AN ANALYSIS PATTERN FOR MOBILE GEOGRAPHIC

INFORMATION SYSTEMS TOWARD

MUNICIPAL URBAN ADMINISTRATION

Bruno Rabello Monteiro, Jugurta Lisboa Filho, José Luís Braga and Waister Silva Martins

Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), Viçosa – MG, Brazil

Keywords: Analysis Pattern, Mobile Geographic Information Systems, Urban Administration.

Abstract: This paper introduces an analysis pattern for Mobile Geographic Information Systems (Mobile GIS) focused

on urban administration applications. This pattern provides a class and associations diagram and can be used

in the development of an urban Mobile GIS application. The paper also describes a process that guided us in

obtaining this analysis pattern, presenting an example of its use in the conceptual modeling of an actual

application.

1 INTRODUCTION

In Brazil, many municipal public administrations

have been using Geographic Information Systems

(GIS) technologies both as supporting tools for

decision-making and for operational activities.

With the recent rise of mobile computation, a

new type of GIS has appeared, enabling the access

to spatial data from any place and at any time: the

Mobile Geographic Information Systems, or simply

Mobile GIS. The Mobile GIS applications allow

broad use and sharing GIS technologies with the

public (Xiaoqing & Qingquan, 2005).

According to (Tsou, 2004), Mobile GIS is an

integrated hardware-software framework to access

services and geo-spatial data using mobile devices

via cable or wireless networks. In addition, a Mobile

GIS application is not equivalent to a conventional

GIS application modified to operate in a smaller

device: they are systems based on a new paradigm

(Maguire, 2001). This new paradigm implies, among

other things, considering non-functional

requirements like the limited bandwidth of the

wireless communication network, the low

processing and storage power of the mobile devices

when compared to the usual desktop computers and

the differences in the screen size and properties to

display maps and results.

However, as it also happens in developing GIS

applications, the success of Mobile GIS applications

depends heavily on the extraction, analysis and

representation of requirements from the domain.

Lisboa Filho et al. (2002) pointed out that the

disciplines to be followed in requirement analysis

and database conceptual design are complex

activities that demand long working hours.

Patterns in general are one way of avoiding effort

repetition, and database conceptual design can be

greatly favored by using analysis patterns.

Analysis patterns are used to describe solutions

adopted during the steps of requirement analysis and

data conceptual modeling. Fowler (1997) argued that

an analysis pattern is an idea that has been proven

useful in a practical context and it will probably be

useful in other similar situations. In addition,

(Lisboa Filho et al., 2002) pointed out that

in the urban administration domain the basic

environment that makes up the digital cartographic

basis (e.g.: streets, blocks, plots and districts) can be

reused by several different applications.

This paper proposes an analysis pattern to be

applied in the analysis and conceptual modeling

steps of geographic database construction for Mobile

GIS applications for the urban administration

domain. Section 2 describes the UML-GeoFrame

approach used in the conceptual modeling of Mobile

GIS applications and in the presentation of the

proposed solution for the proposed pattern. Section 3

presents the step-by-step modeling of a Mobile GIS

application for the urban administration domain.

Section 4 describes the analysis patterns we propose

for these applications. Section 5 presents the use of

311

Rabello Monteiro B., Lisboa Filho J., Luís Braga J. and Silva Martins W. (2008).

AN ANALYSIS PATTERN FOR MOBILE GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS TOWARD MUNICIPAL URBAN ADMINISTRATION.

In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - ISAS, pages 311-318

DOI: 10.5220/0001703803110318

 SciTePress

the proposed analysis pattern. Finally, Section 6

presents the final conclusions and prospects of future

developments.

2 THE UML-GEOFRAME

MODELING METHOD

GeoFrame is a specified conceptual framework

based on the class model of the Unified Modeling

Language (UML), which serves as a guide for

modeling GIS applications. GeoFrame provides a

basic class diagram to assist the designer in the

initial steps of the database conceptual modeling of a

new GIS application. It also provides a stereotype

set (Figure 1) that allows obtaining data schemes

easily understandable by users (Lisboa Filho &

Iochpe, 2008).

Figure 1: Stereotypes for the UML-GeoFrame model.

In Figure 1, the first three stereotypes to the left,

are used to differentiate the main types of objects

belonging to database of geographic applications:

geographic object []; geographic field [∵] and

non-geographic object [].

The two other stereotype sets are used for

modeling of spatial components of geographic

phenomena. The set located at the center represents

the spatial component of geographic phenomena,

according to the object view, and the set more to the

right represents the geographic phenomena

according to the field view. It is also possible to

generate several representations by combining

stereotypes. The stereotype <<function>>

characterizes a special type of association that

occurs in a categorical function modeling, whereas

the stereotypes Instant [] and Interval [] are used

for temporal aspects modeling.

The UML-GeoFrame method consists of the

following 5 steps. More details on each step can be

found in (Lisboa Filho & Iochpe, 2008).

• Step 1: identify themes and sub-themes for each

application target region;

• Step 2: draw the class diagram for each

identified theme;

• Step 3: model the spatial characteristics of each

geographic phenomenon;

• Step 4: specify the integrity constraints for the

spatial relationships;

• Step 5: model the temporal aspects.

(Lisboa Filho & Iochpe, 2008) also emphasized

that these five steps need not necessarily be followed

in this order, some steps can be carried out

simultaneously, depending on the designer’s

experience. In the next section, we show a modeling

example using the UML-GeoFrame method.

3 DATABASE MODELING FOR

URBAN MOBILE GIS

APPLICATIONS

Aiming at determining which geospatial basic

dataset is necessary for developing Mobile GIS

applications focusing on a specific urban area, the

following applications were modeled:

• School cataloguing system;

• School location system;

• Hospital and health center cadastre system;

• Medical emergency system;

• Traffic sign cadastre system;

• Meter reading system.

The applications were modeled using the UML-

GeoFrame method, with the ArgoCASEGEO

support tool (Lisboa Filho et. al, 2004), an open

source CASE tool built upon ArgoUML (ArgoUML,

2007) that supports modeling geographic application

databases based on the UML-GeoFrame model.

In section 3.1 we introduce a step-by-step

modeling of a Mobile GIS application for Traffic

Accident Reports as an example of the use of the

UML-GeoFrame method. We omitted the other

conceptual modeling steps because of space

constraints, they can be seen in (Monteiro, 2007).

3.1 Mobile GIS Application for Traffic

Accident Reports

This type of application seeks to assist the user in

the recording of data on traffic accidents occurred in

a town. The functionalities that this application

should include are: road network viewing and road

circulation traffic network; recording of the accident

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location in the map; recording of other data related

to the accident; searching accident records per street,

vehicles, and drivers, among others.

The steps of UML-GeoFrame method are as

follows.

Step 1 - Identify the themes and sub-themes for

each geographic area.

The referred geographic area is the municipality

itself. Figure 2 shows the themes and sub-themes of

the application, which include: Circulation Network,

with the sub-themes Road Network and Road

Circulation Network; Urban Spatial Division,

including the theme Municipality; and Traffic

Accidents, with the sub-theme Traffic Accident.

Figure 2: Step 1 - Themes of the application.

Step 2 - Draw the class diagram for each

identified theme and sub-theme and Step 3 - Model

the spatial characteristics of each geographic

phenomenon.

Figure 3 shows the result of steps 2 and 3,

containing the class diagram of the modeled

geographic phenomena. The spatial characteristics

were also modeled according to the stereotypes

present in the UML-GeoFrame approach.

Data on traffic accident, required for the

application, were defined based upon the instruction

manual "Basic Instruction of Traffic Statistics"

(FGV, 2001), together with the document “Basic

Concepts and Definitions”, from the “Detran Traffic

Accident Information System” (DETRAN/DF,

1989). The modeling of the Road Circulation

Network was carried out based on an analysis

pattern described by (Lisboa Filho et al., 2002).

Following, we present a description of each class

of the diagram showed in Figure 3.

The Municipality class has spatial representation

in the form of a polygon [] and is composed by

one or more Administrative Departments.

The Administrative Departments class is

specialized in the classes Districts and

Neighborhoods that have spatial representation in

the form of polygons [].

A thoroughfare is considered a non-geographic

object []. It is composed by several thoroughfare

segments modeled as geographic objects of the type

line [].

The classes Thoroughfare, Thoroughfare

Segment and Intersection represent the road network

of the city.

Road Circulation Network is composed by the

road network and the classes Traffic Flow Section

[] and Conversion Point [].

The Accident class was modeled as a geographic

object of the type point [], allowing a spatial

representation of the accident location. An accident

can take place in both a Thoroughfare Segment and

an Intersection []; this condition is indicated in the

scheme through the restriction XOR (Dietrich &

Urban, 2005).

The scheme also indicates that an accident can

involve several vehicles, and each vehicle is

associated with one single driver. The classes

Vehicle and Driver are modeled as non-geographic

objects [].

The Victim class [] is specialized in six other

subclasses (Driver, Passenger, Pedestrian, Cyclist,

Motorcyclist and Others).

Step 4 - Specify the integrity constraints for the

spatial relationships and Step 5 - model the

temporal aspects.

Only the semantic relationships were modeled,

the spatial relationships (Step 4), that is, the spatial

integrity constraints, are not shown in the diagram.

Regarding the temporal aspects (Step 5), only the

Accident class has temporal characteristics,

indicated by the stereotype Instant [].

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Figure 3: UML-GeoFrame Class Diagram for the Traffic Accidents Report Application.

4 THE URBAN MOBILE GIS

BASIS ANALYSIS PATTERN

The analysis of the conceptual diagrams of the

Mobile GIS application for Traffic Accidents

Report, as well as of the others mentioned in the

previous section, have shown classes of common

objects. By analyzing these classes, relationships

were extracted based on the conceptual schema of

each application, and then these elements were

organized in the form of an analysis pattern.

Next we introduce the analysis pattern named

“Urban Mobile GIS Basis” to be reused in the

development of Mobile GIS applications in the

domain of urban areas. The structure used for the

presentation of the analysis pattern is the one

defined by (Meszaros & Doble, 1998), in which the

pattern specification should contain, at least, the

following items: Problem-Context-Forces-

Participants-Solution.

Pattern Name: Urban Mobile GIS Basis.

Problem

What are the data for developing Mobile GIS

Applications and how they should be structured?

Context

The development of Mobile GIS applications for

urban administration begins with the creation of a

minimum cartographic base regarding the structure

of the municipality in question. This minimum base

can be used by several applications for the most

varied areas of a municipal public administration,

such as: Education, Health, Public Safety,

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Transportation, etc. The necessary basic information

to those applications is the plan of districts, blocks

and plots and the road network of the municipality.

Forces

- The level of granularity of the proposed

analysis pattern depends on the existence of spatial

data for the municipality being modeled. In this

pattern, the highest granularity level is the plot, but it

could be a building in the plot, for example.

- The most common types of administrative

municipal divisions are neighborhoods and districts.

Other subdivisions can be easily included if

necessary.

- The concept of neighborhood can vary quite a

lot among municipalities. Thus, it is possible that a

same block belongs to more than one neighborhood

and that the boundary of a neighborhood can even

cross a plot.

- The set of administrative divisions, blocks and

plots comprise the division of the urban space of a

municipality.

- A thoroughfare segment corresponds to the

street segment comprised between two intersections.

Several segments correspond to a thoroughfare.

- The set formed by the intersections, or terminal

points and thoroughfare segments constitute the

urban road network.

- The packages Road Network and the Urban

Space Division comprise the analysis pattern Urban

Mobile GIS Base.

Solution

Figure 4 shows the diagram of classes belonging

to the Urban Mobile GIS Base pattern.

Participants

The Municipality class is associated with the

Administrative Division class through a "one-to-

many" multiplicity. In this solution, the

Administrative Division class is specialized in the

classes Neighborhood and District, but in some

cases, it can be specialized in other municipal

subdivisions such as: census sectors, police

surveillance zones, etc.

The Administrative Division class relates with

the Blocks class through a many-to-many

cardinality. In this way, it is supposed that a

neighborhood boundary (or any other administrative

division) may cross a block. In municipalities where

this does not happen, the cardinality can be changed

to one-to-many.

The Plot class is associated with the classes

Block and Thoroughfare segment. A group of plots

make up only one block, whereas a plot has its front

access to only one thoroughfare segment.

Several thoroughfare segments are part of a same

thoroughfare, here represented by a non-geographic

phenomenon. Besides, several thoroughfare

segments can be connected by intersections that

represent the knots forming the road network.

Figure 4: Class diagram of the analysis pattern Urban

Mobile GIS Base.

5 USING THE PROPOSED

ANALYSIS PATTERN

In this section we present the use of the Urban

Mobile GIS Base Analysis Pattern in the conceptual

modeling of the Pocket-GIS’s database, which is a

Mobile GIS application for recording Property

Cadastre Bulletins – PCB (Martins et al., 2007).

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Pocket-GIS was developed by Computer Science

Department of Federal University of Viçosa.

The Pocket-GIS system assists users in the data

collection for the Property Cadastre Bulletin, using

spatial data to improve the identification and

location of properties and the urban allotment within

the system.

Pocket-GIS’s development was done in two

steps. In the first, requirements and use-case

identifications was accomplished. In the second step,

the Pocket-GIS was codified.

Figure 5 shows the UML use case diagram.

Figure 5: Pocket-GIS Use cases.

The systems’ actor is an employee responsible

for obtaining the PCB’s data in field. The use cases

identified were:

• Register / Update PCB data

• Communicate to server

• Visualize descriptive and spatial data

• Select data through its geographic view

The “Register / Update PCB data” use case allows

user to accomplish inclusions and updates to the

PCB data onsite. The data are temporarily stored on

a PDA (Digital Personal Assistant) for later server

update.

Server communication allows actor to download

data to the client PDA, and it allows uploading data

to the server. While downloading data to the PDA,

the user can select which data he wishes, in other

words, he can select which spatial data themes and

descriptive data he wants.

The “Visualize descriptive and spatial data” use

case allows user to visualize geo-spatial data (Rio

Branco-AC City maps) and non-geographic data.

The descriptive data visualization was made from an

interaction with other system, called Cupuaçu.

Cupuaçu is the first system made through a

partnership between the Computer Science

department of Federal University of Viçosa and City

Hall of Rio Branco-AC. This system aims to help

the collection of the PCB descriptive data process

using mobile devices as PDAs.

This use case is closely related to “Select data

through its geographic view” use case, which allows

selecting objects through its spatial representation.

The data conceptual modeling was done by

reusing the proposed analysis pattern. Figure 6

illustrates the resulting data conceptual schema.

Next, each class is briefly described.

Figure 6: Conceptual scheme of Pocket-GIS.

- The Municipality class has spatial

representation in the form of a polygon and consists

of one or more Administrative Divisions, which are

specialized in Neighborhood and District classes,

both represented in the form of polygons.

- Each Administrative Division is related with

the several Blocks, as well as a same Block can be

related with several Administrative Divisions.

- Each Block is formed by several Block Faces.

These block faces are the lines that form the

polygon.

- One or more Plots form a Block.

- Thoroughfare is modeled as a non-geographic

object, since only the thoroughfare name is

important for the application.

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- Each Plot, in its turn, is specialized in Occupied

Plot or Vacant Plot.

- An Occupied Plot can have one or more

Buildings, which are represented by polygons. A

Building, in its turn, is in a single Occupied Plot.

- A Building has a one-to-many relationship with

the class Built Unit, which has no spatial

representation.

- The classes Built Unit and Vacant Plot are

generalized for the class Property, which represents

the entity without geographic representation that will

store the data related to PCB.

- Last of all, a Proprietor (owner) who does not

have geographic representation may have one or

several Properties.

The spatial relationships corresponding to Step-

Four of the UML-GeoFrame method were not

modeled. Only the semantic relationships were

considered for modeling this system. As for

temporality (step 5), Pocket-GIS has no temporal

characteristic.

Pocket-GIS was developed to operate in PDAs

that run the Microsoft Windows CE 4.x operational

system or above. The mobile device used was a

PDA, Jornada HP 220 Pocket PC, 64 MB memory,

400 MHz processor.

The system was developed in C# language. The

library used for spatial data visualization was the

Map Suite Pocket PC® (Evaluation Edition). The

database used in the server was the SQL Server

2000, with SQL Server CE in the client side. All the

communication between the client and the server

was carried out via Web Services.

Figure 7 shows (a) the main system interface, (b)

the feature selection screen and (c) the Property

layer.

The interface screen basically contains: a map

display area; tabbed browsing, which allows the

visualization of some properties and functionalities

of the system; and a toolbar for handling maps.

The Pocket-GIS main functions are:

- Map display in the shapefile format;

- Map browsing: to zoom in and out of the map,

move the map and view browsing history;

- Choice of zoom level, allowing more zoom in

and out of the map, for greater or less map

detailing;

- Management of active layers;

- Display of descriptive data associated with the

shapefile.

Figure 7: (a) Pocket-GIS Main Interface, (b) Process of

neighborhood selection (c) Properties layer.

Finally, some of these functionalities were

implemented to attempt to minimize the limitations

existing in mobile devices. The possibility of

managing layers that will be viewed avoids the

unnecessary computation in the layer drawing

process in the PDA screen. The zoom level choice

provides fast viewing of searched information to the

user.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Mobile GIS applications focused on urban

administration have a great potential for reusing

solutions. The proposed analysis pattern can be used

in assisting in the development of many applications

for the most varied areas that form a municipal

public administration.

The development of the Pocket-GIS system

made it possible to test the use of the analysis

pattern, partly or fully. The use of the analysis

pattern reduces the time for the data conceptual

modeling, assisting designers by indicating a

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possible solution in the identification of the kinds of

data necessary to the application.

Other applications using the pattern should be

developed to allow pattern refinement and

enhancement, thus making it possible to test its

usefulness in actual applications.

The definition of an analysis pattern for non-

urban areas of a municipality is also suggested for

further research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project was partially supported by the Minas

Gerais State Foundation for Research Support

(FAPEMIG), the National Council for Scientific and

Technological Development (CNPq) and the

Coordination for Improvement of Personnel of

Superior Level (CAPES).

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