myGRL - A Geo-spatial Resource Locator
A prototype system developed as part of my final BSc Project
This working title was finally entitled An investigation into a geo-spatial pervasive information gathering engine.
The dissertation itself is available.
This project has been nominated for the Microsoft Student Award for Excellence and the SET (Science, Engineering and Technology) Awards 2006. Results TBA
The Prototype system page shows the system working, feel free to have a look, but bear in mind this is a prototype system and may not be available.
myGRL - A Geo-spatial Resource Locator
The aim of this project was to investigate the feasibility of a physical-world spatial information gathering engine and to discover a conceptual model upon which to base future implementations. This system allows a user to pervasively find ubiquitous information based on their location and interests.
While this system is not strictly pervasive, it is not a large step further to create a more sophisticated system which supports this.
The social connotations of this system become apparent when the possibilities are considered. A very simple use of this system would be to simply find 'interesting' blog entries at the locations they were created, or conversely, find search for information about a particular location using the resources created there.
Used in more sophisticated ways could find such a system being used to manage employee tasks over a large area, or even track users.
System
The system relies on a community to contribute rich data into it. Conceptually, this could be any type of data, but this prototype system allows only text and images to be added along with contextual keywords to describe it.
The data, or resources in the system are fixed to a specific Geo-spatial location, represented internally as a latitude/longitude position. This data can be retrieved by a location aware client application, in this case, a PDA with a GPS device, or a by clicking on a map.
The diagram below shows the elements of the implemented system.
Information retrieved from the system is personalised by the use of a context filter, in this case, a user indicated a profile of keywords to use when matching resources to their location and interests.
Applications
There are three main components of the system:
- Server
- Server machine running FreeBSD
- Using Apache, MySQL and PHP
- Client Application
- Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 2003
- C# .NET Compact Framework
- Bluetooth GPS Device
- Web Application
- xHTML, CSS, Javascript (Google Maps)
Screenshots
Client Application - Finding a resource in the field
Web application - Finding a resource
Web application - Showing all resources in scarborough
Web application - Find resources
