14 Geographical data in mobile applications uses beyond map making

Abstract

Mobile applications typically only exploit geographic data for the purposes of rendering of local area maps. These maps are an essential part of guiding applications, and a lot of work has been done on methods for rendering of clear, useful maps. However, with the rapidly increasing power of the mobile devices themselves and the increasing ubiquity of GPS positioning, much more can be made of the geographic data itself. For example, location-aware or location-based applications are becoming more common. In this chapter we present three main uses of geographic data. The first is using such data to support the description of regions on map that correspond to places in the real world to which location-based information might be attached. The second usage is for de-cluttering map data to ease the load on mobile applications as well as to improve usability. This is done by exploiting forms of visibility computation that can be done with 2D map data. The third usage is to again exploit visibility analysis to support the insertion and retrieval of geo-located data, using its likely region of use. Finally, as 3D geographic data is becoming more widely available, we brie?y discuss the potential role for 3D map data in mobile applications. All these advances have raised new challenges for storage, retrieval and presentation of map data.