Mobile GIS Development
Mobile GIS Development
Mobile GIS Development
Abstract: - Field based and GPS assisted GIS are frequently used in various geoscience applications. Such
systems deliver more advanced, time and cost effective tools than traditional field forms for information
collection. At the same time, different systems are on the market. These systems mostly enable users to
determine positions of geo-objects by GPS, and maintain functionalities to gather and analyze geometric
information. The digital obtaining of the application’s specific information is often underrepresented within
these kinds of systems.
This paper attempts to develop a system for gathering, integrating, analyzing, and visualizing spatial and
aspatial information in electrical industry facilities. A PDA based GIS is extended to collect information in a
beneficial manner, thus, adequately supporting the requirements of its users. Mobile GIS architectures, the
components of a mobile GIS, and their impacts on gathering data are examined. The steps followed to design
and develop a system for the electricity Transmission and Distribution Company are demonstrated. The results
are presented and discussed in details in the paper.
expensive, and at risk for errors. However what is of hand-held challenges. Various architectures have
routine and necessary is to maintain geodatabases been proposed for mobile GIS implementation,
[7]. Mobile GIS has made it possible to digitally namely; Stand-alone, Client-Server, Distributed,
view and edit spatial data in the field. It overcomes Services, and Peer-to-peer [11].
the shortcomings of paper maps and provides real The simplest Mobile GIS architecture is the
benefits to field-workers as well as cost benefits for Stand-Alone Client. In this architecture the
the utility. application and spatial data reside entirely on the
A GPS data collection system has the same basic mobile device (Figure 1). Although some
components as a Mobile GIS system. It requires the applications may profit from this approach, such
user to locate and then record position and attribute settings have major drawbacks. First, the hardware
information about the features of interest. GPS resources of the mobile device restrict the amount of
technology provides the obvious choice for spatial data the application can support. Second, this
recording reliable position information, while architecture does not allow for communication with
handheld computer platforms running field- any other applications.
optimized software allow the user to efficiently
record feature and attribute data [5]. During the past
years, tremendous advances have taken place in
GPS technology (receivers), data collection
hardware, and field data collection software. Not
only has the autonomous GPS accuracy improved,
but the data collectors have become smaller, lighter,
and less expensive. The software has become Fig.1: The Stand-Alone Client Architecture
cheaper and easier to learn [8]. To address the above challenges, client-server
With the introduction of Palm Pilots followed by architecture can be adopted. As Figure 2 presents,
Microsoft's launch of a pocket PC operating system, spatial data is moved to a separate computer and
a new generation of handheld Personal Digital served to the client by GIS server software. The GIS
Assistants (PDA's) have swamped the market. It is applications can still be in the mobile device
now possible to use these lightweight handheld searching for data in data servers. Depending on the
PDA's, with GPS/GIS data collection software, for GIS applications, the location of the servers, and the
field applications. network constraints, thin, thick or medium clients
Onboard digital cameras allow users to include a may be adopted [13]. In such architecture, the
visual record as part of the field data collection spatial data is constrained by the resources of an
process. An application can automatically control enterprise server. Moreover, multiple mobile devices
the camera, preview an image, and finally take a running the same application can access the server
proper photo for possible inspections. The photo can concurrently, making this a potentially multi-user
then be linked to its real world location where it was architecture. However, the architecture poses a new
taken and associated with descriptive attribute constraint: communication. If the mobile cannot
information. establish communication to the data server, the GIS
In this paper a system is developed to assist applications are useless, and the architecture losses
operators in data collection for electrical power its versatility. Due to range, and interferences,
industries. inconsistent communication occurs frequently in
mobile applications.