Geoprocessing Desktop Application for INCOIS Web Services

Geoprocessing is based on a framework of data transformation. The fundamental purpose of geoprocessing is to allow us to automate the GIS tasks. Almost all uses of GIS involve the repetition of work, and this creates the need for methods to automate, document, and share multiple-step procedures known as workflows. Geoprocessing supports the automation of workflows by providing a rich set of tools and a mechanism to combine a series of tools in a sequence of operations using models and scripts. INCOIS has started and automated the Geoprocessing framework for the INCOIS Web Services. All these tasks and resulted new datasets is a need and to be represented on a user-friendly interface in order to analyze and do further rectification and changes.A user-friendly interface using geo-spatial technologies and java based desktop application is a handy tool for processing and analyzing the spatial data of INCOIS Web Services viz., Argo Float Data and value-added Products, Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ), Ocean State Forecast (OSF), Tsunami Advisories to download and generate spatial data, layers, images with the application for identification, analyzing, editing, geoprocessing of Argo floats positions, trajectories, fishing zones, wave directions, wind directions, etc. This application provides with all basic GIS functionalities like Zoom In and Zoom out, Pan, measurement, pixel value information, etc. The application also helps in exporting the spatial data into user required format as well as creation of spatial maps with identified fishing zones, Argo float positions, etc

An Exploratory Data Analysis Approach for Land Use-Transportation Interaction: The Design and Implementation of Transland Spatio-Temporal Data Model

Land use and transportation interaction is a complex and dynamic process. Many models have been used to study this interaction during the last several decades. Empirical studies suggest that land use and transportation patterns can be highly variable between geographic areas and at different spatial and temporal scales. Identifying these changes presents a major challenge. When we recognize that long-term changes could be affected by other factors such as population growth, economic development, and policy decisions, the challenge becomes even more overwhelming. Most existing land use and transportation interaction models are based on some prior theories and use mathematical or simulation approaches to study the problem. However, the literature also suggests that little consensus regarding the conclusions can be drawn from empirical studies that apply these models. There is a clear research need to develop alternative methods that will allow us to examine the land use and transportation patterns in more flexible ways and to help us identify potential improvements to the existing models. This dissertation presents a spatio-temporal data model that offers exploratory data analysis capabilities to interactively examine the land use and transportation interaction at use-specified spatial and temporal scales. The spatio-temporal patterns and the summary statistics derived from this interactive exploratory analysis process can be used to help us evaluate the hypotheses and modify the structures used in the existing models. The results also can suggest additional analyses for a better understanding of land use and transportation interaction. This dissertation first introduces a conceptual framework for the spatio-temporal data model. Then, based on a systematic method for explorations of various data sets relevant to land use and transportation interaction, this dissertation details procedures of designing and implementing the spatio-temporal data model. Finally, the dissertation describes procedures of creating tools for generating the proposed spatio-temporal data model from existing snapshot GIS data sets and illustrate its use by means of exploratory data analysis. Use of the spatio-temporal data model in this dissertation study makes it feasible to analyze spatio-temporal interaction patterns in a more effective and efficient way than the conventional snapshot GIS approach. Extending Sinton’s measurement framework into a spatio-temporal conceptual interaction framework, on the other hand, provides a systematic means of exploring land use and transportation interaction. Preliminary experiments of data collected for Dade County (Miami), Florida suggest that the spatio-temporal exploratory data analysis implemented for this dissertation can help transportation planners identify and visualize interaction patterns of land use and transportation by controlling the spatial, attribute, and temporal components. Although the identified interaction patterns do not necessarily lead to rules that can be applied to different areas, they do provide useful information for transportation modelers to re-evaluate the current model structure to validate the existing model parameter

Wireless Location Based Services (Wi-LBS)

The needs and demands on location information have arisen rapidly. With the advancement of mobile computing technologies, many researches and studies have been conducted in providing reliable location information solution. Location based information has become an important resource for mobile users especially in giving direction or locating places. Wireless Location Based Services (Wi-LBS) highlight this scenario by explaining the application and usage of the LBS in wireless environment. Wi-LBS is introduced with respect to providing wireless method in locating places within UTP campus instead of referring to static map. The objective of this research is to integrate GIS with MMS technology as a system called Wireless Location Based Services. It is mainly focused on applying GIS elements in providing location information by utilizing the advancement of today's wireless handheld devices. Users will request for location by sending short messages using their mobile phones to the WiLBS system and the system will reply back sending the location information containing pictures and direction. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is used as the methodology in designing the system of Wi-LBS. This research also details the study on Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) that covers the sending of picture messages from Wi-LBS to mobile phones and system's function in responding to the users' requests. Various references and studies have been done regarding the successful LBS applications implemented in foreign country that leads to the interest of doing the research on LBS implementation in this country. The result from the research will be the proposed framework for Wi-LBS, the discussion on the GIS and MMS as well as the system of Wi-LBS. This study proved that Wireless Location Based Services has great potential to be commercially implemented with the growth of wireless application nowadays as today's community is eager of getting more services from wireless system

A low cost mobile mapping system (LCMMS) for field data acquisition: a potential use to validate aerial/satellite building damage assessment

Among the major natural disasters that occurred in 2010, the Haiti earthquake was a real turning point concerning the availability, dissemination and licensing of a huge quantity of geospatial data. In a few days several map products based on the analysis of remotely sensed data-sets were delivered to users. This demonstrated the need for reliable methods to validate the increasing variety of open source data and remote sensing-derived products for crisis management, with the aim to correctly spatially reference and interconnect these data with other global digital archives. As far as building damage assessment is concerned, the need for accurate field data to overcome the limitations of both vertical and oblique view satellite and aerial images was evident. To cope with the aforementioned need, a newly developed Low-Cost Mobile Mapping System (LCMMS) was deployed in Port-au-Prince (Haiti) and tested during a five-day survey in FebruaryMarch 2010. The system allows for acquisition of movies and single georeferenced frames by means of a transportable device easily installable (or adaptable) to every type of vehicle. It is composed of four webcams with a total field of view of about 180 degrees and one Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, with the main aim to rapidly cover large areas for effective usage in emergency situations. The main technical features of the LCMMS, the operational use in the field (and related issues) and a potential approach to be adopted for the validation of satellite/aerial building damage assessments are thoroughly described in the articl

Spatially Interactive Literature Analysis System (SILAS): An Interactive Tool to Study the Narrative Landscape of Ancient Texts

College-level students of Christian scripture face the challenge of critically reading the text while separating it from the familiar theological context. This can be addressed by requiring students to create maps of relevant data, but it raises challenges in cartography, temporal representation and analysis. Students either laboriously hand draw maps or attempt to use web-based tools without much regard to time or spatial analysis. A Geographic Information System (GIS) can help, but the large investment in learning software is often not worth the effort. The Spatially Interactive Literature Analysis System (SILAS) is a GIS-based study tool designed to allow students to integrate historical data, edit and annotate geospatial content, and create and print maps. Computer-based GIS technologies, manual techniques, usability issues and integrating text with geography are examined. Initially focused on the four gospels in the New Testament, SILAS can serve as a template for incorporating other texts, Christian and otherwise

Temporal GIS Design of an Extended Time-geographic Framework for Physical and Virtual Activities

Recent rapid developments of information and communication technologies (ICT) enable a virtual space, which allows people to conduct activities remotely through tele-presence rather than through conventional physical presence in physical space. ICT offer people additional freedom in space and time to carry out their activities; this freedom leads to changes in the spatio-temporal distributions of activities. Given that activities are the reasons for travel, these changes will impact transportation systems. Therefore, a better understanding of the spatial and temporal characteristics of human activities in today’s society will help researchers study the impact of ICT on transportation. Using an integrated space-time system, Hägerstrand’s time geography provides an effective framework for studying the relationships of various constraints and human activities in physical space, but it does not support activities in virtual space. The present study provides a conceptual model to describe the relationships of physical space and virtual space, extending Hägerstrand’s time geography to handle both physical and virtual activities. This extended framework is used to support investigations of spatial and temporal characteristics of human activities and their interactions in physical and virtual spaces. Using a 3D environment (i.e., 2D space + 1D time), a temporal GIS design is developed to accommodate the extended time-geographic framework. This GIS design supports representations of time-geographic objects (e.g., space-time paths, networkbased space-time prisms, and space-time life paths) and a selected set of analysis functions applied to these objects (e.g., temporal dynamic segmentation and spatiotemporal intersection). A prototype system, with customized functions developed in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs with ArcObjects, is implemented in ArcGIS according to the design. Using a hypothetical activity dataset, the system demonstrates the feasibility of the extended framework and the temporal GIS design to explore physical and virtual activities. This system offers useful tools with which to tackle various real problems related to physical and virtual activities

Engaging the Virtual Landscape: Toward an Experiential Approach to Exploring Place Through a Spatial Experience Engine

The utilization of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other geospatial technologies in historical inquiry and the humanities has led to a number of projects that are exploring digital representations of past landscapes and places as platforms for synthesizing and representing historical and geographic information. Recent advancements in geovisualization, immersive environments, and virtual reality offer the opportunity to generate digital representations of cultural and physical landscapes, and embed those virtual landscapes with information and knowledge from multiple GIS sources. The development of these technologies and their application to historical research has opened up new opportunities to synthesize historical records from disparate sources, represent these sources spatially in digital form, and to embed the qualitative data into those spatial representations that is often crucial to historical interpretation.;This dissertation explores the design and development of a serious game-based virtual engine, the Spatial Experience Engine (SEE), that provides an immersive and interactive platform for an experiential approach to exploring and understanding place. Through a case study focused on the late nineteenth-century urban landscape of Morgantown, West Virginia, the implementation of the SEE discussed in this dissertation demonstrates a compelling platform for building and exploring complex, virtual landscapes, enhanced with spatialized information and multimedia. The SEE not only provides an alternative approach for scholars exploring the spatial turn in history and a humanistic, experiential analysis of historical places, but its flexibility and extensibility also offer the potential for future implementations to explore a wide range of research questions related to the representation of geographic information within an immersive and interactive virtual landscape

The use of GIS for the development of a fully embedded predictive fire model

Fire is very important for maintaining balance in the ecosystems and is used by fire management across the world to regulate growth of vegetation in natural conservation areas. However, improper management of fire may lead to hazardous behaviour. Fire modelling tools are implemented to provide fire managers with a platform to test and plan fire management activities. Fire modelling occurs in two parts: fire behaviour models and fire spread models, where fire behaviour models account for the behaviour of fires that is used in fire spread models to model the propagation of a fire event. Since fire is a worldwide phenomenon a number of fire modelling approaches have been developed across the world. Most existing fire models only model either fire behaviour or fire spread, but not both, hence full integration of fire models into GIS is not completely implemented. Full integration of environmental modelling in GIS refers to the case where an environmental model such as a fire model is implemented within a GIS environment, without requiring any transfer of data from other external environments. Most existing GIS based fire spread models account for fire propagation in the direction of prevailing winds (or defined fire channels) as opposed to full fire spread in all directions. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the role of GIS in fire management through the development of a fully integrated, predictive, wind driven, surface fire model. The fire model developed in this study models both the risk of fire occurring (fire behaviour model), and the propagation of a fire in case of an ignition incident (fire spread model), hence full integration of fire modelling in a GIS environment. The fire behaviour model is based on prevailing meteorological conditions, the type of vegetation in an area, and the topography. The spread of a fire in this model is determined by the transfer of heat energy and rate of spread of fire, and is developed based on the Cellular Automata (CA) modelling approach. This model considers the spread of fire in all directions instead of the forward wind direction only as is the case in most fire spread models. The fire behaviour model calculates fire intensity and rate of spread which are used in the fire spread model, hence demonstrating the full integration of fire modelling in GIS. No external data exchange with the model occurs except for acquisition of input data such as measured values of environmental conditions. v This cellular automata based fire spread model is developed in the ArcGIS ModelBuilder geoprocessing environment, and requires the development of a custom geoprocessing function tool to facilitate the fast and effective performance of the model. The test study area used in this research is the Kruger National Park because of frequent fire activity that occurs in the park, as a result of management activities and accidental fires, and also because these fires are recorded by park fire ecologists. Validation of the model is achieved by comparison of simulated fire areas after a certain period of time with known location of the fire at that particular time. This is achieved by the mapping of fire scars and active fire areas acquired from MODIS Terra and Aqua images, fire scars are also acquired from the Kruger National Park Scientific Services. Upon evaluation, the results of the fire model show successful simulation of fire area with respect to time. The implementation of the model within the ArcGIS environment is also performed successfully. The study thus concludes that GIS can be successfully used for the development of a fully integrated (embedded) fire model

Micro-simulation urban land use change modelling : the case of Ladprao, Bankok, Thailand

This thesis focuses on modelling the spatial pattern of urban growth of Ladprao, a district of Bangkok, Thailand. The first part of the thesis reviews the urban growth and land use change problems in Bangkok as well as the current role of urban planning and its limitations, in order to provide the context of this study. A GIS-based cellular automata (CA) model has been developed, where the multinomial logistic regression (MNL) and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods have been integrated to identify the potential cells for development. Customized tools have been developed using a VBA macro within the ARCGIS environment to facilitate the implementation of urban simulation. The developed model has been applied to replicate the spatial pattern at the detail of the district level, focusing on the change of land from vacant to residential, commercial, and industrial during the period 1993 - 2001. Validation of the model has been undertaken through the comparison between the 2001 simulated and actual land use maps. The simulation was unsuccessful in reproducing the actual growth. In terms of the spatial agreement, the overall accuracy was about 30% (31.59% and 32.01% with MNL and MCDA respectively). In terms of urban morphology, the results showed the emergence of urban development in a space-filling pattern. Urban growth over discrete time-steps acted as a process of building accretion, appearing as a growing cluster around the existing development. In the actual pattern, the emergence of development was dispersed over the study area. The unexpected, but interesting, results of this observation have led to the conclusion of the three possible reasons; the inappropriateness of the CA approach to simulate the pattern of urban district level growth, the inability to include all significant development factors of the study site, and finally the distinctive characteristics of Ladprao and Bangkok area itself. Though the results are unpromising, the developed model can be considered as the first in the Bangkok area that attempts to be used as a spatial micro simulation tool operated at the district level. Future research work, if data permits, also suggests adding more development factors, adapting the agent-based modelling to the application, and extending the simulation to the growth of other areas of Bangkok both in the district and city level in order to help improve the understanding of Bangkok's growth.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceRoyal Thai GovernmentGBUnited Kingdo