David M. Mountain

Positioning techniques for location‐based services (LBS): characteristics and limitations of proposed solutions

Location‐based services are touted as the ‘killer applications’ of the mobile information revolution. This paper highlights some of the technical characteristics and limitations inherent in current mobile positioning technologies in order to set the current optimism surrounding Location‐Based Services (LBS) in context. A complex technical situation is revealed with different technologies providing results with very different spatial characteristics. Most current terrestrial solutions fail to provide results of sufficiently high spatial resolution for many of the proposed LBS applications, and satellite based solutions suffer from problems of reception and coverage in built up areas. The issue of georeferencing the services themselves is tackled and further work needs to be done on providing accurate spatial locations on the vast array of services that could be available through LBS. A current reluctance to temper these claims could arguably lead to unrealistic raising of the expectations of the buying public. The proven vulnerability of new technology to the fickleness of market opinion highlights that the technology may stand or fall not on its own merits, but on how it matches the expectations of the user.

Chapter 9 – Visualizing, Querying and Summarizing Individual Spatio-Temporal Behaviour

Publisher Summary This chapter describes various efforts to visualize, query, and summarize personal spatiotemporal data. A highly interactive approach that allows the simultaneous manipulation of space and time can offer insight at the exploratory stage of work and altering the spatial and temporal scales of analysis can reveal different processes that may drive or constrain individual behavior. The spatial history explorer (SHE) has been developed specifically to analyze datasets in a highly interactive environment that places equal importance upon both the spatial and temporal location of data. Approaches for interactive spatio-temporal querying, visualizing mobility attributes, and representing the cyclical nature of time are suggested. This approach of linking spatial and temporal representations is then contrasted with a single 3D spatiotemporal representation based upon a time geography approach. Several surface representations that summarize large volumes of point data are also described, in particular for identifying interesting locations associated with destinations, transport links and constraints. The insight gained from these techniques has led to several approaches to improve the way in which mobile individuals access digital information; this work is ongoing and described briefly in the conclusion.

Mobile augmented reality techniques for GeoVisualisation

This paper presents the first prototype of an interactive visualisation framework specifically designed for presenting geographical information in both indoor and outdoor environments. The input of our system is ESRI Shapefiles which represent 3D building geometry and landuse attributes. Participants can visualise 3D reconstructions of geographical information in real-time based on two visualisation clients: a mobile VR interface and a tangible AR interface. To prove the functionality of our system an educational application specifically designed for university students is illustrated with some initial results. Finally, our conclusions as well as future work are presented.

A framework for evaluating geographical information

This paper introduces a framework for the evaluation of geographic information (GI), divided into representational and communicative aspects. The representational component is concerned with how ‘real-world’ phenomena situated in space and time come to be represented or modelled in GI, considered at ontological, modelling and system levels. The communicative component of GI is concerned with how representations of GI are understood by the users of the information, considered at relevance, commodification, exploration and management levels. This paper attempts to bring together the previous work in all these areas into an evaluative framework so that creators and users can assess the validity and success of the representational and communicative process overall. This paper also outlines the architecture of a client-server geolibrary designed for information sharing. This kind of architecture provides a distributed and open platform for the development of GI networks, upon which more productive use of GI can be built in future.

Personalizing virtual and augmented reality for cultural heritage indoor and outdoor experiences

Most cultural heritage exhibitions, both indoor and outdoor, could benefit from context-aware and personalized museum guides. Although, technological advancements in digitization, digital storage, visualisation and interaction have evolved rapidly, the current generation of museum exhibition and mobile guides offer systems with restricted capabilities and content, for example user selected audio guides and interactive touch screen kiosks. This paper presents solutions for both museum exhibitions and mobile guides moving towards a unifying framework based on open standards. This can offer more customisable experiences attracting and engaging a broader spectrum of users. Our solution takes into account the diverse needs of visitors to heritage and mobile guide exhibitions allowing for multimedia representations of the same content but using diverse interfaces including a web, a map, a virtual reality and an augmented reality domain. Different case studies illustrate the majority of the capabilities of the multimodal interfaces used and also how personalisation and customisation can be performed in both kiosk and mobile guide exhibitions to meet user needs.

Mixed reality (MR) interfaces for mobile information systems

Purpose – The motivation for this research is the emergence of mobile information systems where information is disseminated to mobile individuals via handheld devices. A key distinction between mobile and desktop computing is the significance of the relationship between the spatial location of an individual and the spatial location associated with information accessed by that individual. Given a set of spatially referenced documents retrieved from a mobile information system, this set can be presented using alternative interfaces of which two presently dominate: textual lists and graphical two‐dimensional maps. The purpose of this paper is to explore how mixed reality interfaces can be used for the presentation of information on mobile devices.Design/methodology/approach – A review of relevant literature is followed by a proposed classification of four alternative interfaces. Each interface is the result of a rapid prototyping approach to software development. Some brief evaluation is described, based upo...

Spatial filters for mobile information retrieval

This paper introduces the concept of spatial filters as an approach to increasing the relevance of the information retrieved by users of mobile information systems. This approach applies post-query filters to remove results that are deemed not relevant given some aspect of a mobile individuals spatial behaviour. The aim is to reduce the volume of results returned to users of mobile information systems, to avoid the need for manual filtering. An opportunity for future research is to consider how these filters can be applied to the task of combining rankings based upon thematic and spatial criteria, for documents retrieved from unstructured or semi-structured collections, such as those handled by geographic information retrieval systems.

Creating Instruments for Ideation: Software Approaches to Geovisualization

Publisher Summary Ideation relates to the formation of ideas and concepts—the end goal of geovisualization. There are many tools and techniques for creating instruments for ideation—sophisticated hardware, advanced programming languages, graphics libraries, visual programming systems, and complex GUIs. In each, the developer or visualizer wishes to generate effective interactive graphic realizations of their data that are useful to them and/or their users. This chapter expands upon these ideas and considers the way each of these issues influences the uses and development of software instruments that support the exploratory process. Some examples of software approaches are also documented. Current technology has an important enabling and limiting impact upon the available range of instruments for ideation, which changes significantly over time. A major benefit of contemporary computer technology is the possibility to rapidly generate various graphical displays from data. This gives an opportunity to try alternative transient realizations of data, to discard those deemed ineffectual but when necessary reproduce them again, and to look at several displays simultaneously to provide multiple views of data. It is not only the increase of computer power that offers new opportunities to create more sophisticated instruments, but also the progress in software environments such as the development of programming tools that are high level and/or cross platform and the availability of libraries and reusable software components.

Interacting with virtual reality scenes on mobile devices

This paper discusses alternative approaches for interacting with virtual reality scenes on mobile devices, based upon work conducted as part of the locus project [4]. Three prototypes are introduced that adopt different interaction paradigms for mobile virtual reality scenes: interaction can be via the screen only, movement and gestures within the real world environment, or a mixture of these two approaches. The paper concludes by suggesting that interaction via movement and gestures within the may be a more intuitive approach for mobile virtual reality scenes.

Creating Instruments for Ideation

Publisher Summary Ideation relates to the formation of ideas and concepts—the end goal of geovisualization. There are many tools and techniques for creating instruments for ideation—sophisticated hardware, advanced programming languages, graphics libraries, visual programming systems, and complex GUIs. In each, the developer or visualizer wishes to generate effective interactive graphic realizations of their data that are useful to them and/or their users. This chapter expands upon these ideas and considers the way each of these issues influences the uses and development of software instruments that support the exploratory process. Some examples of software approaches are also documented. Current technology has an important enabling and limiting impact upon the available range of instruments for ideation, which changes significantly over time. A major benefit of contemporary computer technology is the possibility to rapidly generate various graphical displays from data. This gives an opportunity to try alternative transient realizations of data, to discard those deemed ineffectual but when necessary reproduce them again, and to look at several displays simultaneously to provide multiple views of data. It is not only the increase of computer power that offers new opportunities to create more sophisticated instruments, but also the progress in software environments such as the development of programming tools that are high level and/or cross platform and the availability of libraries and reusable software components.