Spatial Web Services Applications in Bahrain



GEOMATEC Web Service
Realizing the traditional approach limitations of use of GIS technology in Bahrain and evolution of latest concept of web services, company decided to open its Bahrain Explorer services to users through the means of web service. The GEOMATEC web service provides all the major geospatial functionalities – address geocoding, reverse geocoding, mapping and driving direction. All these functionalities are bundled in a web service as APIs and the resulting web service can be integrated with different applications on any platform as per clients need. In the following paragraphs, characteristics of Bahrain Explorer web service are explained in brief.

Features
GEOMATEC web services offers:

Data Access: Access to vast repository of most updated spatial data for Bahrain. This data includes multi temporal high resolution images, continuously updated address information, 3D Buildings, intelligent roads, digital terrain models and variety of other data sets.

Map creation: The mapping component allows user to create maps of desired size for the area of interest with choice of spatial data layers.

Geocoding: The geocoding services provides user to integrate address search functionality to the application.

Reverse geocoding: The reverse geocoding is a process by which its possible to determine addresses or other spatial features around a specified geographic coordinates.

Driving Directions: The GEOMATEC web service also offers the most crucial routing service, whereby a user can make route between two or more points.

Place Finder: The place finder service offers capability to search through the most update data of points of interest, such as hotels, restaurants, clubs, famous buildings, rent-a-car, etc. Map zoom in/out/pan: These functionalities let advanced application developer to integrate map panning, zooming functionalities to develop a complete GIS application over any system.

Requirements
The current implementation of GEOMATEC web services does not have any major prerequisites.
  1. For simple application, it requires web developer to write simple HTTP request and display the response from the web service.
  2. For advanced application, a developer could develop a full fledge GIS application using .NET, asp and other technologies by sending and receiving XML format.


Figure 1: Bahrain Explorer web service accessibility

Applications
Some of the major applications being developed using GEOMATEC web services are-
  1. MTC-Vodafone Friend finder application for WAP and Web: MTC-Vodafone has integrated GEOMATEC web services to their LBS (Location based services) application to allow subscribers to view friend’s current position, on the map of Bahrain.
  2. MTC-Vodafone Place finder for WAP and Web: MTC-Vodafone LBS application also allows subscribers to perform proximity search, around current location or address and determine nearest points of interest within specified distance.
  3. Mobile / PDA based mapping website: Bahrain Explorer mapping website is now available on mobile devices accessible via same URL ((www.bahrainexplorer.com).
  4. Mobile / PDA based Routing: The web service allows mobile / PDA users to create route between two or more points using Bahrain Explorer.
  5. Web-based Vehicle Tracking (GeoTrack): Various clients using Vehicle tracking solution from GEOMATEC are using the web-based application (GeoTrack) to track their vehicles on the web or handheld devices.
Conclusion
GEOMATEC web services are being used in Kingdom of Bahrain by variety of clients with high priority accordance to e-government initiatives and emphasis on improving service quality and competence.. Web services are going to play important role at every level to enable the smooth sharing of spatial information between different user organizations.

In short, geospatial web services are capable of delivering cost effective & simple solution for complex applications using proprietary GIS data and software, thus attracting non-traditional users from vertical market segments in to GIS mainstream.

References
  1. Powerful Combination: GIS and Web Services, Adam Stone IEEE Distributed Systems ONLINE, February 2004
  2. Web Services Architecture Overview, IBM Web Services Architecture Team, IBM, September 2000
  3. The Role of Web Services for Spatial Data Delivery, Ed Parsons, GITA’s Annual Conference, March 2003
  4. Web Map Service Implementation Specification, Open GIS Consortium Inc., June 2001
  5. XML Web Services, GIS, and Location Technologies, Steve Lombardi, Directions Magazine, March 2003
  6. http://msdn.microsoft.com/net
  7. http://www.gartner.com
  8. http://www.uddi.org
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