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[1]Most current map applications for smartphones and other devices providing location-based services (LBS) are based on two-dimensional maps. Three-dimensional (3D) city models are widely used in applications such as engineering design, environmental modeling, and urban planning. Adapting such models for use in smartphones would make it possible to render 3D scenes in real time, enriching contents and user experience for personal navigation and LBS. A delimited yet large-scale event such as the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai provides a promising area for system development and testing.

3D visualization consumes a large amount of computing power, and most of the current successful applications run in a PC environment, as does the Google Earth 3D application. It is still a very challenging task to implement 3D visualization in an embedded system such as a smartphone.

This article presents an entire 3D personal navigation system based on the Nokia S60 smartphone platform. The study covers the following aspects: 3D personal navigation and LBS service in a smartphone, 3D city modeling and multi-sensor positioning.

The objectives of the work include prototyping an entire handset-based 3D personal navigation and LBS system utilizing WLAN/Bluetooth positioning technologies, handset built-in GPS/AGPS, and 3D modeling and visualization (basic demonstration scenario), as well as presenting a multi-sensor positioning (MSP) platform in addition to the handset software (advanced demonstration scenario).

All in the software

No additional hardware is added to the Nokia Series 60 (S60) smartphone platform to achieve the 3D visualizations or other functions in the software. Figure 1 shows the general architecture of the software.

Most of the challenging tasks are included in the development of the elements in the component layer, especially in the development of the 3D visualization engine based on the OpenGL ES API that is available from the S60 platform SDK. The high-level 3D visualization engine architecture covers the interface layer, the core engine layer, and the data management layer. The first one is responsible for cross-component functional communication, request handling, and data exchange. It provides users with the 3D scene visualization functionalities to access the core engine layer via a single class called NaviSceneControl, which includes all the operations of the 3D visualization: scene zooming, view angle rotating, scene and cursor moving, and selecting route planning and virtual navigation.

The core engine layer takes care of the 3D scene visualization computation and model object management. To enable the 3D visualization for a large region, the objects in the scene are classified into two categories in this layer. One is the 3D models like buildings, trees and poles, while the other is texture of land surface, which consist of ortho-rectified digital aerial photos. All the objects are processed as tiles according to the incoming parameters from the interface layer. Therefore only a small subset is loaded dynamically instead of the whole data.

[2]The data management layer accesses the 3D models and ground-texture images persistent on the flash disk of the mobile phone through an independent thread. To reduce the data size of the 3D models, the original .3ds file created from 3D Max Studio software is compressed.

The locator component aggregates the positioning information either from the built-in positioning sensors in the smartphone, a GPS receiver, and a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth chip, or any external positioning device, such as also the multi-sensor positioning (MSP) device developed in this project. It forwards the positioning information including the location and heading information to the route plan component and the 3D visualization engine to accomplish the navigation functions.

Figure 2 shows the overview of the mechanism for delivering the location-based services. The services are classified into two categories: the static services and the dynamic services. The static services include those services that are not changing in time. For example, POIs (points of interest) belong to this category of service. The static services are stored in a database that can be downloaded from the Internet by the users in advance. The users can store the database in the memory card of the phone before running the 3D personal navigation and LBS software. With this approach, it saves the data transmission fee for the end-users when accessing the LBS. The dynamic services cover those services that change in time. For example, a piece of real-time news is one of the typical dynamic LBS. For accessing the dynamic LBS, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology is adapted in our implementation.

The LBS client component is implemented so that the handset will pull automatically the news in the background in real time via a widget reader embedded in the LBS client component. Whenever new information is uploaded to the LBS server or to the registered web pages, mobile users will be notified.

In addition to RSS technology, another approach to broadcast LBS information is considered in the system: to disseminate the LBS information via an SBAS (satellite-based augmentation system) pseudolite. The dynamic LBS information (e.g., a short message) can be first encoded into a user-defined SBAS message. The message encoded is then sent to a pseudolite from which the message is broadcast. The corresponding SBAS message can, in fact, be received by any SBAS-enabled receiver located within radio coverage area of the pseudolite.

However, the encoded LBS message can be decoded only with the receiver that has a special firmware, developed in this case by the Finnish Geodetic Institute (FGI). Having received and decoded the LBS messages transmitted from the pseudolite with a dedicated receiver, for example the MSP device part of the more advanced demonstration scenario of the project, the content of the message is then encoded to a user-defined NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) message and transmitted to a mobile phone in the vicinity via a Bluetooth connection as shown in Figure 2. This solution of LBS data distribution is available only to a very limited number of users with receivers carting a special firmware developed by FGI.

3D city modeling

Due to the memory limitations of a mobile phone, there are certain requirements for the 3D models applied. In our study, a test scene for model reconstruction is focused on a street in Espoo, Finland, in an ordinary residential area. A vehicle-borne mobile mapping system called ROAMER, developed by FGI, performed the data acquisition. It consists of a carrying platform, a positioning and navigation system, and a 3D laser scanner system. With the ROAMER system, visible objects can be measured with an accuracy of a few decimeters with a maximum vehicle speed of 50-60 km/hour, and the data for the desired objects can be collected within the range of several tens of meters.

A large amount of data is produced from the system, and noise and outlier points are needed to be removed. Valid data is classified into different point groups using an automatic algorithm developed by FGI. These point groups include buildings, trees, roads, and poles. Models are then reconstructed based on these classified point groups.

Modeling methods are developed to meet the application requirements of personal navigation: small model size, high accuracy, and good visual appearance. Small model size is achieved by simplified object geometry and reduced texture resolution. Model accuracy is controlled by extracting building outlines from a classified point cloud and overlapping with the final 3D model. The model completeness is checked by comparing the resulting model with original images. Good visual effect is realized by applying photo-realistic texture. Photo-realistic texture provides rich information for the 3D scene reconstructed. Only the individual object texture and the final model constructions require manual editing.

To import the final 3D models to a mobile phone, the size of an individual model is restricted to less than 100 kb. To optimize model size, a row of buildings is divided into several building blocks.
 
Multi-sensor positioning

As long as open-sky satellite-signal conditions are available, there are no problems to locate a mobile user with the built-in GPS receiver of a smartphone with a positioning accuracy of a few meters. However, most popular location-based services occur in GNSS-degraded environments such as in indoor environments and urban canyons. Locating a mobile user seamlessly any time anywhere under any circumstance is still a very challenging task, especially to implement such an indoor/outdoor positioning solution in a DSP platform.

FGI is now developing a DSP-based multi-sensor positioning platform to approach a seamless indoor/outdoor locating solution. The platform consists of a GPS module, a 3D accelerometer, and a 2D digital compass. A DSP is embedded in the GPS module. All sensors are integrated to the DSP that hosts a core software for real-time sensor data acquisition and real-time processing to estimate user's location.

The multi-sensor platform provides opportunities to investigate the positioning solutions with a GPS/Reduced-INS (Inertial Navigation System) combination or GPS/PDR (Pedestrian Dead Reckoning) combination. The Reduced-INS combination is defined as a combination of a 3D accelerometer and a 2D digital compass, and is a very low-cost approach of sensor augmentation. The GPS/Reduced-INS implementation is implemented in a loosely coupled Kalman filter, while the GPS/PDR algorithm is based on pedestrian-targeted dead reckoning, with heading error and step length estimation methodology.

Try it in Shanghai

The prototype system has so far met these challenges: the high performance required of real-time 3D visualization in a smartphone; high positioning availability with acceptable accuracy in indoor and outdoor environments; and the demanding requirements of the 3D models for a small phone, including small model size, high accuracy, and good visual appearance.

Meanwhile, the prototype is being tested and demonstrated at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, implemented with a smartphone software package: anyone with a Nokia phone (S60 with built-in GPS and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth) can experience the 3D personal navigation and LBS service in the Expo area by downloading and installing the 3D models.

Chen Ruizhi is a professor and head of the Department of Navigation and Positioning at the Finnish Geodetic Institute.

Zhang Jixian is a professor and president of the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping.

Jarmo Takala is a professor and head of the Department of Computer Systems at Tampere University of Technology in Finland.

Wang Jianyu is a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

This article originally appeared in GPS World