Skardu City Tourist Guide(An Android Application)

Session (2013-15)

Program

Master of Information Technology (2 years)

Submitted By:

Shuja ul Hassan (2013-KIUSC-1085)

Supervised By:

Dr. Irshad Ali

Assistant ProfessorComputer Science Department

Karakoram International UniversityGilgit-Baltistan, Skardu campus

(shuja2good@gmail.com)

DEDICATION

With my deepest gratitude I dedicate this thesis to myfamily and teachers, without their patience, understanding andsupport completion of this work would not have been possible.Who has been a constant source of knowledge and inspiration.

i

DECLARATION

It has been declared that I have developed this Application

and its project report.To complete this report I have used my

own knowledge and made personal efforts under direction of my

supervisor.

Any part of this report has not been used to get degree from

the university and any other universities.

Shuja ul Hassan

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I express my thankfulness to the Almighty Allah for His count-

less blessings. The successful completion of this project has

become possible due to regular guidance and support of my su-

pervisor and teachers so it is an obligation to convey gratefulness

and admiration to all those persons behind the scene who di-

rected, motivated and assisted. As the first consideration I will

express my thankfulness to Prof. Dr Irshad Ali my project su-

pervisor. He motivated and helped to the complete this project.

He made me believe that I can do it. He was accessible to me

whenever I seek advice from him. Without his important guid-

ance and help, I could never be able to create this project. I also

extend my thanks to my mentors including Asst.Prof Jawad Us-

man(HOD), Lecturer Mr.Naseem Abbas, Lecturer Mr. Imtiaz

Ahmed, Lecturer Mr. Imran Ali and Lecturer Mr. Nauman Ali

Khan who assisted and motivated me to complete this project.

Finally, I am so thankful to my family, class fellows and se-

niors for their co-operation and support.

iii

Contents

Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.3 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.4 Limitation and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.4.1 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.4.2 Limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.5 Outline of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Literature Review 7

2.1 Static Map Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.1.1 Personal Activity Travel Surveys . . . . 8

2.1.2 The Services Based on Location . . . . 9

2.1.3 Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.2 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.3 Existing Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.4 Use of Google Map API . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.5 Location Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.6 Calculate Distance Between two Locations . . . 16

2.6.1 Disjkstra’s Algorithmic-Code . . . . . . 20

iv

3 Methodology 22

3.1 Android Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2 Life Cycle of Android Application . . . . . . . . 25

3.2.1 Active and Running state . . . . . . . . 25

3.2.2 Paused state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.2.3 Stopped state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.2.4 Destroyed/Dead state . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.3 Android Versions and Its latest comparison . . 28

3.4 Project Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3.4.1 Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3.4.2 Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3.4.3 Nearby Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.4.4 Weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.4.5 Social Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.4.6 Map Marker Information . . . . . . . . . 33

3.5 Fundamentals of Application . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.6 Skardu City Guide Application Architecture . . 38

3.7 Showing Distance Between Two Locations by Draw-

ing Polylines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3.8 Development of Software . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3.9 Summary of Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

4 Experimental Results 47

4.1 Starting of Application on Android Smartphone 49

4.1.1 Location Based Services . . . . . . . . . 49

4.1.2 Direction Between two Places . . . . . . 51

4.2 Location on Map by Markers . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.3 Weather forecasting and social networking . . . 53

4.4 Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

v

5 Conclusion and Future Enhancements 54

5.1 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5.2 Future Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

vi

List of Figures

2.1 Find a Location using GPS based Android Smart

Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.2 Global Positioning System (GPS ) with 4 satellite

connected out of 24 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.3 Google Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.4 Example image for the following Dijkstra’s algo-

rithm’s Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.1 Android Architecture Reprinted from android-

havies.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.2 Android Application Life Cycle reprinted from

strawflower.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.3 Android Versions and Its latest comparison (Pic-

ture Reprinted from PhonDriod.com) . . . . . 29

3.4 Showing location with time and distance . . . . 31

3.5 Shows locations activity and detail activity . . 32

3.6 Shows multiple nearby places . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.7 Shows weather forecast activity with details . . 35

3.8 Shows social networking group page . . . . . . 36

3.9 Shows customize markers on map . . . . . . . 37

3.10 Skardu City Guide Application Architecture . . 40

3.11 Skardu City Tourist Guide Application Main Menu

41

vii

3.12 Distance Between two Location with time and

kilometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

3.13 Main map of Skardu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3.14 Distance Between two Location by Drawing Poly-

lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4.1 Skardu City Guide Splash Screen . . . . . . . . 48

4.2 A marker is showing view of jinnah park and

other customize markers . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

4.3 Direction showing by drawing polyline on the

Map between to Cities Skardu and Gilgit . . . 52

viii

ABSTRACT

The aim to design and develop this project is to produce a

tourist guide for Skardu city, which can efficiently guides the

tourist who visits Skardu.Due to its natural beauty many do-

mestic and international tourist visits every year. The Android

tourist guide can be use in place of professional guide due to

many reasons like reduce cost of guide, get more accurate in-

formation needed for decision making, giving weather and so-

cial networking services. The tourists can use this guide for

different purposes like searching a location , calculate distance

between two locations,getting basic textual information, picto-

rial information of location which normally we could not find in

default Google maps.The guide uses Google Map API, global

positioning system( GPS), Internet and cellular data to provide

its services. A Smartphone with Internet connection is required

to use this application. The Google Maps API uses Dijkstra’s

algorithm to calculate paths. The built in GPS(global posi-

tioning system) of smartphone provides latitude and longitude

coordinates of the location.

ix

Chapter1

Introduction

1

1.1 Introduction

The aim to design and develop the project is to produce a tourist

guide for Skardu city to facilitate domestic and international

tourists.Due to unavailability of proper tourist guide tourist

face many problems.As traditional practice when a tourist vis-

its Skardu they have to engage professional tourist guides. The

guides provide information about the city. We have to spend

handsome amount of money to get such services of a profes-

sional guide. It is expensive for most of the tourists. Mostly

guides are not professional because they working part time in

summer season as guide and in winter they used to work in some

other fields. So sometimes the guide also could not give proper

information to the travelers because of human nature they can-

not remembers facts and figures which is required for decision

making like temperature, heights from sea level, weather con-

dition, dates and historical importance etc. This tourist guide

can show the map of the desired location, calculate distance be-

tween two locations and shows basic information of tourist spot

using android based smartphone.It is freely available any time

whenever a tourist need.

This tourist guide project is an Android application which

uses Google map API , global positioning system (GPS) and

Internet . The system takes latitude and longitude of the loca-

tion and shows the location on map. It also calculates distance

from user’s current location to desired location. The application

will help to provide modern technology for tourism industry and

helps to boost the tourism.

A little glimpse of the key features which benefits form the

2

proposed Skardu tourist guide system are as follows:

• Reliable guide :

The tourist could use printed maps and hire a guide but

it is not fulfills the tourist needs. By using smartphones

features such as global positioning system and Internet we

can use reliable and interactive maps of the area .The ap-

plication provides reliable and accurate data which helps in

decision making.

• Efficiency:

Due to its limited portability use laptops or personal

computers (PC) is difficult. In place of laptops the appli-

cation uses smartphones for efficiency and portability.

• Profit:

The tourist guide application is freely available and sup-

ports almost all android phones so it saves the money which

a tourist spent on hiring a professional guide.Even we can

use it in smart watches shown in figure 2.1

1.2 Problem statement

To create an android application which will give services to a

tourist.A tourist needs modern technologies which can serves for

them.So the android application should be easy to use and effi-

cient to manage the traveling activities. Due to unavailability of

such application tourists are facing problems while traveling to

Skardu.They have to pay handsome amount of traveling budget

to local guides and agents to get information.

The proper tourist guide is not available which could detect

a current location, calculate distance and provide proper guide-

lines using polylines. Different problems are arise while a tourist

3

travel to a tourist spot like Skardu which we can address by

development of the system which will provide accurate global

positioning system (GPS) coordinates, provide proper real time

direction, textual and pictorial information about the location.

A concise explanation of some of the major challenges are given

below:

1.3 Objectives

• The aim to design and develop the project is to produce

a tourist guide for Skardu city, the application is to be

user friendly tourist guide over android operating system

for Skardu city which is not available currently for smart-

phones. Due to domestic and international tourist flow in

Skardu city such application is helpful for the tourists.Nowadays

people prefer to use android application due to easy, con-

veyance usage.

• To change the traditional techniques of human guides by us-

ing printed maps and written information. The traditional

technique might create problems while decision making due

to lack of information of guide. Because in Skardu only in

summer people working as guide.

• To avoid getting services from people which we need to

engage as guides.The application serves as virtual guide to

facilitate to a tourist with interactive Google Maps.

• To provide location base services for tourist using GPS co-

ordinates.

• To calculate distance between current locations to desired

location.

4

• To provide basic information about the tourist spots.

• To facilitate tourism industry by using modern technologies

to boost tourism.

• To make available desired direction services and compass

for right direction.

1.4 Limitation and Scope

1.4.1 Scope

• It supports almost 90% android phones as shown in table

(Figure 3.3)

• After searching a location using Internet we can use that

location data off-line.

• It can be use without sign-up

1.4.2 Limitation

• It required a device (smartphone) which should have in-

stalled android operating System.

• It could only locate the locations which the developer marked

on the map by custom markers

• Internet, global positioning system (GPS) and cellular data

required continuously.

• It cannot be run on personal computers without any virtual

device.

5

1.5 Outline of the thesis

In this chapter it consists of introduction to project, problem

statement, objective, scope and limitation of the tourist guide.

In chapter 2 describes existing mobile and android city tourist

guides. It also includes android application development using

Google maps API, location based sensing technologies, global

positioning system and android studio. Finally introduces algo-

rithms used while development of such technologies.

This chapter 3 includes methodology , android architecture,

android life cycle, Skardu city guide architecture and project

contribution.

The chapter 4 introduces experimental results which have

performed using smartphone.

The chapter conclusion and further work shows the achieve-

ment of the project, and the things needed to be improved.

6

Chapter2

Literature Review

7

The chapter has been discussed the features of tourist guide

styles and examined various existing application for finding places,

distance calculation and other functionalities.

2.1 Static Map Approaches

Some application providing information using static maps. These

maps are not interactive so the user could not find real location

based services. The user need interactive maps instead of static

maps for proper guidance.

There are many map application which shows the data in the

following formats:

• Textual information

• Pictorial information

• Static maps

• Graphs

• Tables

2.1.1 Personal Activity Travel Surveys

Abdulazim et al. [1] presented a data collection framework and

its prototype application for personal activitytravel survys by

the use of modern smartphone’s latest sensors. The main pair of

the framework run on smartphones backed by cloud based (on-

line) services for data storage, information distribution, and de-

cision making support. The structure consist machine-learning

methods to get automatically activity kind and travel ways with

min disturbance for the receiver. Wang et al. has discussed the

importance of smartphone positioning data as an another data

8

Figure 2.1: Find a Location using GPS based Android Smart Watch

source for travel behavior studies. The study is particularly in-

terested in its potential for analyses in travel behavior dynamics.

The authors discussed the relative advantages of mobile posi-

tioning over travel diary/ GPS tracking as an alternative data

collection technique. Eventually, they concluded that smart-

phone positioning info is a important data source for study the

behavior of travelers. [1]

2.1.2 The Services Based on Location

The Services Based on Location gives a customized option to

client situated in a situation from geographic location informa-

tion of provided by database. This facility uses geographic in-

formation systems ,this kind of information can be obtain from

customer side, as GPS, or server side, as positioning service

accommodated for the cellular network operator, and commu-

nication tech of system to transmit info to an application that

can process and answer the requested service.[2]

9

2.1.3 Security

Android architecture is secure and softwares of Android are

coded with the computer programming languages Java, XML

with the Software Development Kit (SDK) tools of Android the

code is compiled into an Android package kit (.apk), this bundle

may be use in Android devices. The operating system consider

every application like a novel Linux client, every application

keeps running in its own procedure, which will run in isolation

from another.[2]

2.2 Challenges

The challenge solved by mobile was capability to obtain exact

place from the desired location, user’s location map, calculating

distance between two places, forecast the weather condition ,

find the multimedia information. Research reveals that many

software have been created, but the specific information which

a tourist need mainly fetch from the newspapers,advertisements

and magazines these sources do not give accurate information

when tourist on traveling. [3]

2.3 Existing Solutions

keeping in mind these issues many applications have been rec-

ommended by different authors during last decade to effectively

and efficiently control the tourism industry by giving different

solutions.

• Islamabad City Guide is one of the city guides. It does

not use Google maps and GPS (Global Positioning System)

it uses static maps and pictures to show the places. It does

not provide location base services.[4]

10

• Smart Tourist Guide provided the guide layout and

implemented the guide as mobile application namely smart

travel guide, the mobile phone users can search for tourism

related guidance as per their needs. using smart travel

guide, travelers can get an attraction’s concise information,

like textual, pictorial and video. Specially, the smart travel

guide is able to give information to the travelers about a

location, which can be accessed using a map. Traveler can

find the close by places and visit the place after calculating

the distance between the traveler’s location and the tourist

spot. As they moves the application updates the user’s

position on the map.[3]

• BE-ON-THE-ROAD kind of softwares mainly provides

navigational services. An application which provides this

feature is BE-ON-THE-ROAD. It uses Google maps but

its interface is not user friendly and does not provide writ-

ten and pictorial information about the location. Another

Guide namely Navigation shows all routes of major cities on

the basis of GPS coordinates. In the proposed project the

user easily use this feature and the interface is user friendly

• BRouter is also provide navigational services.But the dif-

ficulty with this application is that every time when we start

the application it request for download the map to device.

Which could not be the recommended method to provide

navigational services to a tourist. So in my propose project

solves this issue by providing direct access to the map.

• GPS Route finder is a good application to find distances

between two locations and it calculation but it does not

11

provide any other services expect the distances calculations.

This feature is also include in the proposed project.

12

Figure 2.2: Global Positioning System (GPS ) with 4 satellite connected out of 24

GPS has its importance in transport and carriage system

around the world. It gives correct site information for as many

of people as in the world. GPS satellites sends signals from

sky which are receive by the receivers, their could be a single

receiver or built-in to a device which the receives.It provides with

3D information: altitude, latitude,and longitude.If the client

device capable of a G.P.S(Global Positioning System) which is

necessarily include into modern smatphones, the user’s location

can easily and accurately be locate.[5]

13

Figure 2.3: Google Maps

2.4 Use of Google Map API

The following tasks which are important to accomplish using

the Google Maps API efficiently:

• To show directions from point A to point B.

• To place a marker on map based on GPS coordinates.

• Place multiple markers based on the data retrieved from

the GPS.

• Add layers (such as the traffic layer).

• Fit the map to the bounds.

14

2.5 Location Detection

The globle positioning system (GPS) is a navigation system

component consist of a network of 24 (as shown in figure 2.2)

outer earth satellites moving into an orbit launched by the

American defense department. Initially GPS was used by the

army in different applications, but in the 1980s, they announced

that now may use by general public.21 dedicated GPS satellites

and 3 spare satellites are rotating around the earth at an alti-

tude of about 10,600 miles. The satellites are set in such a way

that four satellites still over the sphere, from any point on the

earth. Each of the satellites has an atomic clock, a radio and

a customized computer. The satellites continuously send their

location information and time readings. At least once in a day,

each satellite confirms its location and time with a earth sta-

tion,to check any minor error in the broad casted information.[6]

Location detection is a basic part of this software which in-

clude sensing the location on map. For classification it uses

Latitude and longitude coordinates.It is necessary to discover

the correct location of the device on the maps. Location discov-

ery is a straightforward and fast method to identify the device

location on a map. Each position has a distinct number latitude

and longitude, it could be use this information to detect the lo-

cation/region on a map.Primary and important reason to utilize

this method is that use of global positioning system (GPS) is a

around the globe and free facility.

The accuracy of device is approximately within 10 meters and

it is usually sufficient to find the location of the GPS device.

The software automatically discover and point the location on

Google maps which is already integrated with this application

15

as shown in figure 2.1.

2.6 Calculate Distance Between two Locations

During literature review the fact revealed that in past years

many algorithms have been created for navigate(routing) be-

tween two points. However here we will discuss two popular

algorithms the Dijkstra’s algorithm and the havarsine formula.

The ’havarsine’ formulae works good to manipulate the distance

by direct point to point.It could be shortest path over the earth’s

surface. Sometimes it is called crow fly distance among the

points (it ignores the turning points, ups and downs). So the

selection of algorithm will be as per our need. Brief introduction

of both algorithm is presented below

Dijkstra’s algorithm:

Computer science professional Dijkstra, created Dijkstra’s al-

16

gorithm in 1956 and it printed for public in 1959, it was a

graph searched based algorithm that can resolve the one starting

point shortest path issue of a positive graph, showing a short-

est path tree. The method is mostly useful while searching a

path. A starting node in the graph, this method calculates the

path which is shortest path between that node and other nodes

as shown in figure 2.4. Using this method we can also calcu-

late the costs of single node to single target node for shortest

path. For this we have to break the algorithm once it is estab-

lish the shortest path to target node. As example, if the node

in graph it shows multiple places/cities and corners shows the

walking/driving distances among the places in pairs by line as

road, this algorithmic method could be utilize to find the short-

est route between a city and other all cities.We get the result

that shortest path first is generally used in networking as rout-

ing/searching protocols, most prominently ( I.S Intermediate

System and I.S Intermediate System) and open shortest path

first).[7]

17

Figure 2.4: Example image for the following Dijkstra’s algorithm’s Analysis

The Dijkstra Algorithm is being used to process diagram :

While going into detail parts of the algorithmic-code it is nec-

essary to know that the functions of algorithm. Djkstra’s Algo

meets expectations to solve the sub-part m, which processes

the briefest way from the source to nodes among the m nearest

nodes to the source. To make the djkstra’s Algorithm function

it need to be coordinated weighted diagram and the edges ought

to be positive. If the corners are not positive it is not possible

to obtain shortest path.

At the mth location, it will be a set which called Fron-

tier/boundary of m node that could exits the nodes nearest

to the start and the nodes that lie outer frontier/boundary are

calculated and give into new frontier/boundary. The minimum

distance attain is maintained in sDistanc[x]. It can hold the

approximate distance from s to x. Dijkstras algo locate the next

nearest vertex by maintaining the new frontier/boundary/boundary

vertexes in a priority minimum queue.[8]

The algorithm finds the shortest distance of vertex d from

18

19

the start point in the array, sDistanc. The smallest point of the

start to itself is zero. sDistanc for all other nodes is set to unlim-

ited to present that the nodes are still not developed. When the

algo complete the working of the nodes sDistanc shall have the

shortest path(distance) of node x to s. 2 sets are keep on bound-

ary and new boundary which boost in the working of the algo.

Frontier/boundary has m nodes which are nearest to the start-

ing point, will have previously calculated shortest distances to

these nodes, for the path limited up to m nodes. The nodes that

exists outer of Frontier is set called new frontier/boundary.[8]

2.6.1 Disjkstra’s Algorithmic-Code

The Disjkstra’s Algorithmic-Code is as under The following al-

gorithmic code gives a concise explanation of the functions of

the Dijkstras algorithm. Procedure Djsktra (V: set of nodes 1...

h node 1 is the source Adjc[1h] of adjacency lists;

EdegeCostCalc(u, x): edge cost functions;)

Var: sDistanc[1h] of path costs of source (vertex 1); sDistanc[j]

shortest path’s length will be will be equivalent to j

Begin:

Initialize

make a set Frontier which is virtual to save i here sDistanc[i] is

already completely resolved

Create priority queue(empty) new frontier/boundary; sDistanc[1]←0; The distance to the source is zero

for all nodes x in V 1 do no node have been explored yet

sDistanc[x]← infinity

end for;

Fill new frontier/boundary with nodes x in V organized by pri-

orities sDistanc[x];

endInitialize;

20

repeat

d← DeleteMini new boundary; d is the new nearest; sDistanc[d]

is already correct forall of the neighbors x in Adjc[d] do

if sDistanc[x] . sDistanc[d] + EdegeCostCalc(d,x) then

sDistanc[x] ← sDistanc[d] + EdegeCostCalc(d,x)

updte x in new boundary by new priority sDistanc[x]

endif

endfor

till new boundary is empty

endDjkstra; [8]

Best first and breadth first search shows by this algorithm.The

best nodes is new boundary which is selected for next process

so it is best first. This search apply breadth first, since new

frontier/boundary consists of nodes that we can be check next

and nodes are one edge far from the searched nodes.[8]

Nowadays people prefer to use smartphones due to its easy

to use and handy nature.It is also capable of running various

applications at one smarthphone. So naturally the applications

related to tourism helps to navigate , find distances and pro-

vide informations about desired locations.Even the conventional

maps which are printed on papers are still generally in use, but

nowadays google maps based websites and application are be-

came more popular because of its usefulness, accuracy and rich

content. [9]

21

Chapter3

Methodology

22

The proposed project uses Google Maps APIs for finding a

location , calculate distance between two places and showing

information about a location.

3.1 Android Architecture

The Android operating system composed of five main layers

as shown in figure 3.1. These layers included Application, li-

braries of different nature, Kernal of Linux which is core of OS,

framework of application and the last is runtime android. Top

level layer is called android application layer in any android sys-

tem.Here we can find some important feathers like short mes-

saging service applications, electronic mail applications, calls,

calenders, browsers , maps, contacts. Java is main language to

develop these components.

Framework of application is the next and second layer of an-

droid architecture. This is outline or framework which uses by

software application developers. Application programming in-

terfaces are available for development purposes.it consist of basic

tools and use to create more complex applications in android.

23

Figure 3.1: Android Architecture Reprinted from androidhavies.com

24

The layer which is use by different Android system compo-

nents. Developers fallow the available libraries in framework of

Application. Developer use these libraries for common tasks or

reuse system functions for their own purpose. The layer four of

this architecture is the Android Runtime. Dalvik virtual ma-

chine is use by android as Java uses virtual machine to provide

environment to application on runtime.It is a special software

which create new processes independently for android applica-

tion.

Linux kernel is the last and fifth layer in android architec-

ture.Linux kernel’s Linux version 2.6 is use by the android. It

is used for memory management, power management software,

file system access, networking, inter process communication, se-

curity settings and several drivers for hardware. The Kernel

hides the hardware from the user of software.

3.2 Life Cycle of Android Application

An Activity in Android can exist in four states as described

below: In android an activity could be use in four states as

written and shown in figure 3.2

3.2.1 Active and Running state

In this state the activity runs in front and shows focus on it.It

user uses actively and observable completely.

3.2.2 Paused state

In this state, the program is partly observable to the user but

it is not visible to user and unfocused. This happen when some

other activity is running which doesn’t cover up the whole screen

or having some clearness so that the partly visible activity is

25

Figure 3.2: Android Application Life Cycle reprinted from strawflower.com

original Activity. The activity which paused activity is entirely

alive and keeps its state but it can be stop by task manager

where we have an option to clear currently running applications.

3.2.3 Stopped state

When the main screen not showing the activity is called stopped

state.It completely unclear the view and running another activ-

ity. In this stopped state also the activity running in background

and uses resources like memory etc, but it can be stop by task

manager where we have an option to clear currently running

applications.

3.2.4 Destroyed/Dead state

When a running application is no more in memory called a

dead/destroyed state.May be the application is not started or

after starting the application is cleared from memory to save

memory resources. The figure 3.2 below shows the android ac-

tivity life cycle flow chart. It need be studied by the developers

as its an important state. Life cycle of an android application

can be shown as under.

26

The above Life cycle of an android application flow figure can

be explained as under:

• On starting of an Activity in Android smartphone, it calls

the onCreate() function.In this time it initializes the data

essentials and creates User Interface.

• onStart() function is called even user have not seen the

activity yet. The activity is still stopped so we should know

why.

• With the onResume() function, user can interact with activ-

ity and can see it on screen. In activity stack the position

of activity will be at the top. Now the application is in

running state and inputs can receives from the user.

• when it is in the Active state, onPause() function could be

accessed the application is ready to resume when the user

presses the home button or one other activity is running on

the top of this one.

• One activity or notification is on top of it doesn’t totally

unclear the visibility of actual activity. The smartphone

goes to sleep.

The activity could goes to paused state in below three con-

ditions: The user resumes the Activity by closing the new

Activity or notification and the paused Activity gets Ac-

tive/Runs as calling onResume() functions. If the battery

is totally low condition then it gets killed . then it is not

possible to call any other functions before destroying the

Activity and it required to be run again from the starting

by getting onCreate() and restoring the last configuration

from the bundle object. Otherwise it calls onStop() func-

tion to move it to stop state.When the user presses back

27

button this action is performed by default. or it resumes

on the top by totally covering by a new activity.

• In stopped state there could be three distinct cases as under:

To free the memory resources the OS could kill: An activity

under stopped sate is more probably to be clear from the

memory by the system than one in the paused state. It

needs to start the restart again with onCreate(). It get start

again by calling onRestart() , onStart() and onResume()

functions properly if the user presses back button to the

Activity again. In this scenario, the User Interface is on

its place and it is not necessary to restart. onDestroy()

funtion is called and the Activity is dead/destroyed. This

is the final function we can call before the Activity is dead.

This happen in two cases: 1. The Activity is completed the

its job. 2. The application is temporarily cleated to save

the memory space..

3.3 Android Versions and Its latest comparison

An important aspect of Android operating system is its differ-

ent versions. These version are improving and providing new

services to users. As the smartphones’ hardware improving and

capable to provide more services the Android operating system

also side by side improves itself. The latest usage comparison is

as under.

28

Figure 3.3: Android Versions and Its latest comparison (Picture Reprinted from Phon-Driod.com)

29

3.4 Project Contribution

The actual contribution by this project is to show a comprehen-

sive understanding and realization of city guide on the android

operating system as new developmental platform. Now we can

see many examples of city guide on other platforms such as Win-

dows Mobile, IPhone etc. However, there are no any city guides

for Skardu city. This project encapsulated basic features of city

guide such as showing Google maps, locating user”s location,

getting information of tourist spots, basic information, showing

different routes by directions, and choose off-line information

about different facilitates like hospitals, shopping centers, car

rentals, checking about the latest weather conditions, keep in

touch on social networking and looking for nearby places on the

map.This project have six main parts as under

3.4.1 Direction

This activity fetch Google maps and give the user opportunity

to select location and find distances among the places.It uses

Google’s direction API to complete this tasks. It also shows

source to destination path of tourist by drawing lines. It can

calculate the distances in kilometers as shown in figure 3.4 . It

also shows users current location by using GPS coordinates.It

requires Internet and GPS enabled.

3.4.2 Locations

Its an important part of this application which shows location

in Skardu city like hospitals, car rentals , pharmacies, shop-

ping center, and many other location offline. It shows phone

numbers, addresses , email(if available) and website addresses(if

available) as shown in figure 3.5.

30

Figure 3.4: Showing location with time and distance

31

Figure 3.5: Shows locations activity and detail activity

32

3.4.3 Nearby Places

Google have its another important API called Google places

API which detects current coordinates of tourist and according

to its location shows nearby places it helps users to locate nearby

places as shown in figure 3.6.

3.4.4 Weather

This part can show to the tourist latest weather updates. It

shows hourly, daily and weekly weather forecast to facilitate

the user of this guide as shown in figure 3.7.

3.4.5 Social Networking

Nowadays the role of social networking is obvious, so this part

connects the tourists with a special group page on facebook as

shown in figure 3.8.Where they can discuss about tourism and

share their experiences while traveling to Skardu.

3.4.6 Map Marker Information

This option shows the map and customize markers which shows

the required information about a location.A picture and some

text briefly describes a location on the map as shown in figure

3.9.

3.5 Fundamentals of Application

This component of application shows key aspects of application

development. It consists of four parts.Services, receivers, con-

tent providers, activity and broadcast. An android application

may contain one or many of these components types.

• Activity shows interfaces for user that the users will use

it for communication. i.e, in short messaging component,

33

Figure 3.6: Shows multiple nearby places

34

Figure 3.7: Shows weather forecast activity with details

35

Figure 3.8: Shows social networking group page

36

Figure 3.9: Shows customize markers on map

37

one activity shows the user interface to users for writing a

short message to others. activities are entirely written by

extending Activity main( base) class.

• Services do not run in background and user interface is

not exits. i,e, if we play a music in background. Service

extends Service base class.

• Broadcast Receivers this part receives and give reaction

to broadcast announcements. i.e, if it shows the battery is

low, it necessary to convey this message to mobile users.

The receivers extend Broadcast Receiver base class.

• Content Provider this part provides data and stores

it. It extends Content Provider base class but applications

do not call directly to the methods in Content Provider,

in place of this they call methods in the object Content

Resolver, which call Content Provider.

The following technique is used by android for retrieving

and storing the data.Network, database, files and prefer-

ences

The Android API contains support for creating and using

SQLite databases. Each database is private to the applica-

tion that creates it. The SQLiteDatabase object represents

a database and has methods for interacting with it by cre-

ating the database, making queries and managing the data.

3.6 Skardu City Guide Application Architecture

Skardu City Tourist Guide is working as the following archi-

tecture. It starts with a splash screen which shows its name

and profile picture. After that a menu will appear where a user

can select different locations like tourist spots, market , schools,

38

hospital etc. The system checks the Internet connection and

provide the map for that location.It is shown in figure 3.10

39

Figure 3.10: Skardu City Guide Application Architecture

40

Figure 3.11: Skardu City Tourist Guide Application Main Menu

41

3.7 Showing Distance Between Two Locations by

Drawing Polylines

On the basis of latitude and longitude we can calculate distance

between two points. A polyline will be draw when user selects

source and destination as shown in figure 3.12. Usually the

device location will be the source location which the application

will detects and shows on map. However we can change both

source and destination locations.

42

Figure 3.12: Distance Between two Location with time and kilometer

43

Figure 3.13: Main map of Skardu

44

Figure 3.14: Distance Between two Location by Drawing Polylines

45

3.8 Development of Software

The development of Software is start with a software process.

The software model shows how a developer can develop a soft-

ware and which approach is better to develop a particular soft-

ware application. The model which I have selected is Rapid

Application Development (RAD) model. The main reason to se-

lect the model is that the RAD model not emphasis on planning

tasks and emphasis on application development. It is flexible

model.In other models like water fall is rigid and it is necessary

to know detailed plan about the software development. I was

new in the Android Software Development so I was blank about

to develop this application. In this model we can built proto-

type of software demonstrates it , refine it untill the required

application goals meet. Then we deploy it.

3.9 Summary of Guide

All the snap shots and other details shows the activities, along

with the navigational and location based services given to the

user. The icons shows different links to the application’s func-

tionality of the Skardu city tourist guide. The first activity

provide a user main menu where they can choose different op-

tions. The other activities would result in the listing of the said

functionalities on the location and coordinate basis which the

user has requested for and also the they can fulfill their guidance

needs by giving the criteria. The application provide different

kinds of information for tourist like Markers information , Im-

ages, Maps, and text information in their smartphones.

46

Chapter4

Experimental Results

47

Figure 4.1: Skardu City Guide Splash Screen48

4.1 Starting of Application on Android Smartphone

The application successfully run on Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 and

operating system was Android version Kit Kat 4.4.2.The first

screen which the application showed was splash screen(as shown

in figure 4.1) for four seconds which is set during development

of splash screen. After that it showed the main menu consist of

click able buttons.

4.1.1 Location Based Services

The Application has three main components it shows Direc-

tions, find distance between two locations and locate famous

places. The screen shots showing the these functionalities be-

low. Custom markers are showing the location with both text

and pictorial information. The location can be find by clicking

on marker , writing the name of place on the location search

text box and giving GPS coordinates. These experiments have

done on real device instead of emulator. The results successfully

showed the location and gave required result.

49

Figure 4.2: A marker is showing view of jinnah park and other customize markers

50

4.1.2 Direction Between two Places

At next step the experiment is checking the direction interface

and it successfully showed direction between two cities Skardu

city and Gilgit city by drawing polyline on the map. It used

Hussainabad Skardu GPS coordinates as my location which can

be select by pressing default button on the map and destination

as Mashbrum tours Gilgit. It showed travel time between the

cities as well as distance in Kilo meters. The following screen

shot showing this in detail:

51

Figure 4.3: Direction showing by drawing polyline on the Map between to CitiesSkardu and Gilgit

52

4.2 Location on Map by Markers

The markers show the location prominently and user can easily

locate the desired place.It also shows picture and brief informa-

tion about location. It shows customs text and images setup

by the developer. The default markers could not show detailed

city information but using custom marker we can feed any in-

formation according to need of the user.

4.3 Weather forecasting and social networking

These both modules are working properly and shows required

information.

4.4 Location

This module shows offline information i.e name, address , phone

no etc about important location properly.

53

Chapter5

Conclusion and FutureEnhancements

54

5.1 Conclusion

The tourist guide application is an important tool for a traveler.

Most of the traditional methods are time consuming and re-

quired skilled human resources who suppose to guide the tourist

in field. The main purpose of the proposed project is to ensur-

ing to save the time of tourist, provide proper guidance and

directions to the tourist.

The tourist guide system provides an easy to use menu where

user can select different buttons according their needs . The se-

lects directions , locations , distances and some other options

according to their needs. The user can use these services using

Internet , Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Google maps.

The Google maps are interactive so the user easily locate the

places and the map draws a line to show proper direction. These

lines helps to reach the destination. The user can also get latest

weather forecast information of Skardu city.

This tourist guide uses latest maps which can display loca-

tions on the basis of latitude and longitude provided by users.

5.2 Future Enhancements

• Adding Google Street view

The proposed system shows pictures and images of a

location but we can show three dimensional images of the

place using Google Street view map API. It helps the user

a to see the location on every angle. Which is definitely

helpful to make any decision regarding that location and

clear visualization of the location.

• Off Line version

55

In future the proposed system could be converted into

off line version. Then this guide will be more helpful for the

tourist who do not have access to Internet facility. Making it

off line will increase its storage but it could be compromised

as the tourist will bet more benefits.

I hope that this project will helpful for other students and

developers to understand Android programming , Java language

and XML. In their research they will use Android application

development and they will use it and make more enhancements

in future research by identifying more research topics in these

directions.

56

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