Exercise 4: Setting Up the Tracking Simulator

Complexity: Beginner Data Requirement: Installed with software

Now that you have set up a tracking service for real-time taxi data and enabled its distribution in the Tracking Server Connector data link, the system is ready to receive and distribute real-time taxi data.

In this exercise, you will use a utility called the Tracking Simulator to create a simulated real-time data feed to supply your tracking service. The Tracking Simulator will use a static file (.xml format) to create a simulated data flow of taxis driving around San Diego. The data will "played" in a loop to simulate a continuous real-time data feed that can be distributed to Internet and desktop clients through Tracking Server.

Setting Up the Data Simulator

The taxi data used in this exercise resides in an .xml file in the tutorial data folder installed with Tracking Server. The default location of the tutorial data is in the <Tracking Server Installation Directory>\Tutorial folder. For example, a typical path would be C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\TrackingServer\Tutorial.

Steps:

1. Click Start > Programs > ArcGIS Tracking Server > Utilities > Tracking Simulator to open the Tracking Simulator.
2. If you are running the Tracking Simulator on the same machine as Tracking Server, then leave the default value of localhost for the Server Name text box.

   It is also possible to run the Tracking Simulator from a different machine than Tracking Server. To do this, you need to enter the name of the machine where Tracking Server is running in the Server Name text box.

3. Click the Browse button and navigate to your tutorial data folder where your taxi.xml file resides.
4. Select taxi.xml and click Open.

   The .xml file with its full path appears in the Source File field of the simulator.

Tip:

The Tracking Simulator plays back data at the requested rate. The actual time stamps contained in the .xml file are not used. Instead, the Tracking Simulator assigns a time stamp to each data message based on the current time. If you create a simulated data feed in the future and you want the actual time stamps contained in the .xml file to be used, you can change this setting by clicking File > Options.

5. In the Data Rate field, type 500 as the number of milliseconds you want between data messages. At this data rate, two taxi locations per second will be drawn on the map in a connected client application.
6. Check the Continuous Loop check box so that the sample data will repeat and simulate a continuous real-time data feed.

If the Continuous Loop check box is not checked, the data in the .xml file will only be simulated one time, and then the data flow will stop.
7. Click Start.

   The simulated data begins flowing. Notice that a counter in the lower right corner of the dialog box keeps track of the total number of messages that have been published.

8. To confirm that the simulated data feed is being received by Tracking Server, click on the Connections tab of Tracking Server Manager and use the F5 key to refresh the display.
You should see the Tracking Server Connector listed in the list of connections, and the number of messages received should be increasing each time you refresh. There should also be a connection listed representing the Tracking Simulator, and the number of messages transferred should be increasing at the same rate.

Now that you have set up a tracking service and you are supplying that service with data, you can view the data points in real-time as they are delivered to connected clients. The next exercise will show you how to view the taxi tracking service that is being distributed by Tracking Server.

Proceed to the next exercise