This study examined whether the current generation of consumer-grade digital mobile computing technology, so called smartphone technology, is usable to perform and improve field data collection in the context of sustainable forest management. An electronic data acquisition system, based on a handheld smartphone device and desktop geographic information system (GIS), was developed. A proprietary timber cruise application and commercial mapping software were used with the smartphone/desktop GIS to record and process forest stand and geospatial data. Usability testing was carried out to measure workflow efficiency and system performance of the smartphone GIS compared to traditional paper-based methods. The smartphone GIS successfully met performance objectives and significantly increased workflow efficiencies by improving data transfer and processing times over conventional paper methods; however, use of the mobile device resulted in greater data entry errors, increased data collection times, and led to more equipment malfunctions than use of paper recording methods together with a GPS and digital camera. Overall, the prototype electronic data acquisition system was not reliable as a stand-alone solution solely responsible for collecting cruise data, but was found to be well suited for ad-hoc mapping of forest features.

This study examined whether the current generation of consumer-grade digital mobile computing technology, so called smartphone technology, is usable to perform and improve field data collection in the context of sustainable forest management. An electronic data acquisition system, based on a handheld smartphone device and desktop geographic information system (GIS), was developed. A proprietary timber cruise application and commercial mapping software were used with the smartphone/desktop GIS to record and process forest stand and geospatial data. Usability testing was carried out to measure workflow efficiency and system performance of the smartphone GIS compared to traditional paper-based methods. The smartphone GIS successfully met performance objectives and significantly increased workflow efficiencies by improving data transfer and processing times over conventional paper methods; however, use of the mobile device resulted in greater data entry errors, increased data collection times, and led to more equipment malfunctions than use of paper recording methods together with a GPS and digital camera. Overall, the prototype electronic data acquisition system was not reliable as a stand-alone solution solely responsible for collecting cruise data, but was found to be well suited for ad-hoc mapping of forest features.

This study examined whether the current generation of consumer-grade digital mobile computing technology, so called smartphone technology, is usable to perform and improve field data collection in the context of sustainable forest management. An electronic data acquisition system, based on a handheld smartphone device and desktop geographic information system (GIS), was developed. A proprietary timber cruise application and commercial mapping software were used with the smartphone/desktop GIS to record and process forest stand and geospatial data. Usability testing was carried out to measure workflow efficiency and system performance of the smartphone GIS compared to traditional paper-based methods. The smartphone GIS successfully met performance objectives and significantly increased workflow efficiencies by improving data transfer and processing times over conventional paper methods; however, use of the mobile device resulted in greater data entry errors, increased data collection times, and led to more equipment malfunctions than use of paper recording methods together with a GPS and digital camera. Overall, the prototype electronic data acquisition system was not reliable as a stand-alone solution solely responsible for collecting cruise data, but was found to be well suited for ad-hoc mapping of forest features.

The emerging techniques of mobile GIS applications, its abilities and its implied limitations ofinternet connections is the main subject in this study. Many of the operations that mobile devicesuse are dependent on mobile internet connectivity. Therefore the potential for it in well connectedareas is great but how would they function in less connected areas? Mobile GIS, which is todaymostly used in devices as smart phones and tablets, has internet connectivity for uploading anddownloading files and other data. Mobile GIS is also dependent on location-based services thatenable the device to get information or take action from the current location of the device. Thisresearch examines the potential usage of mobile GIS in conjunction with the bandwidth of wirelesstechnologies. It is important to study this issue to see if mobile applications can perform upload anddownload tasks within reasonable time in poor mobile coverage. To test the possibilities of mobileGIS in rural areas a test environment is set up in a mobile GIS application for septic tanks. Thetesting is performed by uploading and downloading data with real GIS actions from pre-selectedlocations that have low mobile coverage. The study is comparing the measurements with a scale ofacceptable time for download and upload. The result for registering (uploading) a new point inmobile GIS with three small images is that it requires at least 330 Kbit/s connection to transfer thedata within acceptable time. The results for uploading data without images and downloading giveseven better results and are not as dependent on a good connection for transferring within acceptabletime. The conclusion is that mobile gis applications are able to run within acceptable time measuresin rural areas. The results and other sources were used to make general guidelines for mobile GISapplications for use in rural areas.

"Mapping is a way of visualizing parts of the world and maps are largely diagrammatic and two dimensional. There is usually a one-to-one correspondence between places in the world and places on the map, but while there are limitless aspects to the world, the cartographer can only select a few to map" Daniel Dorling, 1996 Map generalization is the process by which small scale maps are derived from large scale maps. This requires the application of operations such as simplification, selection, displacement and amalgamation to map features subsequent to scale reduction. The work is concerned with the problem of effective rendering of large scale datasets on small display devices by developing appropriate map generalization techniques for generating schematic maps. With the advent of high-end miniature technology and large scale digital geographic data products it is essential to devise proper methodologies and techniques for the automated generation of schematic maps specifically tailored for mobile GIS applications. Schematic maps are diagrammatic representation based on linear abstractions of networks. Transportation networks are the key candidates for applying schematization to help ease the interpretation of information by the process of cartographic abstraction. This study looks at how simulated annealing optimisation technique can be successfully applied for automated generation of schematic maps from large scale digital geographic datasets tailored specifically for mobile GIS applications. The software developed makes use of a simulated annealing based schematic map generator algorithm to generate route maps from OSCAR® dataset corresponding to a series of user defined start and end points. The generated schematic route maps are displayed and tested on mobile handheld devices shows promising results for mobile GIS applications. This work concentrates on the automatic generation of schematic maps, which, in the context of mobile mapping, are seen as being a particularly useful means of displaying routes for way finding type and utility network applications.

The aim of this study is to develop a search tool for roads for mobile GIS application. The satellite image of Ankara is the base map of program. There is also a search option for the roads. The application is based on open source libraries, which are ECW for imagery and SQLite for the database of vector. The application is coded in Embedded Visual C++. The study shows that mobile GIS applications can be prepared by the help of open source libraries. There is no need to buy a commercial product to mobilize the GIS.

Civic issues in a society can be reported through a crowdsourcing web application. People can download the application on their smartphones and report the issues such as a pothole or broken streetlight. The report is submitted by taking a photo of the issue and additional information is entered. At first, the reports are submitted to a call center and after analyzing they will be transferred to organizations responsible for this type of events. In such a crowdsourcing project it is very vital to motivate people to participate in the project. The reports are supplied by users and without an acceptable number of users the application would be useless. In addition, having the exact location of a report is very helpful to facilitate the process of solving civic issues. Positioning with smartphones is not very accurate as they do not have strong and accurate GPSs. Therefore, there is a need to improve the accuracy of the positioning process and consequently accuracy of the spatial data. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how to employ GIS to help reporting civic issues and how to design an interesting client interface for such an application, in order to motivate user to download and use it. The goal is also to find out shortcomings and weaknesses of the positioning with smartphones and find a way to improve its accuracy.Some of successful similar applications’ structures and their interfaces were reviewed. In addition, a survey among existing users of crowdsourcing applications has been done in order to find out how to design the application to be interesting for users. Furthermore, some techniques and methods were chosen in order to improve the GPS accuracy especially in the places with a low GPS signal strength. These methods exploit WLAN and some of embedded features in a smartphone such as microphone, camera, accelerometer, gyroscope to improve the positioning accuracy. In the end, along reporting civic issues the user is able to report and get information about cheap and appropriate necessities and public events in different geographical areas through a map-based application. Furthermore, he or she is benefited by some location-based services such as online-food or taxi. The client application’s interface was designed for iPhone.This GIS-based mobile application would be an appropriate alternative for the old reporting methods like phone call or mail. Nevertheless, reporting civic issues itself, cannot be necessarily a strong motivation to attract the user to download and use the application. Therefore, desired feedbacks of the crowd need to be found out in order to encourage them to spend their time for the application. User needs to get motivated to use the application and considered additional parts can be very helpful to reach this aim.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a technology that can help collect, edit, store, manage, transform, analyze and represent data. This research aimed to show how mobile GIS application can  be designed, developed and applied to electric field work. An Android mobile application, which had been integrated with GIS was developed in Java. The prototype was tested and evaluated by employees of China Southern Power Grid (CSG). The resulting mobile application had three important features and functionalities: map view, location and electrical object querying, and attribute viewing and editing. According to the results of the user testing, the advantages of the application were its improved performance as brought about by the different scales used in the maps, its clear layout, and the speed of completing the query tasks. The disadvantages, on the other hand, were restrictions in the data types used and the query window. The study showed that with wireless communication, GPS and Location-based (LBS) supplements, electric utilities can benefit from this mobile GIS application in the following aspects: 1) eliminate the obstacles of going out in the field; 2) increase the flexibility of field work by faster access to data; 3) increase the accuracy and efficiency of field workers by dealing with the querying and editing task, and field mapping on a portable devices in real time. According to these aspects, electric field work can easily be enhanced by saving time, resources, and costs.

Trees, plants, water,playgrounds, green areas and benches are just a few out of many components thatforms a pleasant outdoor environment. Not only are management and maintenancenecessary to keep the environment clean and nice for everybodys well-being, butalso documentation and records of geographic data representing the outdoorenvironment. Management and maintenance requires plans and cost calculationwhere the geographic data is used as a basis. The data needs to therefor bereliably and continuously controlled and updated, especially due to thecomponents of an outdoor environment constant change and move. An effective wayto store, visualize and manage data related to geographic locations is to useGeographic Information System (GIS) solutions.This thesis is applying a user-centered design approach to derive a prototypethat encourages use of web and mobile GIS solutions in the field duringcontrols and maintenance and thereby resulting in more efficient data updateprocedures and maintenance operations. A case study is performed involving thetwo housing companies Svenska Bostäder and Stockholmshem where management andmaintenance of geographic data representing the outdoor housing environment isinvolved in their work and is today managed by primitive methods. Theuser-centered design approach Focus Rapid Contextual Design is applied toderive user requirements in terms of functionality and user interface forfurther use to develop and integrate a prototype within the housing companiesexisting GIS solutions. The overall objective is to investigate, document andevaluate how an user-centered design approach can be applied to introduce webGIS solutions that will improve the workflow between office and field, this byreducing the number of steps performed during a field control by replacingprimitive tools such as paper and PDF maps used today with the suggested GISsolutions. The potential long term impact of this study is to encourage thelayman users that are working in field to use these new solutions instead ofprimitive methods, this by adapting functionalities and user interface in theweb and mobile GIS solutions according to the layman users needs and levels byapplying the user-centered design approach.The Focus Rapid Contextual Design method shows to be successful in terms ofgathering and managing user data in a structured way. Due to tight timeschedule and project resource limitations, an iterative prototype process whereuser feedback is used to redesign the prototype for further improvement was notperformed. Only one prototype evaluation was performed and did not take placein context of use. This lead to weak user feedback meaning that the prototypemost likely could have been further adapted to the users needs if an iterativeprocess that took place in context of use was performed. It would most likelyfacilitate the faster adaptation for the web GIS solutions in the housingcompanies daily work. Encouraging layman users to change from manual to digitalsystems is seen as one if the major challenges during this thesis. Even thougha user centered design approach contributes to reach the potential long termimpact of this study which is to encourage layman user to use the suggestedsolutions, most likely organizational changes and policies are needed toaccomplish process changes and make field workers change their working manners.A small case study like the one performed in this thesis could possibly havebeen performed excluding the Working Models and Storyboarding in the Focus RapidContextual Design method without affecting the final result, this to gain moretime for the iterative prototype process as well as time for involving moreusers. Doing so could improve the work in this study to better reach the statedgoals. / Träd, växter,vattenområden, lekplatser, grönområden och bänkar är bara ett fåtal av mångaandra komponenter som formar en utomhusmiljö. Inte är bara skötsel ochunderhåll nödvändigt för att hålla utomhusmiljön ren och trevlig för allasvälbefinnande, utan även dokumentation och protokoll över den geografiska datasom representerar utomhusmiljön. Skötsel och underhåll kräver planering ochkostnadsberäkningar där geografiska data står till grund. Data måste därförvara pålitlig, kontinuerligt kontrollerad och uppdaterad, speciellt i avseendetill att komponenterna i utomhusmiljöer är i en konstant förändring ochrörelse. Ett effektivt sätt att lagra geografiska data på är att använda sigGeografiska Informationssystems (GIS). I denna studie appliceras en användarcentrerad designmetod för att erhålla enprototyp som uppmuntrar användning av webb- och mobil-GIS ute i fält i sambandmed kontroller och skötsel och därmed resulterar i mer effektivadatauppdateringsprocedurer och skötseloperationer. En fallstudie är utförd ochinvolverar bostadsförvaltningarna Svenska Bostäder och Stockholmshem därskötsel och underhåll av geografiska data som representerarbostadsförvaltningarnas utomhusmiljö ingår i deras arbete och sköts idag medhjälp utav primitiva metoder. Den användarcentrerad designmetoden Focus RapidContextual Design används för att erhålla användarbehov gällande funktionalitetoch användargränssnitt för att vidare kunna utveckla och integrera en prototypi bostadsförvaltningarnas redan existerande GIS-lösningar. Det övergripandemålet är att undersöka, dokumentera och utvärdera hur en användarcentreraddesignmetod kan appliceras för att introducera web-GIS lösningar för attförbättra arbetsflödet mellan kontor och fält, detta genom att reducera antalsteg som utförs under en fältkontroll genom att ersätta primitiva verktyg såsom pappers- och PDF-kartor som används idag med förslagna GIS lösningar. Denpotentiellt långsikta effekt av denna studie är att uppmuntra oerfarnaanvändare som arbetar ute i fält att använda dessa nya lösningar istället förde primitiva lösningar som används idag, detta genom att anpassafunktionaliteter och användargränssnitt efter användarnas behov och nivå genomatt tillämpa den användarcentrereade designmetoden. Focus Rapid Contextual Design metoden visar sig vara effektiv i samband medinsamling och hantering av användardata och utförs på ett strukturerat vis. Pågrund av ett tight tidsschema och en resursbegränsning under denna studie ärden iterativa prototypprocess som föreslås i metoden inte applicerad.Prototypen utvärderades enbart en gång av användarna och utfördes inte ute ifält. Detta ledde till bristfällig användarfeedback vilket innebär att denslutliga prototypen möjligen skulle kunnat anpassats ytterligare efteranvändarnas behov om man hade utfört den iterativa prototypprocessen. Dettaskulle troligtvis också bidra till en snabbare anpassning av webb-GISlösningarna i deras dagliga arbete. Att uppmuntra oerfarna användare att bytafrån ett manuellt till ett digitalt system ansågs som en av de störreutmaningarna under denna studie. Även om den användarcentrerade designmetodenbidrar till att uppmuntra användare att använda de nya lösningarna, behövstroligtvis organisationsförändringar och policys för att uppnåprocessförändringar och få fältarbetare att ändra sina arbetsvanor. En så passliten studie som utförs här skulle möjligen kunna utföras utan processernaWorking Models och Storyboarding i Focus Rapid Contextual Design metoden utanatt påverka det slutliga resultatet avsevärt. Detta skulle bidra till mer tidför att tillämpa den iterativa prototypprocessen och involvera fler användarevilket troligtvis skulle förbättra arbetet i denna studie för att bättre kunnauppnå de satta målen.