Author: James

I’m sure you’ve all seen news that 3Dconnexion released their new SpaceNavigator for Notebooks today and I’m not going to waste your time with another review of how “life changing” it is to find crap in Google Earth. I did receive a review unit from 3Dconnexion with the idea that I would look at how it works with ArcGIS Desktop and other professional applications that I use. I’ve already reviewed the “full size” SpaceNavigator and come to the conclusion that it does improve productivity with ArcGIS (enough so that we’ve bought units for our GIS Analyst staff) in both 2D and 3D. So what does SpaceNavigator for Notebooks bring to the table?

First, it is smaller. Many of you have seen the graphics that show how much smaller the unit is. Usually when things get smaller I have trouble using them. Small mice make my hands cramp up so I was somewhat worried that the new unit would fall into the same trap. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks works well enough in my hand to be used every day with ArcGIS Desktop. The control seems even better. I’m not sure how to describe it other than the tilt function works better than the standard SpaceNavigator. I’m not sure if this is the case because the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks has a new mechanism inside or my existing SpaceNavigator has become worn with use. 3D control of ArcGlobe and ArcScene is as good as ever and of course you still have that great 2D control in ArcMap. As I’ve said before using the SpaceNavigator in your left hand and using the mouse with the right hand is much easier than trying to use the mousewheel to navigate ArcMap.

The SpaceNavigator for Notebooks comes with a leather case for travel, but I lost that at the Developer Summit last month so I’ve just been throwing it in my notebook bag. The case was nice, but isn’t really needed as there are no loose parts. The smaller size works well while on the airplane, fitting next to my smaller travel notebook on the seat tray, but if you’ve got a larger notebook you’ll still run into trouble. The USB cable is just about the right size, short enough to not be a hassle while traveling, but long enough to use when you are back in the office.

Now what I did have a problem with was the lighter weight. At first I found myself lifting the unit off the table and sliding it around. I’ve gotten much better at the lighter unit as I’ve used it over the last few weeks, but be warned that if you are rough with the existing SpaceNaviagator, you’ll have some teething problems with the new one. Other than that, it works just like its larger brother.

The full list of supported applications is here. One thing that needs to get addressed soon is “certified driver” for ESRI products. Now it isn’t that the driver for ArcGIS Desktop doesn’t work, because it works very well, but I just would rather have ESRI and 3Dconnexion work at getting an “officially supported” driver out soon.

Now is the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks worth the extra money ($129)? I’ve seen some reviews say the price twice the SpaceNavigator PE ($59). Now while that is true, the SpaceNavigator PE can only be used in “education or personal use” situations. The SpaceNavigator SE is $99 and has a “professional” license so that is the unit that needs to be compared to the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks as it also has a “professional” license. I think most professionals won’t balk at an extra $30 for portability and if you are a road warrior, weight savings can be critical. If space and weight have been a problem with your SpaceNavigator, you might want to take a look at the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks.

DISCLOSURE – 3Dconnexion provided me with a SpaceNavigator for Notebooks for evaluation.

Of course most everyone knows that OGR supports reading ArcSDE features, but writing wasn’t available. Well Hobu has the great news that he is looking for testers of OGR write for ArcSDE. This is great news for anyone who has ArcSDE and wants to use it with the many software applications/servers that user OGR.

Might be time to revisit this little project.

For those of you who didn’t get to see Build 600 in person at the Business Partner or Developer Summit this March, the ArcGIS Explorer team has posted a screenshot with the new “ribbon” interface. It does look really nice and the usability is much improved.

Dave Bouwman has written up a follow-up to his question at the Dev Summit closing session about ESRI overselling ArcGIS Server.

One issue I seem to run into a lot is the gap between client expectations of ArcGIS Server, and the reality. Although I did bring this up at the closing session of the Developer Summit, and we were told this would be addressed, I think it’s worth pointing out some specifics.

This is a HUGE issue to many of us in the consulting business as the realities of developing with ArcGIS Server sometimes doesn’t match up with expectations.

ESRI Salesman out the door to push ArcGIS Server capabilities to the masses.

The best time of the year is when baseball starts up again.

Opening Day 2008

Recommended reading: Baseball Hacks

Honestly I would just like them to make up their minds. MapInfo has a huge meaning to most of us in the professional GIS world even if we don’t currently or ever used the software, but you can bet my 98 year old Grandmother knows Pitney Bowes.

Hey, don’t take chances, take Pitney Bowes.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80kYK-Ee5Xw&w=560&h=315]

For all those who can’t resist installing the latest service pack for ArcGIS, here it is:

• ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5
• ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 5
• ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 5
• ArcGIS Image Server Service Pack 5

case you can’t remember if you care or not, check out the Service Pack 5 announcement.

Freakin’ sweet!

I had REST on my mind when this happened, but thanks to a valued contributer I was reminded about this event.

Robert Burkhardt, director of the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Topographic Engineering Center, was recently appointed as the Army’s first Geospatial Information Officer (GIO) by Headquarters, Department of the Army’s Geospatial-Enterprise Governance Board. As GIO, Mr. Burkhardt serves as the Army’s central manager responsible for coordination, assessment, and synchronization of all Army policies and standardization requirements for the geospatial information enterprise, which will help enable interoperability across battle command systems, bringing the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines closer to the realization of a unified common operational picture (COP). This COP allows the Department of Defense to deploy assets efficiently and effectively by providing the warfighter with the integrated capability to receive, correlate, and display a common tactical picture, including planning applications that may include location of friendly, hostile, and neutral units, assets, and reference points.

While I think many joke about the title of GIO, this is a huge deal for anyone involved with Army or DoD work as the integration of these autonomous systems that both warfighters and support staff use with geospatial information is critical to the mission. While I’m sure things won’t change overnight, the significance of the Army creating such a position cannot go unnoticed by others.

The original press release is here for those who like such reading

I don’t think there is anything wrong swinging by the office on the way home from the Developer Summit to pick up the 9.3 Beta disks to install tonight while I watch UCLA destroy Mississippi Valley State. My wife just doesn’t understand me but I’m happy with who I am.

Lets see, I have my .NET Sombrero beer hat and cigar. I’m ready to install the ArcGIS Beta

Well I think most would agree, the 2008 DevSummit was one of the best. There was tons of new stuff to learn about, much more attendees, more ESRI staff, better layout of the conference (the Community Center was particularly good) and better session (and more of them). So what did I take away from the conference?

ArcGIS Platform

So underneath it all, what has changed. Well first ESRI has really focused on bug fixes. I know we’ve all heard this before, but I think the new crash reporting dialog will give better feedback to ESRI and internally they’ve caught many bugs that might not have been caught without the crash reporter. In addition ESRI is using Coverity to help uncover hidden bugs in the code (read some of these case studies, very interesting stuff). I was told that they found stuff that has been hidden for years in the code that would have caused problems, but for one reason or another never was discovered. I think it is safe to say the 9.3 code base will be as bug free as anything they’ve ever released (hold for joke) and given how short this beta period is I think they are confident that they’ve delivered on this.

The focus at 9.3 is stability, performance and security. Those are 3 areas I know have been a great concern for most ESRI users/developers and the examples that we were given between 9.2 and 9.3 showed great performance increases (I can’t comment on stability until I’ve worked with 9.3 for a while). The new security improvements aren’t revolutionary, but address the specific concerns users have had with the product (specifically check out the security presentation on EDN from the DevSummit for the details).

ArcGIS Server

Well there are tons of new “exciting” features with 9.3 as we’ve all heard. First of the REST API is the real deal. The REST API can server up tiles to Google Maps and Virtual Earth (assuming you use the “web Mercator” projection) and the ability to use ArcGIS Server with Yahoo! pipes really opens the possibilities of taking ArcGIS Server and moving it into areas that we’ve not been working in. Providing results from Geoprocessing is as easy as appending f=kmz to the URL (don’t you just love RESTful services?). The JavaScript API is based on Dojo so you’ve got some power in there to make some really interesting JavaScript applications. The Google Maps and Virtual Earth (2D and 3D support) extenders allow you to bring your ArcGIS Server services right into consumer mapping products. The JavaScript API is hosted by ESRI and in the Akamai cloud so it should be very stable anywhere in the world. We’ll be seeing a ton of new applications out there based on the JavaScript API in the next year, that I’m sure of.

Now don’t forget about the .NET Web ADF (didn’t hit any Java sessions this year). It is now what ESRI is calling a “hybrid” model meaning that there is both server and client side stuff going on (rather than the total server side stuff at 9.2). The key new feature is ASP.NET AJAX, but it is still very compatible with 9.2 projects (usually just change a line or two of code and your old projects should still work). The core controls are now scriptable with the ASP.NET AJAX libraries so you can do a ton more on the client than you did before. The JavaScript API in the Web ADF is totally different than the other one (the Server JavaScript API for use with RESTful) so your code may have to be customized between the two versions if you jump between the REST API and the Web ADF. The Task Framework is much improved and you can now build them using User Contols. In addition they are releasing tasks into the code gallery on the ESRI Resource Center for Server (I’ll talk more about the Resource Centers later) so you’ll be able to see what ESRI has done and create your own modifications. The documentation in the Resource Center is so much better than what was available in 9.3. The examples are great and the explanations are detailed and well written. The performance of the Web ADF at 9.3 has increased at least 100% if not more. If you ever blended two data sources (one tiled, one dynamic) you know that it takes the dynamic one time to match the tile scheme that the tile scheme already existing. Now each resource has its own tiling scheme and the layers load much faster. The Web ADF (and obviously the JavaScript API above) will be “uncoupled” from the ArcGIS Server release schedule. This means that you won’t have to wait years for new features to be implemented. Silverlight 2.0 support will probably happen way before 9.4 arrives which would have us all complaining down the road I’m sure. Dave Bouwman has a great write-up on the details of the .NET session so head over to his blog to read up on his thoughts.

ArcGIS Explorer

I’ve already posted on the new features in the 480 release due in May and the 600/700 release due by the end of the year in my Plenary session post, but I’ll list some of the new features in Explorer that caught my eye. First off 480 will increase performance (multi-threaded), direct connect to SDE, GPX support, GeoRSS support and improved task frameworks and popups (the bubbles). Build 600 has the new Microsoft “ribbon” interface and looks great. From a usability standpoint, the information you are working with gets presented right to you and not hidden by interfaces. You will also be able to finally view the maps in 2D mode. I think this will be a boon to organizations who are using AGX as a decision making tool. Ease of use goes a long way. The “enhanced” ArcGIS Explorer SDK will allow you to embed AGX inside your applications. I asked how ESRI would charge for this SDK and they are still thinking about it (will the SDK be free and the deployments cost, will the SDK cost and deployments be free, or will everything be free).

ESRI Resource Centers

New at 9.3 is the ESRI Resource Centers. You’ve already been looking at the first one for quite some time (the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center) and the ones for ArcGIS Server, Desktop, Engine, Image Server, Mobile, IMS and Geodatabase are currently available for those in the 9.3 beta program. These are help centers where you can get support, online help, code samples, interactive SDKs and other resources that you can use with developing (or even using) the ArcGIS Platform. The forums are due to be re-launched based on the Beta forums (which means you’ll be able to subscribe to a forum topic via RSS). There will be many new blogs available from teams that haven’t blogged yet and there might be community aspects introduced as well. How this all interacts with the EDN site I have no idea.

Issues?

The one thing that scares me and Dave Bouwman did bring it up at the closing session is overselling what you can do with the new REST API and JavaScript API. Have sales staff running around that you can create “rich” JavaScript applications “consuming” ArcGIS Server services using only 12 lines of code is going to put many of us in a bind. JavaScript is easy to pick up, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be adding complex geoprocessing to your Google Maps mashup with one line. The speed that you can develop has increased, but the complexity will still be there. The JavaScript API will increase your productivity, no doubt. But telling everyone all you need is 12 lines of code will result in disappointment.

What now?

Well I’ve got both ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Desktop installed on my laptop and they seem very stable. Moving forward I think we’ll jump with both feet into the RESTful API and the JavaScript APIs. I think users will want to get their services published via the REST API as soon as possible so Google can start indexing them. What a great way for organizations who want to share their data with the community, just publish and let Google index your services. The ArcGIS Services Explorer is going to be a great tool to learn what is available out there. I had quite a few ArcIMS developers say that they can finally feel comfortable working with ArcGIS Server. The .NET and Java Web ADFs were too much for them and they were usually used to working with simple HTML pages. Compare the speed of JSON vs the speed of sending XML (AXL) requests to the server and see how fast you get a response. It really does highlight why the community at large has really moved to JSON.

So go get on the 9.3 beta, but you’ve got to hurry as 9.3 RTM could happen as early as “June”.