Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
field with few dependencies on other technologies. It follows that specialist software is required
for LBGC as well as an ability to do analysis (computation) on the device in the field. This dif-
fers from LBS, which does not require specialist software, for example, Google Maps, but does
require an Internet connection in order to work successfully due to the vast quantities of infor-
mation that can be accessed on the fly. LBS also vary in complexity. Simply playing a piece of
media which is triggered at a location does not require particularly sophisticated or high-powered
hardware making LBS less reliant on computations and more reliant on the delivery method and
UI design.
MGIS in this chapter is treated as being a straightforward extension of desktop GIS. It is actually
very difficult to define
MGIS
on account of its catch-all nature. Instead, we proceed by simply trans-
lating that term to mean employing GIS techniques but having some level of mobility associated
with it. The main difference between MGIS and LBGC is that an MGIS app will usually require the
ability to collect data in the field as this is its primary purpose; essentially, MGIS is an app which
allows for the logging and review of spatial data, but does not include analysis. One commercial
solution is ArcPad (ESRI ArcPad, 2012) which is part of the ArcGIS suite provided by ESRI.
ArcPad is an advanced MGIS app, although it still has a primary function of data creation and
checking in the field, as well as doing MM. Thus, such an app generally exhibits the same overall
set of properties that were previously itemised in Table 15.2. However, as shown in a later example,
it can partly cover the remit of LBGC.
The major aspects of the three different location-based technologies can be summarised by
means of three c's: computation, consumption and capture, referring to LBGC, LBS and MGIS,
respectively. In more detail, LBGC is primarily about using the power of new mobile devices to
perform complex analysis whilst in the field, whilst LBS is about retrieving information that is rel-
evant to the device's current location. MGIS has the ability to do many things a desktop GIS can do,
but the primary reason for bringing it into the field is to collect and log data for later, subsequent,
analysis on a desktop or laptop machine.
To date, there have been apps that cover part of the remit for LBGC such as the ESRI advanced
MGIS product ArcPad. ArcPad, for example, has been used as a test bed for a remote archaeologi-
cal field trip that required the researchers to be away from base camp for up to 10 days perform-
ing a ground survey (Tripcevich, 2004). An archaeological survey differs from an excavation in
that the researchers are generally looking for surface artefacts and features rather than digging
pits (although the latter may be done at a later date). A notable aspect of the app in question, as
acknowledged in the paper, is that due to software design issues, the researchers had to change their
workflows quite drastically in order to capture the archaeological features of interest. Therefore, the
researchers were not in the field doing GC but were instead taking advantage of powerful computing
to augment their study using a pre-existing piece of software.
Whilst LBS can be considered to be at the intersection of geospatial databases, mobile com-
puting devices and the web, as portrayed in Brimicombe and Li (2006), the positioning of LBGC
requires consideration of the flows of information involved and the relative emphasis placed on
the derivation of new data. Figure 15.1 compares the flow of information and associated actions
for typical users of LBS, MGIS and LBGC, with dashed lines representing more occasional
flows or actions. The assumption is that being located in the field is critical for all, as described
earlier, but that the emphasis placed on the use of the web and on the creation of new data
is different. In LBS, web-based query and retrieval dominate, but with occasional geotagging
operations used to capture point-based location data. In MGIS, very heavy emphasis is placed
upon the action of field-based survey and the resulting capture and storage of information, and
whilst GIS-like analytical operations are possible with many software products, for the typical
user, the map-based display of captured data dominates, with any subsequent analysis usually
occurring back on the desktop. For LBGC, field survey and capture are important. However, the
discriminating feature is the analysis and derivation of new data that occur on the device whilst
in the field.
