Location aware mobile-device software development

• US 20060116817A1
• Filed: 11/26/2004
• Published: 06/01/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mantek, Frank, Salmre, Ivo W.
• Granted Patent: US 7,627,425 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/211
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/35 model driven
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A development environment makes it easier to develop and use location aware software applications. Combining the currently separate and complex tasks of location information gathering, analysis, and display and making them integrated such that non-experts can build location services into their applications increases a developer'"'"'s capability to write rich location-aware software applications. A higher level programming model allows a programmer to use location information as a logical entity rather than just raw location data, such as latitude and longitude. A location data store and map data store may be accessed by different location aware applications on the device. Instead of each location application relying on its own data store, applications may share their location related information.

Claims

1. A system for location aware applications, comprising:

a data store that includes map information and location information, wherein the map information and location information may be shared by different location aware applications on a device;

a location manager configured to receive location information from at least one location source that includes a location of an item, and in response to the location of the item relative to an area of interest, generate a location event;

a map manager that is coupled to the data store and that is configured to abstract map information and manage map operations including displaying maps, wherein the map manager may utilize more than one map rendering engine; and

a location aware application that is coupled to the location manager and the map manager and that is configured to execute event driven code in response to the location event, and also configured to interact with the abstracted map information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the data store comprises a location store and a map store, wherein the location store includes information about maps and the location store includes information about areas of interest.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one location source comprises at least one of a proximate location source and a distant location source.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the at least one location source is selected from a group comprising:

a GPS receiver, a user input;

a phone system;

an RFID tag and location data pushed to or pulled by a device on a network.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the location manager is further configured to manage location information for 1 to N items.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein generating the location event comprises generating a location event in response to at least one of the following events:

a determination that the location of the item has entered the area of interest, a determination that the location of the item has exited the area of interest, and a determination of the movement of a location source inside an area of interest.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the location aware application is further configured to provide the map manager with a suggested map resolution.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the map manager is further configured to receive a user input and convert the user input into a location on a map.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the location aware application is further configured to supply the map manager with at least one object to display on a map.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the map manager supplies a set of maps to the location aware application, and wherein the location aware application determines the map to display from the supplied set of maps based on weighted criteria.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the data store is further configured to be dynamically provisioned.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the map information includes a description of each map using an XML representation.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the description comprises a map projection;

a resolution;

an indication of the map rendering engine used to display the map and an area the map includes.

14. A computer implemented method for location aware applications, comprising:

determining when an item enters, exits and moves inside an area of interest;

generating a location event in response to the determination;

executing event driven code supplied by a location aware application in response to the event;

selecting a map from a map store, wherein the map may be shared by other location aware applications; and

displaying the map using a map rendering engine, wherein the map rendering engine is selected from at least two map rendering engines.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising defining areas of interest, wherein the area of interest is a predefined area on a map.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining when the item enters and exits an area of interest comprises obtaining location information from at least one location source and determining whether the item is within the area of interest.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein generating the location event comprises generating a location event in response to at least one of the following events:

a determination that the location of the item has entered the area of interest, a determination that the location of the item has exited the area of interest and a determination that the location of the item as moved a specified distance inside an area of interest.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising supplying at least one object to the map rendering engine to overlay on the map.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising dynamically provisioning the map store.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the map includes a description of the map using an XML representation.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the description comprises a map projection;

a resolution;

an indication of the map rendering engine used to display the map and an area the map includes.

22. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for location aware applications, the instructions comprising:

defining areas of interest;

obtaining a location of an item from a location source and storing the location in a location store, wherein the location store may be shared by other location aware applications;

determining when the item is within one of the areas of interest;

generating a location event when it is determined that the item is within one of the areas of interest;

executing event driven code associated with a location aware application in response to the location event;

selecting a map from a map store, wherein the map may be shared by other location aware applications; and

displaying the map using a map rendering engine, wherein the map rendering engine is selected from at least two map rendering engines.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, further comprising defining the areas of interest after the location aware application is deployed.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 23, further comprising determining when the item is outside one of the areas of interest, and in response to the item being outside, generating the location event.

25. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, further comprising supplying at least one object to the map rendering engine to overlay on the map.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, further comprising dynamically provisioning the map store.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the map includes a description of the map using an XML representation.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 27, wherein the description comprises a map projection;

a resolution;

an indication of the map rendering engine used to display the map and an area the map includes.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein selecting the map from the map store comprises determining a best fit map in response to weighted criteria received from the location aware application.

30. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein displaying the map using the map rendering engine comprises switching between map rendering engines depending on a type of map being rendered.

31. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein displaying the map using the map rendering engine comprises selecting a projection technique depending on the type of map being rendered, wherein the projection technique is selected from at least two projection techniques of:

Mercator, Polar, Grid, and Custom.