Rainer Simon

A mobile application framework for the geospatial web

In this paper we present an application framework that leverages geospatial content on the World Wide Web by enabling innovative modes of interaction and novel types of user interfaces on advanced mobile phones and PDAs. We discuss the current development steps involved in building mobile geospatial Web applications and derive three technological pre-requisites for our framework: spatial query operations based on visibility and field of view, a 2.5D environment model, and a presentationindependent data exchange format for geospatial query results. We propose the Local Visibility Model as a suitable XML-based candidate and present a prototype implementation.

Towards Orientation-Aware Location Based Mobile Services

In this chapter we present an approach on how orientation sensors built into mobile devices can enable a new paradigm for mobile service discovery and use. In conjunction with 3D models of urban terrain, mobile devices can act as virtual pointers to services and information anchored at specific locations such as buildings or landmarks. We outline a system architecture that enables this new method of orientation and location sensitive service discovery to be employed. We describe our experiences with a prototype device consisting of a plain, mass market mobile phone and a custom-built shell that houses a magnetic compass and a 2-axis tilt sensor. We conclude by describing our ongoing research project that will apply the concepts and practical technologies described.

Tool-supported single authoring for device independence and multimodality

With the growing proliferation of mobile computing devices, the vision of the web anytime, anywhere and on any device is rapidly becoming a reality. Technologies enabling device-independent presentation and new interaction modalities like voice or gesture are moving from research to commercially available products. As a result, developers are faced with the increasing challenge of providing user interfaces that match the capabilities of the different devices available. Within this paper we present our application-oriented research that has investigated single authoring of multimodal interfaces on mobile devices. After an overview of related work that explains the motivation behind our approach, we present a prototype authoring tool for the development of graphical as well as multimodal web-based user interfaces for multiple devices. We conclude by discussing the relation of our work to established web markup standards and point out noteworthy issues related to their application within our work.

Comparing conceptual designs for mobile access to geo-spatial information

Spatial information appliances (SIA), which enable mobile users to interact with the physical environment, have recently received an increasing amount of interest from the research community. This paper presents a comparative outdoor user study on conceptual designs for 4 interaction areas considered important for SIAs: selection, search, information sniffing, and remote viewing. Implications for future research are discussed.

GeoPointing: evaluating the performance of orientation-aware location-based interaction under real-world conditions

The growing trend towards mobile phones with integrated GPS clearly suggests that navigation and location-based services (LBS) will be key applications for future mobile devices. New hardware features that are currently finding their way into state-of-the-art phones–such as digital compasses and tilt sensors–promise to drive the adoption of mobile geospatial services, and to change the way people navigate, explore and interact with their physical environment: location-based applications that exploit attitude information to realise orientation-aware interaction have been discussed in research for several years. Yet, few actual results on the achievable real-world performance of such systems exist in literature. In this article, we report on a series of function trials carried out with a prototype Geo-Wand–a portable system that allows users to access geo-referenced information by physically pointing towards objects in the real world. The application was realised with a mass market mobile phone connected to a Bluetooth GPS and a custom-built orientation sensor module. We present test results for multiple types of urban terrain and discuss the possibilities and limitations of this next-generation mobile LBS technology.

Mobile spatial interaction

Mobile phones are starting to become the major platform for interaction with spatial information. Recent research has yielded promising applications and approaches for exploring, accessing and augmenting information related to the users immediate surroundings. The CHI workshop Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) aims at gathering researchers working on this emerging and multifaceted, but quickly evolving topic. A forum for open dialogue is needed to enable researchers to obtain a picture of the facets and the benefits of mobile spatial interaction as well as its challenges. Potential ways to combine the various approaches will be examined and discussed.

FEATURE Realizing the vision of mobile spatial interaction

Rainer Simon Telecommunications Research Center (ftw.) | rainer.simon@ftw.at Mobile computers are increasingly used as a link between the physical and the digital worlds. This innovation demands a more sophisticated multidisciplinary approach to the modeling of spatial interaction than has yet been developed. Our aim in this article is to open up the “black box” of mobile spatial interaction (MSI) and discuss some issues and possible approaches that could be taken. Groundbreaking concepts that proposed how to combine virtual information with the user’s direct surroundings arose as early as the 1990s. Two early examples include Egenhofer’s Smart Compasses, which point and direct people to places of interest, and Geo-Wands, virtual geographic pointers for the selection of surrounding objects and

Beyond location based: the spatially aware mobile phone

An increasing number of mobile phones feature embedded sensors such as GPS receivers, digital compasses or accelerometer-based tilt sensors. In this paper, we present an application framework for building spatially aware mobile applications – applications that visualize, process or exchange geo-spatial information – on mobile phones equipped with such sensors. The core component of the framework is a novel, platform-independent XML data exchange format that describes the geographic vicinity of the mobile device. The format enables a variety of new mobile interaction styles and user interface types – from traditional text-based local search and information interfaces to innovative real-time user interfaces like geo-pointers and smart compasses.

Mobile Spatial Interaction

In this special issue, we wish to introduce you to a new interdisciplinary research field called mobile spatial interaction (MSI). The vision of MSI is to literally put the mobile user in the center of a rich and interactive world of spatial information. The major motivation behind MSI is to facilitate new interaction techniques that enable the user to directly access and manipulate spatially-related information and services. This emerging research field was first envisioned in the 1990s. Egenhofer [2] proposed mobile information appliances, so-called ‘GeoWands’, serving as pointers to real-world objects, and ‘SmartHorizons’, smart orientationaware displays that enable the user to look beyond the current field of view. Early research prototypes by Abowd et al. at Georgia Tech investigated the notion of spatially aware devices [1]. With their Cyberguide prototypes, they explored how users would interact with a device aware of its current location. However, their work was in advance of what the technology could produce at the time. Upcoming MSI concepts are now being investigated again from many different angles due to recent strong advances in mobile technology. These are strengthened by the increasing availability of spatially referenced data and the intensified awareness for user-oriented development. The papers selected for our special issue exemplify this trend and highlight some of the important ideas currently being investigated in the field of MSI. The researchers contributing to this issue are approaching MSI from differing perspectives and disciplines, notably ubiquitous and distributed computing, non-parametric statistical modeling, mobile augmented reality, as well as cognitive psychology. Even though these are quite different fields of research, two fundamental directions can be distinguished: (1) the user-centered advancement of MSI service enablers and (2) systematic empirical research on MSI user requirements.

A generic uiml vocabulary for device- and modality independent user interfaces

We present in this poster our work on a User Interface Markup Language (UIML) vocabulary for the specification of device- and modality independent user interfaces. The work presented here is part of an application-oriented project. One of the results of the project is a prototype implementation of a generic platform for device independent multimodal mobile applications. The poster presents the requirements for a generic user interface description format and explains our approach on an integrated description of user interfaces for both graphical and voice modality. A basic overview of the vocabulary structure, its language elements and main features is presented.