434 2009 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Informatics 5-7 August 2009, Selangor, Malaysia 978-1-4244-4913-2/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE NW-06 A Generic Framework for Developing Map-Based Mobile Application Haslinda Harun 1 , Norleyza Jailani 2 , Marini Abu Bakar 3 , Mohamad Shanudin Zakaria 4 , Salha Abdullah 5 Dept. of Computer Science, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi Selangor, Malaysia 1 emalinda83@yahoo.com 2 norly@ftsm.ukm.my 3 marini@ftsm.ukm.my 4 msz@ftsm.ukm.my 5 sa@ftsm.ukm.my Abstract—The development of Location Based Services (LBS) applications specifically on mobile devices requires research into various fields of studies which include cartography, map visualization techniques, mobile graphic engine and wireless network support. Mobile devices however pose limitations such as small screen size, low resolution, limited memory and processing power for map display and navigation. In this study, a generic framework which serves as a guide for developing map- based mobile applications has been proposed. It takes into consideration the constraints of mobile devices and discusses methods to overcome the problems which include visualization techniques, Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) and TinyLine SVG, mobile cartography concepts. A prototype application for finding point of interest in a university campus was developed using the framework as a guide. This application is intended for use on mobile devices equipped with Java and Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) supports. Generalisation technique has been adapted in map display to avoid cluttering, while the concept of mobile cartography such as colour, symbol, and context was applied in map generation. This study explores the potential of SVG and TinyLine SVG for image display in mobile devices. The application prototype was developed using Java 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) package, TinyLine SVG software development kit, Servlet technology and MySQL database management system. Keywords— Mobile Framework, Location Based Services (LBS), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Visualization techniques. I. INTRODUCTION Rapid development of wireless communication and mobile technology has transformed the way people use mobile facilities such as mobile phones and PDAs. Users expects to find services using their mobile devices. Location Based Services is one of the most popular service that provide the information for the current location of the user, other people or a object an mobile devices [3]. Location-based services answer three questions: Where am I? What's around me? How do I get there? They determine the location of the user by using one of several technologies for determining position, then use the location and other information to provide personalized applications and services [4]. A location based service (LBS) can be described as an application that is dependent on a certain location. Two broad categories of LBS can be defined as triggered and user-requested [5]. In a user-requested scenario, the user is retrieving the position once and uses it on subsequent request for location- dependent information. This type of service usually involves either personal location (i.e. finding where you are) or service location (i.e. where is the nearest hotel). Example of this type of LBS is navigation, usually involving a map and direction such as routing information. Navigation application will detect the user’s current location and give navigation in visualization form, text or audio to help the user headed for a destination chosen. For the tracking application, it will detect the current position of a moving object or vehicle and display the position in the map [7]. Map navigation on handheld devices helps mobile users to explore and find places of interest from their current position. However maps displayed on handheld devices suffer from small screen size and low resolution. As a result, it is often difficult to identify locations and landmarks on these maps. Hence, when developing mobile application for LBS services involving map display, these issues needs to be addressed. Often, these call for investigation into diverse fields of studies. II. BACKGROUND AND REVIEWS The development of Location Based Services (LBS) applications specifically on mobile devices requires research into various fields of studies which include cartography, map visualization techniques, mobile graphic engine and software kit, and communication and wireless network support. Several frameworks for developing mobile application have been proposed. For example, Reichenbacher [14] suggests a fundamental framework for mobile cartography which combines task, context, information, user, technology and visualisation as its basic components. Information plays an important role in the framework and it may consists of maps, images, geographical characteristics or other sources of data which may not be related to geographical information. On the other hand, [20] proposed a framework to keep mobile application updated with changes in maps which are stored in a distributed database server. The framework is equipped with updating mechanism consisting of an update manager on the Authorized licensed use limited to: University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Downloaded on December 22, 2009 at 02:25 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.