Geopackage as future ubiquitous GIS data format: a review

The emerging geospatial technologies in earth and space science informatics have led to the advancement in developing international standards for geospatial interoperability. In the last few years, two main trends are making disruptions in geospatial applications; mobile and context sharing. Geospatial data format used in mobile GIS to support advance mobile application is challenged. This is due to the lack of interoperability, open-standard, cross platform and standard APIs for access and management. For instance, most mobile GIS developments are application-dependent, contains redundant geospatial data, consume large storage capacity, and require custom applications for data translation. Based on these issues, new OGC file format named GeoPackage will enable greater geospatial data sharing on mobile and web platform. This data format is an open standard, non-proprietary, platform-independent, container for distribution, and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data will increase cross-platform interoperability, geospatial applications and web services. This presents a comprehensive review of mobile GIS hence, the concept of GeoPackage as a modern geospatial tool was discussed, while its relevance in contemporary geospatial technology are highlighted

An open source LoRa based vehicle tracking system

This work describes an open source tracking system that determines the location and speed of a vehicle in real-time. The system was inspired by the need to track tourist boats in UNESCO Kilim Karst Geoforest Park, Malaysia. Boats that travel too fast generate wakes that are suspected to cause ecological damage. In this work, geolocation information is provided by Arduino based transponders with Global Positioning System (GPS). Transponders periodically transmit location and speed data using LoRa through a gateway to a cloud server. On the server, open source software components implement a Geographical Information System (GIS) to manage the location and speed data for display and further analysis. The resulting prototype performed the required functions as expected

Modeling visibility through visual landmarks in 3D navigation using geo-DBMS

Today’s map navigation systems (from 2D to 3D) provide direction instructions in the form of maps, pictograms, and spoken language. However, they are so far not able to support or has very limited access to landmark-based navigation, which the most natural navigation concept is for humans and which also plays an important role for upcoming personal navigation systems. In order to provide such navigation, in this paper, we discuss one of possible solution of modeling visibility in 3D navigation through visual landmarks using Geo-DBMS approach. The aim is to generate measurable visual landmarks along the focus map in a city model which can be used in car or pedestrian navigation system (as web or mobile application). The focus map is obtained from 3D analytical operation (3D buffering from the 3D shortest path analysis result) function within Geo-DBMS. Detailing to the generated measurable visual landmark’s façade, an implementation of dynamic pulse function is then applied. The techniques for choosing specific landmarks and generating the focus maps are shortly presented and their functionality is explained. We tested the proposed approach by using Stuttgart 3D city model. Finally, the paper provides outlook on ideas for future deployment and research

3D navigation system for 3D GIS

The needs for three-dimensional (3D) visualization and navigation within 3D-GIS environment are growing and expanding rapidly in a variety of fields. In a steady shift from traditional two-dimensional (2D) GIS toward 3D-GIS, a great amount of accurate 3D data sets (e.g. city models) have become necessary to be produced in a short period of time and provided widely on the market. This requires a number of specific issues to be investigated, e.g. 3D routing accuracy, appropriate means to visualize 3D spatial analysis, tools to effortlessly explore and navigate through large models in real time, with the correct texture and geometry. There had been a lot of study on 3D landscapes, urban and city models. The rapid advancement in science and technology had opened wide options for a change and development of current methods and concepts. Virtual Reality (VR) is one of those developments, which gives the sense of feel in virtual environment. It enables users to visualize, make query and exploring 3D data. Such system can, not only help laymen, who often have trouble in understanding or interpreting complex data, but they also can help experts in decision making. The objective of this paper is to discuss some initial requirements of the proposed solution towards 3D-GIS. Eventually, this paper will serve as a starting point for a more challenging research idea. The focus of this research is to investigate and implementing 3D navigation techniques and solutions for 3D-GIS. Investigation on the support of navigation in real world environment will be carried out. This will include a research on the benefits of using 3D network model (non-planar graph) compared to 2D, how to use visual landmarks in route descriptions and using 3D geometry to get more accurate routing (in buildings, or in narrow street, etc). And as for implementation, a GUI provides the users with means (e.g. fill-out forms) to specify SQL queries interact and visualize 3D outcomes in virtual reality environment. This has opened up the ability to distribute and navigate accurately in 3D virtual worlds. The initial study on Klang Valley will go through data conversion processes from different formats like Laser, VRML, CAD and Shape 3D in a first person view environment using a developed system using VRML, JAVA and .Net compiler. The dataset structure will be in the form of various 2D, 2.5D and 3D array of height fields

Reliability of the GPS carrier-phase fix solution under harsh condition

Once the unknown integer ambiguity values are resolved, the GPS carrier phase observation will be transformed into a millimeter-level precision measurement. However, GPS observation are prone to a variety of errors, making it a biased measurement. There are two components in identifying integer ambiguities: estimation and validation. The estimation procedure aims to determine the ambiguity's integer values, and the validation step checks whether the estimated integer value is acceptable. Even though the theory and procedures for ambiguity estimates are well known, the topic of ambiguity validation is still being researched. The dependability of computed coordinates will be reduced if a false fixed solution emerges from an incorrectly estimated ambiguity integer value. In this study, the reliability of the fixed solution obtained by using several base stations in GPS positioning was investigated, and the coordinates received from these bases were compared. In a conclusion, quality control measures such as employing several base stations will improve the carrier phase measurement's accuracy

Smart water network monitoring: A case study at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Water uses need to be measured, which is critical for evaluating water stress. The Industry 4.0 via the Internet of Things (IoT) and usage of water measurement sensor can provide real-time information on the water flow rate and water pressure, that is crucial for water monitoring and analysis. There is a need for online smart water monitoring that gives out more efficient and sustainable water uses at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) campus. A prototype of an online smart water monitoring for UTM, which was developed based on the integration of IoT and Geographical Information System (GIS), consist of four layers, (1) physical layer, (2) network layer, (3) processing layer and, (4) application layer. The findings show that when the water flow increases, the water pressure decreases. When there is no water flow, the lowest value is 52.214 Psi, and the highest value is 60.916 Psi. The latest technology integrating the IoT-GIS for smart water monitoring has shown a very efficient way of providing real-time water parameters information, cost and time effective, and allowing for continuous water consumption analysis via the cloud computing service

Developing GIS-based disaster management system for local authority - Case study in Malaysia

This paper describes the development of geospatial-based disaster management system for an agency at regional level. Important aspects of the system such as spatial data, geospatial database, interface and specific modules for the disaster management system form major discussions of this paper. The Pengerang Disaster Management System (PDMS) is being developed for a local authority in one of the Malaysian states who’s been given a task to monitor the surrounding environmental aspects. The local authority manages one of the largest oil and gas refinery plant in South East Asia region in collaboration with national oil company, PETRONAS. The PDMS, is a one-stop centre (dashboard) for managing the operations with other agencies or stakeholders such as police, marine, army, medical team, fire and rescue units. We anticipate many aspects of disaster management could trigger from this pilot project and thus provide some interesting ideas for a local authority in managing man-made disaster such as fire, other oil and gas related incidents. Some features of the developed system such as online map publishing services, data flow and other geospatial analysis during the event will be discussed in this paper. Near-future work and a big picture of the disaster management approach (with an emphasis to oil and gas incident and scenario) also will be highlighted

Spatial and seasonal ionospheric error growth in DGPS measurement: a case study in Malaysia

This paper tackles the Equatorial ionosphere and its effects on Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) error growth over Malaysia by using a network of GPS Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS). Seasonal variation of ionospheric delay has been examined and findings show that the effect of spatial variation of ionospheric errors in DGPS is very significant during the equinoctial seasons. Furthermore, a DGPS regression model was developed and tested during the solar maximum year in 2013 by using internet-based DGPS. The results show that the model is capable of estimating DGPS positional errors for distances of user to reference station less than 680 km