Automate Your GIS Application: Initiate | Innovate | Automate

Commercial GIS Softwares – all major market leaders are covered

ARC-GIS
ArcGIS is a family of software products that form a complete GIS built on industry standards that provide exceptional, yet easy to use, capabilities right out of the box. ArcGIS is a complete, single, integrated system for geographic data creation, management, integration, and analysis.
ArcGIS is designed as a scalable system that can be deployed in every organization, from an individual desktop to a globally distributed network of people.

ArcInfo. Within the ArcGIS software family, ArcInfo is the most comprehensive GIS available. It includes all the functionality of ArcView and ArcEditor and adds the advanced geoprocessing and data conversion capabilities that make ArcInfo the de facto standard for GIS. ArcInfo is the complete GIS data creation, update, query, mapping, and analysis system. ArcInfo is composed of ArcInfo Desktop and ArcInfo Workstation.
ArcInfo Desktop includes all the functionality of ArcEditor and adds a complete set of data management, analysis, and conversion tools to the ArcToolbox application. With these tools, you can perform data conversion, generalization, aggregation, overlays, buffer creation, statistical calculations, and much more. Each of these tools has a menu-driven interface with wizards where appropriate. ArcInfo Desktop operates on Windows NT and Windows 2000.

More »

Geographic Information Systems and Mapping

Geo-information
Cartography and GIS are increasing its role in many applications, in particular many info-mobility applications are based on LBS- Location Based Services. The main technical problem is the availability of GIS information on small and portable terminals by Internet network. The communication problem are solving by the W3C’s Mobile Access Activity that is working to ensure that the protocols and data formats of the Web provide an effective fit for all mobile devices. While the GIS applicable standard are managed in OpenGIS worldwide consortium. Until now the loss of the success of GIS is due to the low number of available end user applications. The situation is changing given that some specialized and mass market applications have been developed and the users are starting to appreciate them. The increase of the GIS utilization in the Cadastral Systems and in the cars terminals are two relevant examples. GIS services market is changing, so the GIS companies in order to increase their business must develop and offer new services and not only deliver maps to users. The project meets this market requirement.
Geographical Information Services are furthermore converging to open standards: a remarkable approach is the OpenGIS project and the GML (Geographical Markup Language).

More »

Communication and Visualisation Terminals

Mobile communication equipment (GSM/GPRS/UMTS), a range of terminals including Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Palmtops and powerful mobile PCs, and GNSS satellite location services can now be easily integrated in a distributed scenario: mobile devices are rapidly converging in standards and components to meet the growing demands in terms of users and need of internet based services. To be truly useful, components and devices must be interconnected and interoperable: this will be more and more possible with the emerging standards on the fusion between higher order tools and markup languages (e.g. XML based).
Location services are more and more available in low-cost devices and equipment (e.g. GPS and Handhelds or mobile communication terminals) that use (or are ready to use) communication protocols (e.g. IP and WAP) and languages (e.g. WML) that allow an easy integration into Internet services.

More »

LBS – Location based services & Applications

Location Based Services will play a key role in the future development of the Galileo market, as they represent the ultimate synergy between wireless communication networks, Geographic Information Systems and positioning technologies in order to deliver to the mass market a wide variety of new services.
This chapter begins with a general description and definition of LBS. A categorization and the different application types of LBS takes place later on. An overview (state of the art) of available positioning techniques (network based and satellite based) is also included in order to present a clearer view of related technologies and availability for capturing the position of terminals. The chapter concludes with a market analysis and market trends of the LBS that reveal the importance as well as the business perspectives for developing innovative applications that exploit mobile terminal position.

More »

Mobile networks beyond 3G – Evolution

Introduction

Activities towards next generation mobile communication are up to now technology driven. But, especially from an operator’s point of view, a system B3G has to deal with various aspects like user preferences, system requirements, network architecture, business model, security, and standardisation.
Mobile technologies are dominating the modern communication world. Third generation mobile systems are currently being rolled out. So far, most vision documents and discussions about B3G are focusing on wireless transmission technology issues. And in fact, generations were mainly characterized by the air interface in the past. But, the provisioning of mobile communication means more than just maintenance of the air interface. Various user expectations have to be met. Innovative services have to be developed to distinguish the operator’s offer from competitors. Complex value chains require reconsideration of business models and alliances. New technologies, especially in software technology, allow a more flexible reaction on changing market demands.

More »

InfraRed

Infrared is a special form of radio transmission in which a focused ray of light in the infrared frequency spectrum, measured in terahertz, or trillions of hertz (cycles per second), is modulated with information and sent from a transmitter to a receiver over a relatively short distance. Infrared radiation (IR) is the same technology used to control a TV set with a remote control. Unlike radio-frequency (RF) wireless links, IR wireless cannot pass through walls. It requires line of sight communication.
Infrared data communication is playing an important role in wireless data communication due to the popularity of laptop computers, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, mobile telephones, pagers, and other devices. Among existing uses or likely possibilities are:
• Sending a document from your notebook computer to a printer
• Exchanging business cards between handheld PCs
• Coordinating schedules and telephone books between your desktop and notebook computers
• Sending faxes from your notebook computer to a distant fax machine through a public telephone
• Digital cameras that can beam images into your computer.

More »

Bluetooth

Ericsson initiated development of the Bluetooth technology in 1994, but today the specification is developed, published and promoted by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) . Bluetooth wireless technology is a worldwide specification for a low-cost, low power consuming radio solution that provides links between different types of devices. It uses the globally available 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band.
As a provider of short-range connectivity, Bluetooth is initially replacing cables and proprietary wireless systems within existing applications. There are numerous applications in use today that benefit from Bluetooth technology, such as laptop-to-mobile handset connections, synchronisation between PCs and PDAs or smartphones, and headset-to-handset connections.

More »

Satellite Communications

A communication satellite function as an overhead wireless repeater station that provides a microwave communication link between two geographically remote sites. Due to its high altitude, satellite transmissions can cover a wide area over the surface of the earth. Each satellite is equipped with various “transponders” consisting of a transceiver and an antenna tuned to a certain part of the allocated spectrum. The incoming signal is amplified and then rebroadcast on a different frequency. Most satellites simply broadcast whatever they receive, and are often referred to as “bent pipes”. These were traditionally used to support applications such as TV broadcasts and voice telephony. In recent times, the use of satellites in packet data transmission has been on the rise. They are typically used in WAN networks where they provide backbone links to geographically dispersed LAN’s and MAN’s.

More »

Wireless Mobile Communication

The mobile and wireless communication technologies could play a significant role for the provision of value added services related to the cultural heritage and the fruition of tourist related navigation services. In reality wireless communications may be exploited through the provision of Location Based Services and complement the sattelite positioning systems for delivering innovative applications to the end users.

GSM
GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) is a digital mobile telephone system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM uses a variation of time division multiple access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (TDMA, GSM, and CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz frequency band.
While GSM provides excellent and well established voice services, its low transfer rates for data communications (up to 9600Kbps) make it inappropriate for LBS provisioning systems.

More »

Satellite Navigation Systems

Navigation Requirements

• Reliable Positioning System with Quality of Service
• Positioning Service with Integrity information about the displayed Position
• High coverage in Urban Environments
• Good Accuracy for both Horizontal and Vertical Positions
• “Wearable” GNSS receiver
• Connectable GNSS Receiver to other on person equipment
The following table summarises the main User Needs for the different Sector and Market segments. The most important parameters are related to the Integrity Concept and are highlighted in yellow.

Available Navigation Technologies

More »