Re: general questions regarding GeoLocation API

Answers from group feedback today.

On 10/31/2011 11:32 AM, Don Brutzman wrote:
> Thanks for the opportunity to sit in during the group meeting today.
> Interesting and impressive.
> 
> I have the following general questions about the GeoLocation work.
> Hopefully any answers are straightforward.
> 
> 1.  Does the group plan on producing an XML Schema or data model
> corresponding to the GeoLocation API?

No.  Scope of the recommendation does not include providing a
markup language of any kind. 

In the second group charter it says
=======================
http://www.w3.org/2008/geolocation/charter/charter-2
	As mentioned in the initial charter as a potential work item, the
	Working Group will explore exposing location information via markup
	or sending it via HTTP headers as non-Recommendation track work.
=======================

Working group participants today said that there was no intention to
pursue either.

> 2.  What discussions have occurred regarding altitude?  Simply match GPS?
> 
> 3.  PositionError interface is pretty terse, any intentions regarding
> representation of positional uncertainty?  It remains possible for
> GPS precision to vary widely.

Easily answered right in the recommendation (sorry to overlook!) under section
5.4 Coordinates interface.

=======================
interface Coordinates {
    readonly attribute double? latitude;
    readonly attribute double? longitude;
    readonly attribute double? altitude;
    readonly attribute double? accuracy;
    readonly attribute double? altitudeAccuracy;
    readonly attribute double? heading;
    readonly attribute double? speed;
    readonly attribute double? verticalSpeed;
  };
[...]
The altitudeAccuracy attribute is specified in meters. If the implementation cannot provide altitude information, the value of this attribute must be null. Otherwise, the value of this attribute must be a non-negative real number.
=======================

No requirements have been posed for error estimate other than
radius (such as ellipse, which would require 3 more parameters).

> 4.  Is there any cooperative effort or shared goals with the W3C
> Augmented Reality (AR) Community Group?  http://www.w3.org/community/ar

W3C AR group activity level is uncertain.  Apparently there are no meetings
here at TPAC this week, and last post to public-ar list was 1 SEP 2011.

> 5.  Has anyone announced their intention to produce open-source
> GeoLocation API implementation(s) in various programming languages?

Deprecated API found at Google Gears
http://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_geolocation.html

Apparently Java code exists for Android
http://www.vogella.de/articles/AndroidLocationAPI/article.html

Wikipedia has some entries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3C_Geolocation_API

> 6.  Is there any expectation that GeoLocation information will be
> passed via web services or other queries external to a device?
> 
> 7.  Is there any interest in compression of data (perhaps using EXI)
> or is this information considered too small/terse to be worthwhile?

Neither is planned.

Again thanks for all responses.

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman@nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman

Received on Monday, 31 October 2011 23:11:01 UTC