MULTILAYER SOLUTION USING MULTIMAP FOR

DEVELOPE A MOBILE APPLICATION

Lucia Rusu, Marius Sârbu

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş Bolyai University,Teodor Mihali 58-60,Cluj-Napoca, Romania

WsComm Co., Republicii 84, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Marius Podean

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş Bolyai University,Teodor Mihali 58-60, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Keywords: Vehicle monitoring, Virtual globe products, Mobile application space, Multilayer application.

Abstract: For developing mobile application virtual globes software products offer several features and capacities.

The paper presents the system objective, function, component modules and key techniques in the procedure

of system development. The system, based on the spatial information and attribute information of vehicle

and road, was developed and applied in MCLocator. The system, based on platform independent solution

and virtual globe software integrate sensors’ information of vehicle parameters and geo position dates

obtained from MultiMap, based on the GIS’s strongpoint on spatial analyzing and use of location and

communication equipment based on GPS and GPRS.

1 INTRODUCTION

Virtual hyperglobes and earth browsers are scale-

bound structured models of planets from virtual

space. In Buttler opinion the ease of use of virtual

globes and their capacity to display spatial

information offers a strong potential to communicate

spatial data and it is believed that virtual globes

could lead to a democratisation of GIS technology

(Butler 2006). Virtual globes incorporate features

and functionality that provide significant advantage

over traditional spatial data mapping interfaces.

These advantages can be bound in three major

features: the earth imagery displayed on a globe

structure is free of distortion; data displayed in

virtual globes can be viewed at any scale and from

any angle, a large degree of interactivity, allowing

the user to move to different locations and visualize

different type of spatial data (Riedl 2007).

Geospatial software and applications are based

on several concepts as: coordinate systems, map

projection, data types and geodatabases. Coordinate

systems are a fixed reference framework

superimposed onto the surface of an area to

designate the position of a point within it. Common

coordinate systems are geographic (three-

dimensional), in which locations are measured in

degrees of latitude and longitude, and planar (or

Cartesian), in which the earth’s surface is projected

onto a two-dimensional plane and locations are

measured in meters or feet. For representing and

access data we need projections - a method of

representing the earth's three-dimensional surface as

a flat two-dimensional surface. There are many

different map projections, all of them can distort

shape, area, distance or direction (ESRI, 2003).

Data management uses different data types:

tabular databases, join with vector file by common

attribute, mapped as points using coordinate points

such as latitude and longitude gathered from a GPS

Geocode for associate address field with street file,

vector (points, lines, polygons), raster - a model as a

surface that is divided into a regular grid of cells,

images (aerial photographs), grids (derived data

representing continuous values such as an elevation

surface or categories such as vegetation types).

Our paper offers a solution for development

mobile applications, focused on multilayer approach

and using digital globe technologies features and

facilities. After an introduction in virtual hyper

globes and geographic information system (GIS)

135

Rusu L., Sârbu M. and Podean M. (2009).

MULTILAYER SOLUTION USING MULTIMAP FOR DEVELOPE A MOBILE APPLICATION.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 135-138

DOI: 10.5220/0002226601350138

 SciTePress

tools, we focused on mobile application prototype

(MA) in collaborative environment. In section 2 we

present system objective and functionalities, then

functional design of system modules in section 3,

and in section 4 multilayer conceptual architecture,

based on MultiMap solution.

2 SYSTEM OBJECTIVE AND

FUNCTIONALITIES

MC Locator is a monitoring and management

application of the auto fleet activities through the

use of location and communication equipment based

on GPS and GPRS with the following features: on-

line position locating, speed and movement direction

of vehicles, checking of vehicles route, automatic

generation of individual journey forms and detailed

roadmap reports, monitoring the fuel level in the

tank and/or the fuel consumption, monitoring other

parameters of the vehicle (open/closed doors,

refrigeration room temperature, etc.), switching

on/off certain parameters.

The system builds up on two hierarchies of a

macro network and a micro network. The macro

network is the road network of our country and the

micro network is the monitoring network of

individual landslide. The system database contains

all information of roadmaps and vehicles movement

and parameters of the vehicle being collected

through road information and vehicle monitoring.

By integrated some mathematical optimization

models and spatial analyzing capacity of GIS,

system will provide the information of dangerous

road events, monitoring and changing the vehicle

route based on degree alarm rank, according to field

monitoring data.

The administration module of system offers all

features to import, modify, edit, store and export all

kinds of data or information about vehicles route,

movement direction of vehicles, road landslides.

Correspondingly, the system will automatically

renew the database and the messages via GPS or

GPRS in time.

The field monitoring data of road and vehicles,

collected by GPS and GPRS, should be processed

and compute in a series of sheets, charts, reports and

figures by the related modules of the system. For

each sampled locations and vehicle, the following

information was recorded:

• the coordinates of each sample point;

• the vehicle parameters present at the moment in

this point;

• a detailed description of the road;

• traffic incidents or vehicle events.

The use of virtual globe technology allowed the

synthesis of these GIS data, descriptive text and

images within a spatially dynamic and interactive

interface.

3 FUNCTIONAL DESIGN OF

SYSTEM MODULES

Our prototype offers an application integral for

flagship in-vehicle navigation solution, using GPS

and GPRS devices and geocoding and reverse

coding features of MultiMap. We decomposed

system in three module: Data Import/Export

Module, Management and Monitoring Module, and

Database Module, linked with a strong Middleware

Application Module for information import/ export

and inquire (Figure 1).

Data import/export module has divided in two

parts: Vehicle Map Layer, which contains tools for

real time and static time monitoring information and

vehicle parameters information and General

information, based on three components: vehicle

geoposition, traffic information and traffic events,

last two component offer parameters only by request

(Wang at all, 2008).

Vehicle Functionality Module are the role of

monitoring the fuel level in the tank and / or the fuel

consumption, monitoring other parameters of the

vehicle (open / closed doors, refrigeration room

temperature, etc.), switching on/off certain

parameters.

In special cases (bottleneck road, accidents, and

vehicle defection) this module can initiate a request

for Route Optimization Module in order to change

the road or to manage the inconvenience of incidents

(according with transport agreement with customer).

Database module is formed by Multimap

database and a mobile application database, which

are linked together grace to a strong middleware

mobile application, which manage relationship

between Data Import/Export Module, Management

and Monitoring Module, and Database Module.

Middleware conception will be detailed discussed in

next section.

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Figure 1: Functionality module and system structure.

Based on Aurambout criteria and particular

features for each software product we select

Microsoft MultiMap as GIS software for develop a

mobile application with web-based location

management system, especially for a street and

location data, geocoding, and routing with the

existing functionality (Aurambout, 2007).

With web map components, MC Locator can

incorporate map visualization, proximity analysis,

location-directed search, and real-time web services

into the same infrastructure, and with no greater

complexity than what is required for other

visualization and analytic tools. Another factor

influencing the cost and effort of implementing

location-aware business intelligence applications is

the expense associated with managing the data itself.

Software architecture includes components,

connectors and configuration, linked together in a

decomposed system, focused on well decomposed

set of components with clear responsibilities. Major

interest was middleware part, as an adapted solution

of collaborative environment, offered by Caramba

solution (Dudstar, 2004).

4 MULTILAYER CONCEPTUAL

ARCHITECTURE

We used GIS paradigms and exchange data with

XML features from MultiMap, and implemented

XML Reverse Geocoding service offered by UK

MultiMap GIS solution for solving the objective of

MC Locator, a monitoring and management

application of the auto fleet activities through the

use of location and communication equipment based

on GPS and GPRS.

Middleware solution was divided in three layers:

object access layer and adapters, mobile application

space as a middleware core, and persistence layer

using meta model framework for manipulation and

description of content. These layers offers

flexibility, concurrent remote access at persistence

resources, enable customization and extensions,

embedded new technology and mobile devices.

Figure 2: Mobile application Middleware.

Object access layer and adapter serves as an

access solution at objects and services, depending on

client request and observed parameters. By

separation between presentation, logical and data

stored this layer provide facilities for object observe

and notification services and all the customized

services are implemented based on object observers

Data Import/Export Module

Vector Map

Layer

General

Information

Static monitoring

information

Real time monitoring

information

Vehicle

geoposition

Trafic

information

Trafic events

Vehicle parameters

information

Database

Module

Management

Module

Route

Optimization

Module

Monitoring

Route Module

Vehicle

Functionality

Module

DSS

Module

Monitoring

Vehicle

Module

MultiMap

Database

Mobile

Application

Database

MA Connection

MA Java Client

Side

MA Java

Server Side

Mail Server

Web Server

GIS

Server

Database

Management

System

Objects

Space

Security

Management

Resource

Mana

ement

Data Management

Notification

Management

Location

Management

Comunication

Management

MULTILAYER SOLUTION USING MULTIMAP FOR DEVELOPE A MOBILE APPLICATION

137

and changing positions, given by GIS server and this

objects and methods’ implementation.

Mobile application space provides a shared

object space, requires a relevant context of

information, performes activities and sub-activities

related with business process and normal and special

events appeared. It composed by an object

metamodel, and object manipulation, which interact

with object mapping and object transformation.

This layer is composed by protocols and

standards: HTTP and XML, package and Java

Enterprise features: Java Remote Method Invocation

with specific methods implementations, servers and

beans for persistence objects and them instances,

mobile application objects for auto, positions, maps,

and MultiMap Object (Figure 2).

5 CONCLUSIONS

We focused on digital globes features as a potential

for the communication in collaborative companies,

especially for monitoring and management

application of the auto fleet activities through the

use of location and communication equipment based

on GPS and GPRS. For our prototype we have

choosen MultiMap UK Microsoft as a virtual GIS

software.

The application design is object-oriented based

on built specific classes grouped in packages,

according with conceptual multilayer model. The

request launched to MultiMap offers facilities to

obtain the details of the position from our country

and abroad, makes possible decision to change route

and monitoring vehicle parameters based on Java

RMI extended methods and several particular

interfaces.

Relational database of MCLocator can be access

in several modules, and gives facilities to significant

reduces of the amount of data in management model

run.

Furthermore with multiple possibilities for query

results and complex questions, we can use them in

monitoring and optimization routes, monitoring auto

fleet and individual vehicle, determine optimal

charge and road in transport services companies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by Grant PNII 2359/2009:

Business process management using WFMS and

BPMN.

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