GIS SDKs dynamics echoed by social requirements transformations Cosmin Tomozei Iulian Furdu Simona-Elena Vârlan Faculty of Science, Department of Faculty of Science, Department of Faculty of Computer Science Mathematics and Computer Science Mathematics and Computer Science Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Vasile Alecsandri University of Vasile Alecsandri University of Iași, Bacău, Romania Bacău, Romania Romania cosmin.tomozei@ub.ro ifurdu@ub.ro simona.varlan@info.uaic.ro Abstract—The aim of this paper is to describe the evolution of the .NET Framework extensions for ArcGIS, as well as various GIS applications development process, based on the SDKs APIs and services, included in many types of applications. transformations, especially by considering the ESRI ArcGIS According to [1] ArcObjects are a set of C++ based development platform. On the one hand, this study relies on our components that were platform independent. They provided to previous experience in GIS software engineering; on the other developers the possibilities of working with thin and thick hand, it reflects the features and particularities of the projects we clients and on the Web, for creating software that uses maps conducted within the bachelor and master’s theses of our students. presentation, geographic and spatial data analysis. As Further comments are being made, regarding the transformation professors, we became interested about these technologies and of traditional desktop applications to gain contextual our students in Computer Science have chosen GIS based recommendation functionalities as well as their reengineering towards mobility. We furthermore intend to determine whether applications as subjects for their graduation projects. A set of the integration of Virtual and Mixed Reality in this typology of theses and projects have been built by taking into consideration applications is feasible and to anticipate the usefulness for the evolution in time of different types of application platforms, communities of users grouped either by their geographical the dynamics of knowledge to which the development location or by their common interests. technologies correspond. In these types of projects, the ArcObjects APIs for C++, Keywords— GIS; Virtual reality; Mixed Reality; Software .NET and JAVA have been used within both the teaching and Engineering the project development processes. Over time, both GIS application development and the platforms, which host them, I. INTRODUCTION have evolved and radically transformed, so that in about 10 The process of GIS applications development has been years’ time applications became widespread on virtually committed at first to desktop users, interacting with rigid and unlimited number of mobile devices and unlimited possibilities inflexible applications, with some basic functionalities and at the of further developments. same time demanding higher computing resources for basic The ArcObjects have been greatly used in our projects, at operations. As time passed by, the need for more advanced first for the construction of traditional desktop applications, features, such as in-place editing, georeferencing, addition of which were further transformed through reengineering to obtain new layers in a more dynamic way as well as the elaboration of novel and dependable web and mobile applications with higher more complex operation needed in the decision-making process level of accuracy, correctness and portability. For each of these significantly contributed to the appearance and further to the quality characteristics, metrics have been defined and evolution of software development platforms such as implemented. The process of testing as well as the processes of ArcObjects. At the same time, documentation has become more adaptive and corrective maintenance restructured and improved and more relevant and accessible to the GIS applications the quality of the GIS applications. The existing software developer community. This led to the large-scale distribution of libraries proved to be reliable for further developments with mapping application with geo referencing functionalities and minimal effort of transformation and maintenance. However, the many programmers have begun to be interested about the GIS transition from desktop mapping applications to mobile-enabled applications development. context aware recommender systems presumed large efforts of development and consequently the only dependable and While desktop GIS remained as a solid foundation for future efficient solution has been identified as reengineering. transformations and updates in functionalities, developers started focusing on adapting the applications to Web and distributed environments, especially by considering the N-tier architecture. These premises considerably contributed to the creation of dependable SDKs, among which we may mention 1 22 II. CONTEXT-AWARE RISK AVOIDANCE RECOMMENDER categories of actors about the specificity of any risk event, a SYSTEMS BASED ON GIS INFORMATION PROCESSING natural disaster or an anthropic risk in a precise geographical location and with prediction facilities for any further resource Given our experience with the .NET platform and the Visual allocation to minimize the risks effects. C # .NET programming language, as well as the outstanding quality and stability in time of the C# applications, we developed One of the most important and dependable source of apps for smart devices in a very straightforward way, by means information consisted of the actors from the field, belonging to of ArcGIS SDKs and development libraries. The examples the local authorities. With their help, the information provided delivered were very informative and trustworthy serving for the by the citizens could be verified and subjected to collaborative advancing in the engineering of new apps. We extended our area filtering, as shown in [3],[4], and then sent by social media of knowledge by developing applications based on JAVA channels on the mobile devices of the users. programming language and on the corresponding ArcGIS The data obtained from the field have been included on the Android SDK. geospatial databases, with dedicated layers for each typology of In [2] we provided a general framework for the development risks. The geospatial databases had the possibility of being of risk management through mobile GIS recommender queried and filtered in correspondence with the users’ need of applications. An important purpose of the paper was the information related to specific areas of interest. The improvement of the process of natural and anthropic risks administration of these type of databases was challenging from awareness for the identified Romanian communities. The both computing resources and the need of specialized personnel, software application prototype informs the communities because of their size complexity and also because of the exposed to natural, environmental and social risks in well- measures taken under the supervision of authorities and under defined geographic areas. In this way, we have modelled the authorization. requirements and went forward with the engineering process Harmonizing the evolution SDKs to the dynamics of GIS based on models and patterns, on which the documentation applications requirements was accelerated by the social demand. libraries proved to be very helpful for the construction of GIS Applications became more flexible, mobile, user friendly and apps. The aim was to obtain context-based recommendations, backing the process of automatic decisions making. based on collaborative filtering, and these recommendations to The dynamics of knowledge and software have placed be further tested on specific categories of users. various types of actors and actions in very complex scenarios. In Based on ESRI ArcGIS framework a mobile recommender such contexts, collaboration was greatly reflected by specialized GIS application was developed by means of ArcObjects, Web modelling languages, such as UML and presumed the use of the GIS and ArcGIS extensions for Silverlight. subsequent object modelling methodologies. Owing to the evolution in requirements and in technologies We obtained the model that has further been transformed and to the retreat of the Silverlight extensions of ArcGIS, the into classes of objects and relational databases, included AI and following version of the application has been developed in the use of sensors. Adding the mobility characteristic has proved JAVA, for Android achieving the mobility feature [18]. In to be quite straightforward, based on the libraries and APIs that parallel, a C# application has been developed based on XAML have been provided by ArcGIS SDKs. and ArcGIS.NET SDK [5]. Nowadays, the development effort Creating contextual recommendations presumed the deep is significantly reduced because of Xamarin and the study of the behaviour of each actor, and the way it got Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin.Forms cross- information from the system as well as the steps needed to be platform applications, which also implement the ArcGIS taken for achieving its specific objective. This approach functionalities. generated complex use cases for each role, which further needed The functional specifications were defined by means of to be simplified and reduced to essential. The architecture specialized modelling languages, which integrate patterns, prototype of the context aware GIS based risk recommender had templates and diagrams for the functional analysis process. It is finally become fair in terms of size and computing capabilities. very important to make the distinction between the different Geolocation and georeferencing were implemented using categories of actors involved [2] in the use of mobile GIS risk mapping engines, mobile devices and tracking devices. recommender system. For each categories of users, specific roles A particularly important topic in the development of GIS have been defined. These roles clearly separate the actions that applications is represented using mobile device sensors. users might take for the notification or distribution of Usually, GPS or A-GPS, cameras, accelerometers and information related to the identified risks. gyroscopes are needed for positioning the device within the The local community members have been identified as the geographical area. The functionalities of the sensors are usually most important category of users, which were directly exposed implemented by corresponding classes and objects provided by to the risks and simultaneously the ones which have the ArcGIS SDK for mobile devices and for the web. The possibility of offering help to the authorities in case of natural manufacturers of the devices also provide dependable classes disasters in certain exposed areas within a specific region. and objects for working with the sensors, meaning that the Consequently, the local authorities were in the position to developer could decide on which objects to use. Xamarin collect information from the citizens by means of mobile devices environment, which allows the development of cross-platform and specialized software and to send them elaborated applications development on C# and Visual Studio, as well as recommendations based on contextual information and the previous mobile apps SDKs discussed in [2], [5] and [6] offer collaborative filtering. The regional institutions were also specialized classes, objects and functionalities for working with identified as important actors in the analysis. In case of the georeferencing and routing processes by means of the device necessity, they had the possibility to get informed by the other sensors. 2 23 Fig. 1. Android and Windows Phone GIS applications for risk recommandations Figure 1 shows the user interface of two applications for risk sent to the specific VRML based browser to be displayed for awareness and recommendations, for Android and Windows navigation. Phone. The users may search for information specific to certain By using a specific method, the authors have shown that the geographic areas and act accordingly. 2D GIS data can be automatically transformed into a VRML model. They also proved that 3D GIS can be enabled for web They receive notification from the authorities and in case of browsers. By these means, the geoscientists will have the risk occurrence, such as flooding, landslides, fire or any other opportunity to build applications that combine virtual reality and accident they may either avoid or offer their help if need be. spatial data, gathered by 2D GIS tools. Further processing implies data filtering and it ensures that Three types of visualizations have been created in earlier times, the appropriate information is given to a community of users according to [9], to support 3D GIS interaction with the who have common characteristics and should get informed environment of virtual reality. These types are the plan view, the about a common phenomenon, which applies to them. In this model view and the worldview. These kinds of functions situation, the recommendations appear as objects generated by implemented in order to manipulate, model and analyse the 2D means of the SDK taking the shape of particular messages sent data. to the users. Novel approaches gained the power to build user immersive experiences. They offer the possibility of using computer vision III. FURTHER ADVANCES IN GIS SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT – by dedicated devices and headsets to get in a transformed 3D VIRTUAL, AUGMENTED AND MIXED REALITY INTEGRATION environment. A variety of strategies may be used for integrating GIS with virtual, augmented, or mixed reality. These strategies can be B. User's perspective viewed from several perspectives: A. the technical or Users explore the virtual environment and ask for programmer's perspective; B. the functional or user's information according to their objectives and the existing points perspective, and C. the conceptual perspective. of interest from the GIS database. The possibilities to run queries to the GIS database in a more intelligent way and to access the A. Technical perspective more advanced GIS functionalities. The possibilities have been In literature, we can find two methods to get 3D virtual limited, until the new AR/VR devices and headsets entered the reality in the area of GIS. One approach is to use 2D professional market. platform in which we may consider as an example the ArcGIS The immersive technologies adapt the environment to the software, used to obtain virtual reality. The other approach is to actual physical space, transforming it into a virtual environment. use a 3D or 2.5D software as a platform for development, such The users have to easily understand and navigate in the 3D as the Skyline software and Unity3D platform [7]. setting, by intuitive interfaces and simple gestures and motions In [8] an application called GeoVR was developed, using the controlled by sensors. In [10] well-known GIS functionalities client - server architecture, that successfully created interactive have been analysed, such as the 3D real-time simulations and 3D scene and virtual reality modelling language - VRML. This remote sensing. Perhaps in industries such as the automotive model started from 2D spatial data by use of GIS and HTML certain benefits should be obtained by using this technology. programming. In order to create the 3D scenes the users have to provide a C. The conceptual perspective of integrating GIS with VR/AR set of properties and through Avenue programming and the use The answer seems to depend on the domain of activity, in of ArcView Internet Map Server and ArcView 3D Analyst relation to the objectives defined. In activities such as software. These properties are processed in order to generate the environmental modelling, the analysis and manipulation of the 3D scene. 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Oprea – “GIS mobile client application with automatic data synchronization for multicriterial decision taking” - Bachelor thesis, under the scientific supervision of professor Cosmin Tomozei, Vasile ACKNOWLEDGMENT Alecsandri University of Bacău, Romania, 2014. This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number 115BM/2017”. 4 25