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Map Suite GIS Newsletter

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January 2007

All About Cygnus Track GPS Tracking Devices

How to Have Your GPS Devices Integrated with Cygnus Track

With Cygnus Track, any GPS tracking device on the market can be seamlessly integrated without changing anything on the software side. This is where listeners come into the picture. Listeners are needed to bridge the gap between the GPS hardware—tracking devices—and the GPS tracking software. At ThinkGeo, we can design custom listeners for your devices, allowing you to keep your current devices and save lots of money in the process. With Cygnus Track's extensible design, there is no need to replace your current GPS devices.

Device Library

Cygnus Track's device library currently includes some of the most popular GPS hardware devices on the market, such as the Enfora MT-GL, Satamatics SAT 101 & SAT 201, Orbcomm, and Falcom Stepp II, to name a few. However, if your GPS devices are not currently supported by Cygnus Track, we can write a custom listener just for you!

How Listeners Interact With GPS Devices

Listeners, which are essentially programs running on a hosted server, bridge the gap between Cygnus Track and your GPS devices. For example, an Enfora MT-GL would have an Enfora MT-GL listener that will get and parse tracking data from the Enfora device and map the data to Cygnus Track.

With listeners, there are four main steps that must be completed in order to successfully interact with a GPS device. The first step is to physically get the tracking data from the GPS device. The second step is to parse and decode the tracking data that it received and map the data to Cygnus Track. The third step is to communicate events back to the GPS device. These events are things that have happened within Cygnus Track. And finally, the last step is to integrate the listener so that it is an extension of Cygnus Track.

Find Out More

For more information about Cygnus Track Custom Listener Integration, please request to have a member of our sales staff contact you or email our professional sales team at sales@thinkgeo.com. You can also call toll-free 1-866-847-7510 to speak directly to a sales representative. To learn more about other custom and professional services that we offer, please visit our Professional Services page.


Not Sure Which Products are Right For You?

No problem! Let our team of experts help you get the package that's right for you and your organization. Tell us what you want to accomplish and we will work with you to get the product that best fits your needs.

Email:
sales@thinkgeo.com
Phone:
(866) 847-7510 (Toll Free)
(785) 727-4133 (Outside the U.S.)
Fax:
(877) 250-7122
Web site:
http://thinkgeo.com

Cygnus Track Devices and Data Networks: Which GPS Device is Right for You?

Cygnus Track, ThinkGeo's web-based GPS tracking application, supports and makes extensive use of various data networks, such as GSM, SMS, and GPRS, all of which are cellular-based. In addition to cellular-based networks, Cygnus Track also uses satellite networks. In fact, the GPS devices used in Cygnus Track rely on these data networks and combine them with the technologies of the Global Positioning System.

The devices that we currently support use two main communication network systems to interact with Cygnus Track: cellular and satellite. No matter if it's cellular or satellite, one of the major advantages of Cygnus Track is that you can mix and match different GPS devices within your installation.

Cellular vs. Satellite: Strengths & Weaknesses

GPS devices that use a cellular network to communicate with Cygnus Track have several advantages that include low costs of the network, ease of use, and the ability to quickly track vehicles. These cellular-based devices can report the position of a vehicle every minute or two. The major weakness of cellular-based tracking devices is that coverage areas can be limited. As a result, tracking assets in remote areas of the world can be difficult.

Tracking devices that are satellite-based have the major advantage of worldwide tracking coverage, even in remote areas. However, the drawback is that satellite network costs are more expensive, and the GPS devices can sometimes have trouble finding satellites within a line-of-sight.

Find Out More!

For more information about the tracking devices that are currently supported by Cygnus Track or to learn more about Cygnus Track, please request to have a member of our sales staff contact you or email our professional sales team at sales@thinkgeo.com. You can also call toll-free 1-866-847-7510 to speak directly to a sales representative.


Free Product Downloads!

Please click any of the items listed below to download free evaluation demos of our most popular products. These evaluation demos are fully-functional and contain no locked or inaccessible features. By trying out our free product demos, you'll see first-hand what our products are capable of doing by testing them in real-world project environments.

So what are you waiting for? Try them for free now!

Additional product details and specifications are available on our Evaluation Downloads page.

Tech Tip


Dot Density Renderer: Discover How Neat It Is!

The DotDensityRenderer is used to represent data by drawing randomly placed dots inside polygons. This is a good way to show population density with each point representing a certain number of people.

Compared to the ClassBreakRenderer, the DotDensityRenderer gives you a better idea of the population density, regardless of whether we use the total population field or the population density field.

For the total population field, the ClassBreakRenderer would use the same color to show two counties with similar populations but vastly different areas (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Class Break Render By Total Population
Figure 1: Class Break Render By Total Population

For the population density field, the ClassBreakRenderer can use the same color to show two counties with both different areas and different populations (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Class Break Render By Population Density
Figure 2: Class Break Render By Population Density

However, with the DotDensityRenderer, you get a better representation of the population distribution throughout a territory because each point represents a certain number of people (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Dot Density Renderer
Figure 3: Dot Density Renderer

In the code snippets below, the map layer for the U.S. is used where one point represents 50,000 people.

In VB.NET:

Dim DDR As New DotDensityRenderer("POP1990", New PointSymbol(PointStyleEnum.Circle, Brushes.Black, 4), 50000);

In C#:

DotDensityRenderer DDR = new DotDensityRenderer("POP1990", new PointSymbol(PointStyleEnum.Circle, Brushes.Black, 4), 50000);