Point to Discover - Research Issues

The research contributions of the Point to Discover project are the integration and evaluation of location- and orientation-sensor components on mobile devices and the development of robust visibility detection mechanisms in two- and three-dimensional environment models, as well as the investigation of user interaction concepts and application scenarios:

The p2d prototype sensor module consists of a digital magnetic compass and accelerometer-based tilt sensors for orientation detection, as well as a GPS receiver.The module connects to the phone over a Bluetooth interface.

The p2d server platform hosts the environment block model (the image to the left shows a visualization of the p2d test model in Google Earth) and implements the spatial selection algorithms needed to select points of interest based on the GPS and sensor data.

A major goal of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of Point to Discover under technical constraints such as sensor accuracy limitations and network latency. The p2d Server Platform work package also investigates mechanisms to implement the environment model based on off-the-shelf, open-source spatial databases or Geographic Information System (GIS) components.

A p2d showcase application is being developed to demonstrate and the Point to Discover idea in a concrete application scenario. Additionally, several design studies for innovative user interfaces to geospatial data will be developed and tested in a series of user tests.