the gameObject of that particular shelf in the drawing.

Skills:
I have a lot of experience in 3D modelling, so I can model and texture the 3d drawing of the storage.

However I have almost no experience with programming, previously I´ve only edited some existing scripts and at some point just started on some online tutorial for C# fundamentals, but I remember next to nothing.

I guess there´s no way around having to learn some C#,
I´m just wondering how would you guys have solved this?
And what parts of C# should I focus on to accomplish this?
How to reference from external files like an Excel-file containing the items?
How to make the "search engine" automatically show all items containing the search word while you type?
Press enter to highlight shelf or just automatically highlight them as you scroll through the words with the arrow keys?

Any input is welcome =)



Thanks

 

hi,

does it really has to be 3D map?
if not, then easier do it as an webpage with javascript (and some database behind it)..

benefits of using normal webpage
- anyone can use it from their own browser (any browser, fast, no installations)
- you'll find ready plugins/snippets to javascript for most parts, like search, dropdown, autocomplete, drag n drop etc.
- easy to add admin login page, to maintain the database if needed (or user logins too)

 

Well no, it doesn´t need to be 3D, but I just think it may look better, I like when things are presented in a beautiful way, plus I´d like to use some of my skills in this as well

 

you could do 2D renders of those maps (top down or isometric), so can use 3d skills and have nice looking images.

 

These things kind of fail because you have a lot of guys and they would all have to do data entry in order for it to work. Probably, they will throw it on a shelf and forget about it. If you have one person in charge and everything has to be given to him, it might work, but chances are you don't want to have one guy doing that.
Your best bet is to have a good ordering system where things get put in a certain place all the time and try to make sure everyone does it. Make categories that are easy to understand and relate to each other. Anyone with a shop knows this problem. You throw all kinds of different items in the same drawer and it becomes a nightmare. The answer isn't a database, it's putting things together in a logical way. One drawer for a certain category, or one type of compartment for a certain category.