a set of tools for map use in a digital environment barbara hofer institute for geoinformation...

A Set of Tools for Map Use in a Digital Environment

Barbara HoferInstitute for Geoinformation

hofer@geoinfo.tuwien.ac.at

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 2

Research Question

Motivation: GEORAMA project

„A set of tools for map use exists, which covers the main operations people want to perform with maps and provides an implicit user support.“

How to determine and specify the set of tools?

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 3

Outline

Methodology• Determination of Tools• Modeling of Operations• Demonstrator Creation

Next Steps Research Impact

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 4

Methodology

1. Determination of the set of tools:• Analysis of operations performed with

analogue maps- Basic set of operations defined

2. Demonstrator creation:• Formal specification

- Specified tools Implementation

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 5

Determination of Tools

Map operations performed with analogue maps (Campbell, 1993):• Measurements from maps

- Distance measurement, area determination

• Navigation and Route selection• Terrain interpretation

- Height interpolation, profiling, slope determination

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Modeling of Operations

Map scale

Short distance mark starting and ending point

Error sources: 1)measurement error2) smoothing3) slope

Map accuracy result

calculation of distance

Distance Measurement:

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Determination of Tools (2)

Navigation Process:

Landmark recognition

Map orientation

Position determination

Route selection

Translation

Direction

Distance, Profile

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Demonstrator Creation

modeling specification demonstrator

Modeling:• Based on map operations

Specification:• formal specification technique

Demonstrator:• Implementation of specification • Qualitative, quantitative methods

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 9

Formal Specification

“Formal specification is the expression, in some formal language and at some level of abstraction, of a collection of properties some system should satisfy“ (van Lamsweerde, 2000).

Here: • System: model of map use tools• Abstraction level: specification of tools• Properties: functional requirements • Formal language: algebraic specification

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Formal Specification (2)

Algebraic Specification:• Tool for software engineering• Independent from implementation• Components:

- Types- Operations- Axioms

Haskell

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Next Steps

Refinement of the map use operations• Low level, high level tasks

Specification with Haskell Implementation

• Selection of programming language

January 2004 Barbara Hofer 12

Research Impact

Specification:• Independent of technology• Basis for implementation(s)

Software engineering applied:• Motivation • Guidelines for future extensions