Pocket GTViewer on Smartphones - Part 2

What does the Smartphone platform mean to Pocket GTViewer? The biggest impact to Pocket GTViewer is the loss of the touch screen. Many features in Pocket GTViewer depended on a touch screen such as Zoom In and Zoom out, Panning, Attribute Info, and Redlining. However, there are ways to overcome some of these limitations and thinking “phone” and not “device” help overcome the others.

Obviously, view navigation is a requirement in a Pocket GTViewer application. Locate queries do provide a non-touch screen way to navigate the data, but if you cannot freely navigate the view with panning and zooming, usefulness as a GIS viewer is greatly impaired. Fortunately, standards requires a set of controls to be present on all Smartphones: two soft buttons under the screen and a joypad which provides Left, Right, Up, Down, and Enter operations.

The available key inputs provide adequate controls for navigating the GIS data. Pocket GTViewer for Smartphone has 2 modes of navigation: Zoom and Pan. Pressing the Enter button (pressing the joypad button) toggles between these two modes and a small icon in the upper left corner of the screen indicates the mode you are in. In Pan mode, the joypad will move the view in the direction you indicate. In Zoom mode, the Left and Down actions will zoom in and the Right and Up actions will zoom out. All navigation can be easily done with one thumb.



A beefed up Overview mode is also provided to give another method of navigating the view. While viewing an overview map of the data an indicator can be quickly moved around the view with the joypad to find an area of interest.

Since there is no touch screen available on the Smartphone, the tap-and-hold method of reviewing a feature’s attributes is not possible, but the PGTV Control provides a special mode called Capture Point with Keys for selecting a point in the view without a touch screen. By showing a crosshair cursor in the view, the user can move the cursor around the view with the joypad until it is at desired point; then the user selects the Enter button to find all features at the point. If only one feature is found, the attribute information is displayed; if more than one feature is found, a picklist is presented so the user can refine his or her selection.



The Attribute Info dialog has been redesigned for Smartphone to make better use of screen space and key controls. The right soft button indicates which record is currently displayed and can be used to change the view to any of the available records associated with the feature.

Performing locate queries is not much different from that on a Window Mobile device running Pocket GTViewer. Fill out the prompts, perform the query, and select the feature you wish to locate.



GPS support is also provided by the PGTV Control and can be used with a Bluetooth GPS receiver or a built in GPS receiver.



Raster files are supported as well and are ideal for backdrop imagery.



Redlining is really the only set of functionality provided by the Windows Mobile version of Pocket GTViewer that gets sacrificed in the Smartphone version. Without the touch screen, the traditional style of redlining (line, shape, circle, ellipse, rectangle, and freehand) is not practical. However, this limitation does not preclude redlines from future versions of the Smartphone version of the app. This type of functionality is where the thinking needs to be “phone” instead of “device” and needs to take advantage of features like the built in camera. Even with the Smartphone key interface, photos could be associated with links and provide a very usable capture tool.

This posting shows a quick glance at what Pocket GTViewer for Smartphone can accomplish. GTI plans to leverage the Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) platform as much as we can to provide the best GIS tools on the market. If you have a Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone or Window Mobile 6 Standard device, please let us know if you want to give Pocket GTViewer for Smartphone a try.

Pocket GTViewer on Smartphones - Part 1

I personally haven’t given Smartphones much credit until the last year or so. I have had a Cingular 2125 since around the time they were released. While I loved it as a cell phone, I never gave it much credit as a platform for Pocket GTViewer. However, with the release of the PGTV Control for .NET, something happened. The PGTV Control runs on Smartphone (or Window Mobile 6 Standard) as well as it runs on a Window Mobile device. Developing an application with the PGTV Control for Smartphones is incredibly easy. So easy in fact, I gave the PGTV Control a spin on a Smartphone despite my preconceived notions of the platform. Much to my surprise, I instantly realized how powerful Smartphones can be and how well Pocket GTViewer runs on them.

It seems that I had fallen victim to the same trap that I have preached against in the past. When Pocket GTViewer was released, many people dismissed it as a viable application because the device was too slow, the screen was too small, it didn’t have enough storage, etc. But it turns out that Pocket GTViewer on a Windows Mobile device was in fact very successful and useful. The key to this success was the understanding that Pocket GTViewer on a device is not a substitude for GTViewer on the desktop or a laptop. Pocket GTViewer has its own specialties that are not available on the desktop and thinking “Desktop” on a device will never succeed, but thinking “Device” on a device opens up a whole new set of solutions for your problems.

This very same thinking is true for Smartphone. Let’s skip the comparison between the desktop and the phone. The problem with adopting Smartphones is that it is competing against the Window Mobile device idea, not the desktop. Nevertheless, familiar arguments from the past have surfaced again. The phone has too small of a screen (compared to a Windows Mobile device), it is not powerful enough to run a GIS application, it doesn’t have enough storage, and there is no touch screen. Well, these points may be true, but maybe not as true as you might think. First, most Smartphones today have QVGA screens (320x240) or Square screens (240x240 or 320x320). The physical area of the screen is less than that of the typical Windows Mobile device, but the resolution is the same as most Windows Mobile devices we have seen so far (the HiRes Windows Mobile devices are still few). Smartphones are also not as fast as a typical Windows Mobile device; however, Pocket GTViewer has been around for almost 7 years and the devices back then were much slower than the typical Smartphone. Storage is not an issue either since Smartphones use MiniSD or MicroSD cards that can inexpensively be 2G or more. The last item of contention is the touch screen. Smartphones by definition do not have a touch screen (this is becoming one of the only real ways to differentiate a Smartphone from a Windows Mobile device). All inputs must be done with the Softkeys, the joypad, or the D-Pad. Some Smartphones have a full keyboard, but not all of them. So, the touch screen is really the only limitation the Smartphone platform really imparts and even this limitation can be overcome with some creative thinking.

Just as our thinking had to be “device” instead of “desktop” to make a successful Windows Mobile application, we now have to shift our thinking from “device” to “phone.” In some ways this shift is harder to do than going from desktop to device because a device was easily viewed as being different from the desktop. Smartphones and devices are much more similar in appearance, but our thinking really has to change to exploit the differences and create a useful application appropriate for the Smartphone. I think in many ways, an application for the Smartphone must be scaled down in features and functionality not only from what the same application on the desktop does, but also the same application on a Windows Mobile device. But this attenuated feature set for the phone is not necessarily a bad thing and generally results in more focused apps that perform more precise portions of your workflow.

Another topic not mentioned so far is what a phone offers over a device. 1) Typically, you always have your cell phone on you. Windows Mobile Devices are small, but they are not omnipresent like a cell phone. 2) The phone is half as large as a Windows Mobile device or even smaller. Maybe this reduction in size causes them to have a smaller screen, but the smaller the better when you carry it with you at all times. 3) The phone has built in connectivity which offers a variety of options for communicating with servers, sharing information, etc. 4) The phone typically has a built in camera which can be used for many tasks in a GIS environment, and 5) let’s not forget it is also a phone.

The latest trend in the Device and Smartphone arenas is a coalescence of the two platforms. At the MEDC conference in May, Microsoft gave a pretty strong message that devices without a phone built into them will soon be a thing of the past. They even use the term “Classic” to identify a device without a built in phone, and “Professional” to identify those that do. They also instilled the idea of building applications that will support both Device and Smartphone platforms, and they provided new design guidelines that make it easier to make an application work on both platforms.

Even with the limitations that the Smartphone platform imposes (primarily the lack of a touch screen), I believe that the Smartphone does provide a viable platform for applications like Pocket GTViewer. I also believe that the users of a Smartphone version of Pocket GTViewer may very well be different than those who typically use Pocket GTViewer on a Windows Mobile device (as well as being different from those users of GTViewer on the desktop or laptop). Smartphone does have a place in GIS and in my next posting I will show how the simplicity of Pocket GTViewer for Smartphone really does provide a powerful tool you need to have in your solution.

Introducing the new GTWeb 7.0

GTWeb provides a fundamental component of the GTViewer family of products by allowing many users to access GIS data via the intranet or internet. GTWeb has had a variety of incarnations since its debut, but its goals have always remained the same. The methods to realize these goals, however, have changed to take advantage of the latest technologies.

The goals GTWeb was designed to accomplish are simple:

1. Distribution of your GIS data to a large number of users. While GTViewer and Pocket GTViewer can distribute your GIS data to a large number of users, the “Web” paradigm lends itself to distributing your data on an even larger scale at the price of lesser functionality and required network connectivity. Nevertheless, even with less functionality, many classes of users can easily take advantage of the information GTWeb can deliver to them and get even more value out of your GIS.
   
2. Centralized management. By moving the management of the data being distributed to a single web server instead of each individual client, it becomes very simple to manage a large number of users because only the server needs to be updated with new information and configurations made to the web server will be inherently applied to all clients.
   
3. User-friendliness and Usability. As with the rest of the GTViewer family, ease of use is paramount as the training and user adoption are critical to the success of a GIS solution especially when the solution is meant for a large number of users that may have little GIS experience.

The first few versions of GTWeb (versions 1 through 4) relied on an ASP or ASP.NET application running on the web server and an ActiveX plug-in for Internet Explorer on the client. While this approach was very successful at getting GIS information to its clients, it suffered from two problems that limited its effectiveness. First, an ActiveX plug-in had to be installed on the client. While this task was a very simple requirement that needed no user interaction (other than running the setup), it was still a necessary step to accomplish before accessing your GIS data online. Second, utilizing an ActiveX control on the client bound the solution to Internet Explorer. When GTWeb was introduced, being bound to Internet Explorer was not a problem. Today, with Firefox and even Opera, the ActiveX control is not a good client solution and corporate standards may even preclude Internet Explorer from being used.

With version 5 of GTWeb, many changes were made to both the server and client sides of the application. The GTWeb server was revamped to offer new features and the template website was upgraded to ASP.NET 2.0. The ActiveX client was still supported, but a new technique of distributing the maps to the client as raster images (.jpg files) was also supported. By using a standard raster file for the map, no ActiveX control is required on the client. The browser, by itself, is all the client needs, eliminating the two technologies problems GTWeb suffered from in previous versions. The non-ActiveX version of the GTWeb client offered a good user experience and supported an array of the functionality users of the ActiveX control version were used to: Zoom In, Zoom Out, Panning, and Attribute Info. The raster version (or non-ActiveX version) also supported background imagery which is not supported in the ActiveX client version.

While the ActiveX control did have its drawbacks, it did have a few advantages not mentioned so far. First, it provided a very rich experience when viewing the GIS data. It was using the same vector graphics engine used by GTViewer which provided the same quality and feel desktop GTViewer users were accustomed to. This rich user experience provided by the ActiveX control made the raster version (non-ActiveX version) feel like a downgrade to some of the users already comfortable with the ActiveX client version.

With version 7 of GTWeb (we skipped version 6 to stay in line with the rest of the GTViewer family version numbers), the non-ActiveX version has been enhanced to close the gap between the rich user experience provided by the ActiveX control version. While the GTWeb server continues to support the ActiveX client, the new template web application is focuses solely on the non-ActiveX approach and utilizes Ajax, client-side Java script, and ASP.NET 2.0 to give the client a much richer experience than the previous version. The new template web site provided with GTWeb 7.0 is still very similar in functionality to the previous version, but it now has more of a “Web 2.0” look and feel.

Some of the new features in GTWeb 7.0 are:

• Smooth panning (drag the map view with the mouse).
• Mouse wheel zoom-in and zoom-out.
• Upgraded query form and query reports.
• Display Preset selection (as defined in the data’s .GTM file).
• Project Group support (for running multiple sets of projects on the same server).
• Extract File (.gtx) creation and download.
• Updated layout to take better advantage of different sized screens

With GTWeb 7.0, you still have centralized management of the web projects, there is no client software to load, and it supports the top 3 browsers (IE, Firefox, and Opera). GTWeb is still ideal for both internet and intranet GIS applications. GTWeb can be used to augment your GTViewer and/or Pocket GTViewer seat and can provide universal access via the internet and web browser.

GTViewer Version 7.0.x.6 is Available

Version 7.0.x.6 of GTViewer is available.

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07.00.00.06 - 04/16/07
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- NEW - Smooth Zoom Out added.

- FIX - Window Area Zoom In on a point when zoomed very far out would often not set the view to the desired range.

- NEW - GT/Field now logs an error message when an edit feature is not found in the Edit_Features.txt file.

- FIX - GT/Field was not accepting a GPS_POINT type when the type entry had more information than the type name. It should have ignored the extra info.

- FIX - GT/Field was sometimes corrupting previous value when moving between them.

- FIX - GT/Field was reformating Read Only value incorrectly in some cases.

SECO Features GTI at Annual Meeting

SECO (Sumter Electric Cooperative) holds an annual meeting each year to provide an opportunity for the members to see what’s new at the Cooperative and to interact with employees. It also gives SECO employees a chance to meet with the members, brag about their latest technical innovations, and address any member needs. This year was the 69th Annual Meeting, and several thousand people showed up for talks, barbeque, and exhibits. One such exhibit (pictured above) proudly shows the GTI logo. The exhibit has a running copy of GTViewer and explains how SECO is using the investment in mobile mapping technology to operate more efficiently and reduce costs for members.

GTI at American Gas Association Conference

GTI will be in booth #232 at the AGA Operations Conference & Biennial Exhibition in Dallas, Texas, April 24-26. Come by the booth and visit with us if you are at the show.

Pocket GTViewer 7.0.x.4 is Available

Pocket GTViewer version 7.0.x.4 is now available.


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07.00.00.04 - 04/10/07
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- CHG - Evaluation Version Updated.

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07.00.00.03
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- NEW - Style definition Priority value can be now set from 0 to 25.

- FIX - The intBea_Frequency property was not being propertly stored in the TrimbleSettings.ini file.

GTViewer Version 7.0.x.5 is Available

Version 7.0.x.5 of GTViewer is available.

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07.00.00.05 - 04/05/07
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- NEW - Modifications to the Dgn Export to allow standard symbol font characters to be mapped to TrueType fonts characters. This addition allows G/Techology data or other data using TrueType fonts to be exported to a .dgn.

- NEW - The ShapeBorderColorId and ShapeBorderColorValue only applied to Shape with Holes elements in the past. It will now apply to a regular shape element as well.

- NEW - The unhighlighting of feature when the pick list menu is present for feature selection when multiple are present at the selection point has been changed. Previously, the unhighlighting process did not restore the view to its previous state if the features were stacked with a specific priority.

- NEW - The picklist resulting when multiple features are at the same location will now flicker the element when it is selected in the picklist.

- NEW - A new section has been added to the status bar to indicate if the GPS is running and to indicate if it is tracking.

GTViewer 7.0.x.4 is Available

Version 7.0.x.4 of GTViewer is available.

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07.00.00.04 - 03/23/07
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- NEW - GT/Field now supports the GTFieldAutoSave entry in the [Additional Properties] section. AutoSave will save the session graphics after each save in GT/Field. The default is on (1), but can be turn off by setting this entry to 0.

- NEW - The GpsTrailFilterId has been added to the [Additional Properties] section to allow a specific filter id to be used for the GPS trail when drawn as a session graphic. By default, it will use the current filter id.

GTVx version 7.0.x.2 is Available

Version 7.0.x.2 of GTVx is available.

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07.00.00.02 - 03/22/07
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- NEW - Style definition Priority value can be now set from 0 to 25.

- NEW - Feature Counting now supports MeasureFactor, MeasureDegreeFactor, MeasureUnitLabel, and LatLongFlag.

- NEW - Export as XML now supports Dimension Elements (Type 112).

GTViewer version 7.0.x.3 is Available

Version 7.0.x.3 of GTViewer is available.

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07.00.00.03 - 03/13/07
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- NEW - Export as XML now supports Dimension Elements (Type 112).

- FIX - Export Data with the use alternate names would say there was not data if the defined structure for the embedded data was not valid. Now, it will revert back to the standard method and not try to apply the structure if it has a problem.

- FIX - Export as DGN was not applying the style rules to Text.

- NEW - New Methods:

New Doc Object Methods:

double GetElementAngle(long categoryId, long offset);

boolean GetElementTextSize(long categoryId, long offset,
long* lengthMult, long* heightMult);

New View Object Methods:

boolean GetStyleOriginForElement(long mode, long categoryId, long offset, VARIANT* originX, VARIANT* originY);

GTData version 7.0.0.1 is Available

Version 7.0.0.1 of GTData is available.


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07.00.00.01 - 02/28/07
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- NEW - GTInterGtg - xyFlag added to add coordinate info to tabular data.

- FIX - GTLabelGtg - was omitting the label for the last last item.

- NEW - GTLabelGtg - now supports mode 4 for point feature labels.

- NEW - GTIndex - support added for multi-line text with TrueType fonts.

- NEW - GTDataMap - Added to GTData.

- NEW - GTQuery - Supported added for table map option.

- FIX - GTPack, GTExtract - The ExtendedTextStyleColor value was not being properly placed in the extract file.

- CHG - GTQuery - Increased the number of omit and fixed values from 1000 to 2000.

GTViewer In the News

The Town of Groton, Massachusetts mobilizes emergency management with COGNET GIS & GTViewer, see the full article at GISCafe.

Also, check out COGNET's new Blog: cognetgis.blogspot.com

Maximize Initial View in GTViewer

Since the first version of GTViewer, creating a new session has always created a new view. The view is by default “not” maximized. Perhaps the main reason for defaulting the new view to not maximize was to show off GTViewer’s ability to support a Multi-Document/Multi-View environment. It is not readily obvious that this feature exists if the view windows are always maximized.

Since GTViewer version 4.0, there has been a setting under Options/Settings to change the behavior of a session’s initial view. The property is called Maximize Initial View and you can leave it like it is or you can change it to true which will maximize the initial view of any newly created session. You can then set this value as the default for the application and it will be used from that point forward.




A new session created with the Maximize Initial View set to No is shown below:




A new session created with the Maximize Initial View set to Yes is shown below:

Multi-Document/Multi-View Support In GTViewer

One feature that has been available in GTViewer since the very first version is its Multiple Document/Multiple View environment. This feature is a standard in most Windows applications especially those built around the Document/View architecture. However, only recently has the power of this feature been recognized by its users.

The Multi-View support provides the ability to have multiple views of a dataset; each view can be showing a different location or display different features at common location (such as gas only or electric only). The uses of these aspect of the feature is obvious. The Multi-Document support is a little more subtle in its usefulness. Multi-Document support allows more than one dataset to be opened in GTViewer at the same time; each dataset appears in its own view window (and you can then have multiple view of each dataset). Many users have only one dataset, so the multiple document support may not be useful (maybe). However, for those users who do have multiple datasets this feature can be very useful.

The multi-document feature is especially useful for companies transitioning their GIS. For example, let’s say your GIS uses Intergraph’s classic FRAMME and you are in the process of transitioning to Intergraph’s G/Technology or even an ESRI or Smallworld GIS. GTViewer allows you to use your classic FRAMME data while simultaneously viewing data from your new GIS (just in separate view windows). There are several advantages to having this multi-document support:

• Data from your retired GIS is still accessible through a GTViewer snapshot of the data without maintaining the old GIS.


• Users keep a common viewing application during the transition from one GIS to another; thus, there is no need to retrain the majority of the GIS data users on new software.


• You can verify the new GIS by comparing its data to the old data GIS’s data in the same application. You can even use Redline’s or GT/Field to capture the problems and later update the GIS.

GTViewer on Windows Vista

GTViewer 7.0 has been certified on Windows Vista. No changes were required to make GTViewer compatible with Windows Vista, so older versions should also run without compatibility issues. While there is no functionality in GTViewer specific to Windows Vista, you will notice the Windows Aero enhanced display. For example, GTViewer’s title bar will have the semi-transparent appearance as well as the other dialog box titles and borders. You will also notice other cool features such as the Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D Animation.

GTViewer version 7.0.x.2 is Available

Version 7.0.x.2 of GTViewer is available.

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07.00.00.02 - 02/16/07
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- NEW - Style definition Priority value can be now set from 0 to 25.

- NEW - Feature Counting now supports MeasureFactor, MeasureDegreeFactor, MeasureUnitLabel, and LatLongFlag.

- FIX - Problem with counting highlighted features with no shape specified.

- NEW - New Doc Object Method:

boolean DrawClearAll(long mode);

GTI Finds Maps More Valuable with Trace Applications

See press release in GIS Cafe:

Graphic Technologies, Inc. Finds Maps More Valuable with Trace Applications

Trippple Sevens – New versions of GTViewer, Pocket GTViewer, and GTVx

GTI releases new versions of 3 products today:

• GTViewer version 7.0
• Pocket GTViewer 7.0
• GTVx version 7.0

These new releases have a variety of enhancements, fixes, and new features.

GTI at GITA 2007

GTI's Charlie Marlin will be a speaker at GITA 2007 at the Mobile Field Data Collection Technology Alternatives Knowledge Immersion Seminar. For more information see page 7 of the GITA conference program. Also, see page 15 for a picture of GTI's Mike Rogers at the Data Aquisition Seminar from GITA 2006 in Tampa.

GTI is also proud to be sponsoring the breakfast at the Ten Sails Smallworld Symposium following the GITA conference.