Track Gap Detector at 10.2.1

[AdamRepsher]

Hello All,

I know that there is a generalized explanation of what the gap Detector is HERE, but I am looking for either some examples of use within a process or some tutorials.  I have not been successful setting up what I thought should be a very easy email notification of when a data stream stopped, but I am having no success.

I have a lightning strike feed from WeatherBug that covers Pennsylvania.  I use a GEP "Receive Text from a TCP Socket" in client mode and send a handshake message to authenticate.  When there is no lightning activity, the service sends a "keep-alive" message (in the message, the lightning type code "9" tells me it is a keep-alive message so that I can filter it out) every 15 seconds.  After about 6 to 8 hours, the remote server sends a "RESET" packet to my server and then stops sending messages.  I have talked to the data provider, and they simply say that I need to have my software send a new connect message....

So right now, I am simply trying to have GEP send an email message for when it doesn't hear a message from the data provider after 20 seconds.  I set that up, along with an email output, with no success:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]34535[/ATTACH]

What might I be doing wrong?  I am trying to test this setup, but it will not respond when I simply stop the input.  I have set up a GeoEvent Simulator with a stream of 5 packets.  After the 5 packets are sent, no email.

I also am wondering if and when I get this actually working, how am I supposed to tell what the event is?  A stopping of the stream or a start of the stream?  I don't believe that there is a new GeoEvent Definition created....

Thanks,
--Adam

[ChrisMcNamara]

Adam,

Be sure to have one of your data fields tagged as a TRACK_ID.   Even though I'm guessing your lightning strike data doesn't really conform to "tracks", the Track Gap Detector is designed to detect when a specific track stops reporting  (think of a Delivery truck that has a vehicle ID.). 

Since you may not have a TRACK_ID field, you may want to just add a field called "Track", fill it with a constant value like 'Track' and tag it as the TRACK_ID.   Doing this will effectively make teh Track Gap Detector detect when your data flow stops since it will see the data as one single track.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[AdamRepsher]

Thank you Chris,

RJ Sunderman‌ has been helping me out with this very same piece.  Not working yet, but we will get there.  I hope to remember to post any progress here.

Thanks again!

--Adam

[RJSunderman]

Hello Adam / Chris -

Thank you Chris for jumping in with advice on this ...

My apologies to those of you who checked the product gallery prior to 22-March-2014, when new processors such as the Track Gap Detector were available in the released product, and could not find tutorial documentation. The tutorials on are updated periodically, as quickly as we can get to them.

In Module 5 of the most recent update to the product introduction tutorial there is an exercise specifically covering the Track Gap Detector.

The fundamental design behind the Track Gap Detector is to listen for events, cache received TRACK_ID values, and when a given track has not reported for a specified period of time - begin broadcasting notification events that expected data is no longer being received. The intended use was for vehicles or other assets in a well-known reporting group. The processor is not setup for monitoring an inbound connector to determine that a data provider itself has gone off-line.

As Chris suggested, you could use a Field Calculator configured with a constant string for the processor's expression and add a generic TRACK_ID to all events from a particular data provider. I would configure the Field Calculator processor to create a new field, of type String, and apply the out-of-the-box TRACK_ID tag to the new field. Remember when working with string values to enclose literal strings in single-quotes in the processor's expression field.

Hope this information helps -
RJ

[BrianLocke]

I was doing something similar with Automated Flight Folowing, I ended up writing an application in c# that would send the request again.  What Also could be done is you could create your on TCP transport-Adaptor that would be specific to that Port/Service etc-- when It senses the connection has been dropped resend the connection request.  To dev your own transport is pretty simple--It's in Java and uses maven but is not too scary

Extending ArcGIS GeoEvent Processor—Real-Time Data Feeds and Sensors | ArcGIS for Professionals‌

[AdamRepsher]

Brian,

thank you for the help!

[LakshmananVenkatesan]

Hi,

Has some one update the correct link for tutorial?. I am looking for email notification when vehicle tracking stops.

[BrianLocke]

I believe the gallery now has the 10.3 updated tuts, they've also updated quite a bit when it comes to emails.

[RJSunderman]

We have just today completed rework to the Notifications tutorial using the 10.3.1 product release and are copy editing the tutorial now. There are some changes to screenshots illustrating how to configure the outbound connectors for notifications, but the existing Notifications tutorial (10.2.x)​ should be sufficient to help you design e-mail notifications. We should have an updated Notifications tutorial uploaded this week or early next week.

The notifications tutorial covers how to design GeoEvent Services to generate SMTP e-mail notification, SMS Text notification (which also relies on SMTP), as well as XMPP Instant Message. You should not expect to find help on how to configure an e-mail notification output, for example, in the product introduction tutorial. Some topics have to be split out to different tutorials as we work to manage the scope the product introduction tutorial - by far our largest tutorial. A 10.3 revision for the product introduction tutorial was released early February 2015.

The product team works to update the tutorials as quickly as we can get to them. Many of the 10.3 connectors (Twitter, Instagram, etc.) had not been uploaded simply because their tutorial had not been updated so we didn't consider the offering complete. We've recently adjusted our release criteria and at least upload compiled *.jar files on the Gallery even if a revised tutorial is not available.

If we have to release a connector without a tutorial, you'll find a README in the bundle you download indicating that content and exercises in the previous version's documentation should provide sufficient information to get started using the upgraded component ... just be aware minor differences could exist between the content, exercise steps, and screenshots as you are going through it.

Tutorials are available on the ArcGIS GeoEvent Gallery​​​. If the content provided by an earlier release of a tutorial does not answer questions you have, please e-mail the GeoEvent Team at geoevent@esri.com and let us know. Please include GeoEvent Tutorial Feedback in the subject of your e-mail. This will help us determine which tutorials are the most important to the user community at large.