1.21. How to enable the monitoring of moving objects (tracking)
Note
The number of available trackers depends on the current plan. For Mini - 1 tracker, for Premium - 5 trackers
1.21.1. Introduction
Monitoring of moving objects function is based on registration of the user’s geolocation changing over time and is necessary to record the history of its movement on the ground. Tracking can be useful when you need to save a record of the route, track and further analyze the trajectories of objects moving in space.
1.21.2. How tracking works
A track is a sequence of points in space over time to be displayed on a Web Map.
Monitoring process looks like this - a person launches tracking in the mobile application, follows the route, stops tracking at the end. After that, the recorded tracks are sent to the Web GIS server and are displayed on the Web Map (if it’s configured).
1.21.3. Creating tracker groups
If you want see tracks on a Web Map, you need to set up your Web GIS - create special resource groups:
Create a resource Trackers group. This is a folder which contains trackers (devices that send data to Web GIS).
Pic. 1.115. Creating a group of trackers
Create a resource Tracker in the trackers group. To sync a tracker with a mobile device, you need to enter the device’s ID. It can be found in NextGIS Mobile/Collector app’s settings (Mobile: Settings -> My tracks -> under Send location to server).
Pic. 1.116. Creating a tracker
Pic. 1.117. Tracker settings
1.21.4. Tracking in NextGIS Mobile, Collector and Tracker
For now you can track in mobile apps such as NextGIS Mobile, NextGIS Collector and NextGIS Tracker. An Android smartphone is required for that.
1.21.4.1. 1. NextGIS Mobile
It’s the complete mobile GIS that allows you to create, edit and share geodata both online and offline.
First of all you need to install the application and sign in. Then activate the ‘Send location to server’ option in the ‘My tracks’ section of Settings.
Pic. 1.118. NextGIS Mobile Settings
Here you can also see the unique identifier (ID) of the device, which must be specified in the tracker settings in Web GIS.
Pic. 1.119. Send location to server. Device ID
The process of recording a track is described in details in the Tracks section of the documentation for NextGIS Mobile.
1.21.4.2. 2. NextGIS Collector
This application is intended for collective data collection. It allows the Web GIS’s owner to get people on a team and begin data collection using mobile devices.
Track recording process is similar to NextGIS Mobile’s algorithm but with some interface differences.
So in order to start a new track you need to tap on the ‘human’ icon in the upper panel and select ‘Start’.
Pic. 1.120. Tracker icon in NextGIS Collector
Pic. 1.121. Start recording track
The end of the recording can be done both in the panel in the background mode, and in the same context menu of the top panel by clicking “Stop”. The track record will then appear in your Web GIS.
Pic. 1.122. Stop recording track
Pic. 1.123. Pop-up notification
The track list is in the second line of the context menu for the track icons. Here you can enable/disable tracks, color them according to the palette, remove or share in GPX format.
Pic. 1.124. List of recorded tracks
3. NextGIS Tracker
This is a simple app for track recording.
1.21.5. Tracking results on the Web Map
Tracking results can be displayed on any Web Map of your Web GIS. For that create a ‘Web Map’ resource and open it. If procedures described in Section 3, are done - you will see the corresponding icon (trackers) in the left panel of the Web Map.
Pic. 1.125. Tracking interface on Web Map
The interface of trackers consists of 2 parts - a calendar and a tree of trackers (‘tracker groups’ folders and sets of trackers inside). A calendar allows you to filter recorded tracks by the date and time. Tracker’s tree contains the content of those resources that were created in Web GIS or were uploaded from the mobile application.
Pic. 1.126. Tracker tree and track operations on Web map
A track consists of 4 parts:
lines
points
current location
and long stopovers
Operations that are available by right click on the track:
Zoom to layer (display layer extent)
Zoom to the last point (center last track point)
Set up a filter for the last day (display a track for the last day)
Show the last activity (see hourly activity)
Pic. 1.127. Displaying track points, lines and current location on the Web Map
Click on a point to show a popup with tracking information: date, time, speed (km/h), height (m), course (bearing i.e. the horizontal direction of travel of this device in the range between 0 and 360 counting clockwise from the North), number of satellites and HDOP.
Pic. 1.128. Track point popup
Horizontal dilution of precision or HDOP is a parameter showing how precise the GPS readings are. The smaller the HDOP value, the higher the accuracy of horizontal coordinates. HDOP=1 is ideal, 3-4 is okay, if HDOP is over 6-8 it means that the position of satellites at the moment is unfortunate providing information with low accuracy. HDOP depends on the number of visible satellites, their position in the sky and relative to the receiver.
1.21.6. Reports
By clicking the ‘Reports’ button you can create various types of reports depending on selected tracker and parameters.
Pic. 1.129. Report tool icon
A separate page for receiving tracking reports opens. In the first block, you need to select the trackers for which you want to get an information summary.
The second block is for configuring the following parameters:
report type
time range
grouping by days/hours
Pic. 1.130. Tracker report
Note
For getting the spent fuel report you need to set up fuel consumption parameter in NextGIS Web settings (l/100 km)
Also you can export reports in GPX format.