Post Your Favorite ESRI Web Mapping Sites
April 26, 2007 54 Comments
I received a good suggestion via email:
How about creating a post where users can add their favorite ArcIMS/ArcGIS Server/ArcWeb sites? I think this would be great for those of us struggling with ESRI server products.
Sounds like a great idea. I’ll get this started with one of my favorite sites (ArcIMS no less):
About James Fee
James -
that site doesnt hardly work and is slower then molassess on a cold winter day… It worked ‘OK’ in IE though still really, really slow…
Well don’t let a slow ArcIMS server take away from the impressive coding. I think there is much at that site to inspire anyone.
fair enough – but it has to at least work in IE & FireFox for me to label it as “impressive coding”….
There is a lot of information available on that site though… if you have patience to wait…
I’ll give you the FF/IE issue. That is a huge drawback to any site that doesn’t allow 100% compatibility for both browsers.
@Kevin: So what is a good ESRI mapping site you’ve seen or created?
This has also been a favorite of mine. Kicks ass over the other local municipal web mapping applications here in the Greater Vancouver area.
District of North Vancouver’s Geoweb
http://www.geoweb.dnv.org/interactive/index.html
The Property Information Explorer shows how the tax assessment has changed over time!
Carlos, what’s the big deal about this site?? I bet even Dimitri & the Manifold guys could make a better one!
wow. terribly slow. But, a great look.
Any guesses on what it cost (software + consulting to build it).
http://shiptracker.noaa.gov
This is a nice site.
Looks like it uses a modified IMS .NET Blue Viewer template and pulls in different map services. Simple, but effective.
Hey guys, we’re getting ready to release our site to the public and I was wondering if anyone has any comments on it, since most of you have seen many mapping sites. I work in Forestry, so that’s the general theme of the site.
tkurk
Here is a nice one:
http://www.portailcarteq.com
the queries on the left are pretty cool!
its in French, but you’ll get the idea…
@scotso
LOL
here’s the site…
http://katmai.dnr.state.ak.us/mox5/fairbanks2.cfm
Fastest I’ve seen in Minnesota…
@Chris,
here is another good one:
http://gis.welland.ca/wims/default.asp
I’m wondering why none of the mentioned sites are loading neighbouring tiles when panning. It’s so web 1.0 when they don’t do that
@Chris,
that one, in addition to most of the sites listed here – do not support FireFox, FireBird, or Netscape…
Here’s a really focused that we recently launched… would love to hear some feeback.
http://gis.ashevillenc.gov/mapAsheville/developmentmapper
@Jason -
Nice work – thanks for the FireFox support – guess your not trying to eliminate 25% of the web “public”…
cheers….
My hometown has an awesome ArcIMS site: http://gisims.fcgov.com/website/genmap/viewer.htm.
@Carl0s – thanks for the props! P.I.E. draws a lot of traffic, it’s used widely by DNV staff and the public – realtors especially love it.
We’re in the pr0cess of migrating all our client apps (public IMS apps included) to ArcGIS Server/Web ADF. Should be an interesting year.
@tkurk –
You like MapOptix so far?
How about E-MapIt for Sacramento County CA?
http://generalmap.gis.saccounty.net/pv_blank.aspx?g=1&
@JC-
Well, we didn’t have any programming resources here to help develop the site, so MapOptics was chosen to allow easier customizations. GeoNorth is also based right here in AK, so that was also attractive. It’s been a bit cumbersome, but the support has been great and it seems to have all the tools we’ve been asking for. We are also slowing switching over to Server, so MapOptics may fall along the wayside if it’s not needed with the new capabilities of ArcGIS Server.
Personally, the problem I see in general with comments about web-mapping applications (IMS or otherwise), is that the focus is on the technology behind the site (cool programming!) as opposed to whether or not the site is actually useful for the intended users.
The site listed here are fun for me as a GIS geek to go poke around in, but I already have GIS skills, and I like geeking on the technology. But what about the other 95% of the population who doesn’t get excited about queries or tiling or label halos?
How many of these sites have really focused on a very specific application or user, and how many have just been an effort to “put all our spatial data out there for the public”?
Personally, I think the best web-mapping sites out there have very simple, direct focuses… i.e. http://www.housingmaps.com or the EPAs “Surf your Watershed” (http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm).
Neither of these sites use IMS technology, but they get the job done, and they’re both USED frequently!
http://129.79.145.7/arcims/statewide_mxd/viewer.htm
not favorite….first one which came to mind.
KoS
@James – the SC website you listed wasn’t slow at all – the fading in was cool and the property search was VERY fast.
What a great thread! Some great ideas out there.
ESRI should hire James to do product evangelism. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to get to work tomorrow and start coding.
@ Aaron B.: I was told by some ESRI folks at the UC last year that they did try and hire James but they couldn’t come to an agreement.
Honestly probably for the best, this blog is great because it is independent.
Here is one of my favorites interms of functionality has more than a few map services, they load fast and works in Firefox, Safari and IE.
The scenic resources one has lots of pictures of the area and the general map service has link to Pictometry images on the parcel SWISPRINTK…
(Sorry you need IE to view the Pictometry images)
http://gisweb.tompkins-co.org/tcimap/
Well, I’ll throw mine on here since it’s my favorite, as I wrote the dang thing; http://gis.co.arapahoe.co.us/website/staging/webmappub It’s become a light ArcView replacement for our users who don’t need the full suite of ArcMap functionality. Compared to the new slick Google/VE maps and their interfaces, it does show its age.
I agree with James, the South Carolina product is pretty cool… it’s a small commercially available site that a few other counties use, including one here in Colorado. I’m still trying to figure out how to implement the zoom transitions this site and now Google maps and VE use. (Anyone have any suggestions?) It’s these little animations between map refreshes that give these sites much of their perceived speed. The return of fresh map data still takes a few seconds, but the user is fooled by the eye candy while the map is retrieved.
That said, the site loses a few points these days for its lack of FF / Netscape support. We track usage of our site, and on average 15% of all hits come from a Mozilla-based browsers.
CA Department of Fish and Game IMAPS viewers. AXL-based ArcIMS (currently 9.1). Won first place for Internet Mapping at the ESRI conference a few years back. Several cool custom tools.
http://imaps.dfg.ca.gov
http://dataservice.eea.europa.eu/clc/default_content.asp
would be interesting to see a similar thread about opensource web mapping server sites?
http://maps.mtri.org/website/gleams-DSS/
for the water quality & PCB contamination risk tools (have to allow popups)
http://maps.mtri.org/website/gleams-template/
This one has more tools (water quality, PCB fish consumption, gene expression).
This one has a mercury fish consumption risk tool:
http://maps.mtri.org/website/GLEAMS_foxriver/
http://idv.civilsolutions.biz//login.aspx?username=Demo159&password=Demo159&siteservice=Hammonton
This is used as a light weight alternative to ArcView. It has an admin back end that lets you manage and create user profiles. We’ve worked with Pictometry to incorporate there data into this map viewer.
(Sorry IE only)
I’m a lurker here, but ditto on what Aaron B. said, this is a great thread topic – I’m seeing some stuff that really makes me want to get out there and try to improve my stuff. The Asheville and the Arapahoe County sites are some of the nicest IMS sites I’ve seen – great job! Since others have done it, I’ll throw out 2 that I’ve worked on (they aren’t the fastest on the planet, but have a lot of data behind them):
Kentucky Water Quality:
http://kgsmap.uky.edu/website/KGSWaterQual/
Kentucky Geologic Map Information:
http://kgsmap.uky.edu/website/KGSGeology/
Any suggestions/comments appreciated!
http://aims.jocogov.org/legal/imsterms.asp
and with lots of goodies:
http://ims.ursdcmetro.com/Run.htm
Hmm… Firefox & Netscape… All I have to say on that topic is I’m gland people aren’t yelling about Safari yet…
I use to get hate mail from Safari users until I informed them that their browser hadn’t been rewritten in 5+ years…
Anyways… Kudos to microsoft… kudos to ESRI… If it wasn’t for those two corporations I would still just be a “paper map” geographer!
And the ArcIMS site I’ve used most often for work – USGS Seamless Data Distribution site:
http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/
(I wonder what the resources are behind this)
Pingback: Post Your Favorite Open Source Web Mapping Sites
Why all the digging into IMS sites, when, after all, we were just informed of its 4/11 death?
http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2007/04/23/the-day-arcims-died/
With this in mind, I’d rather see some good ArcServer sites .
Although, admittedly, I just saw some great web apps in the above posts. Thanks for the examples everyone.
@Jesse – IMO your comments are spot on.
The vast majority of IMS applications are an attempt to be a replacement for desktop applications. Developers brag about how many layers users can access it their apps.
At our little Municipality, we use IMS primarily to supplement enterprise data-mining applications for our users. We call them “Targeted Applications”, rather than the 100 layer free-for-all most of these applications are.
Our usability testing has shown us that users want an app that does one thing very well, easily and intuitively.
But hey, to each their own.
@Mark – that hurts man.
OK everybody, how about one more in the ‘favorite’ series…
“Post Your Favorite ESRI Web Mapping Sites Built With 9.2 Web Manager/Web ADF”
I would but all of those sites are the same:
Server error in Application /webmapping blah blah blah.
So much for ADF
A shameless plug for a client site.
http://www.PhillyHistory.org/
The map is not the center of the action, but plays an important supporting role (provides geographic bounds for the search results).
NWI is simple but its good to see them actually doing something with data I collected.
http://wetlandsfws.er.usgs.gov/wtlnds/launch.html
This is the first fully functional web mapping site I found built with 9,2 Web ADF.
http://www.cuahsi.org/his.html
The German Mountaineering Club “Deutscher Alpenverein” has been building an extensive rock climbing database. About 500 rocks have been carfully researched and described, another 4,000 or so are still to be indexed.
The website is in German only but you may want to give it a try:
http://www.dav-felsinfo.de/ajaxdav/
The map server is ArcIMS running on Windows 2003 with Tomcat and Apache.
I haven’t seen any sites using the ArcGlobe. Do you guys know of any?
I’m responsible for this ArcIMS ActiveX site.
http://www.gis.catawba.nc.us/website/Parcel/index.html
I’m always looking for what others are doing. My gut feeling is that most sites are slow and not very intuitive. I would welcome any comments on this site
This site has information on Brazilian Amazon and it was developed with Mapserver, Chameleon and Php. I would welcome any comments on this site
The website address that I talked in last message is
http://www.imazongeo.org.br/
http://www.activeplaces.com/
This website allows you to search for sports facilities any where in England by a number of different ways. You can browse an interactive map of the country, search for facilities in your local area, use the name and address of a specific facility to find out more information