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A scalable architecture for 3D map navigation on mobile devices

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Abstract

Mobile devices such as smart phones or tablets are rapidly increasing their graphics and networking capabilities. However, real-time visualization of 3D maps is still a challenging task to accomplish on such limited devices. In this paper, we describe the principles involved in the design and development of a scalable client–server architecture for delivering 3D maps over wireless networks to mobile devices. We have developed a hybrid adaptive streaming and rendering method that distributes the 3D map rendering task between the mobile clients and a remote server. This architecture provides support for efficient delivery of 3D contents to mobile clients according to their capabilities. As a proof of concept, we have implemented a prototype and carried out exhaustive experiments considering different scenarios and hundreds of concurrent connected clients. The analysis of the server workload and the mobile clients performance show that our architecture achieves a great scalability and performance even when using low-end hardware.

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Notes

  1. Available at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/large_models/ps.html [accessed 28 May 2012].

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Acknowledgments

This work has been partially supported by the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa of the Junta de Andalucía and the European Union (via ERDF funds) through the research project P07-TIC-02773.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Politécnica Superior, University of Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas, Edificio A3, 23071, Jaén, Spain

    José M. Noguera, Rafael J. Segura & Carlos J. Ogáyar

  2. Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial Barcelona, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Diagonal 647, 808028, Barcelona, Spain

    Robert Joan-Arinyo

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  1. José M. Noguera
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  2. Rafael J. Segura
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  4. Robert Joan-Arinyo
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Correspondence to José M. Noguera.

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Noguera, J.M., Segura, R.J., Ogáyar, C.J. et al. A scalable architecture for 3D map navigation on mobile devices. Pers Ubiquit Comput 17, 1487–1502 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0598-y

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