Author: James

The ESRI Support Center News Blog has an entry detailing some changes coming and some things that have already changed. I wonder if they’ll finally update their search engine to recognize ArcSDE?

Care to take a look at the questions that attendees to the Dev Summit asked and ESRI answered? Some questions/answers of note:

Q: What are the plans for supporting the PostgreSQL database with ArcGIS Server (ArcSDE technology) and when will this functionality be available?

ArcGIS Server (ArcSDE technology) will support the PostgreSQL database at the ArcGIS 9.3 release. This will further enhance ESRI’s commitment to make its technology compatible and integrated with Open Source software technologies. The enterprise geodatabase and all of its standard capabilities will be fully supported. It will be OGC/ISO compliant and the PostGIS geometry type will be supported. In addition, ESRI will also provide its own spatial type for storing geometries in PostgreSQL.

Q: How many people are registered for the Developer Summit?

There are 1,131 people pre-registered with approximately two-thirds being first time attendees. This is a significant increase from last year’s attendance of 716 and points to the growing need to incorporate mapping and GIS functionality into custom applications. Last year’s attendance was greater than we anticipated, which resulted in many crowded session rooms. One of the improvements for this year is that we scheduled larger rooms. Although online registration is closed, onsite registration is available at the summit starting Monday, March 19, 2007.

OK not exactly deep questions and answers, but that is why there is a Developer Summit. Trust me, the hard questions will be asked and answered in Palm Springs next week. See you there.

**Update – **Dave Bouwman has some more analysis at his blog. I find it interesting that ColdFusion is battling Mac OS X support at the bottom of the Developer Technologies graph.

The ArcPad Team Blog annouces that ArcPad 7.1 is now available for beta applications.

In ArcPad 7.1 feature classes including relationships defined in the Geodatabase are extracted to a single ArcPad AXF File. Relationship rules including relationship classes as well as the subtypes and domains are maintained and enforced at the database level instead of forms (eliminating the overwrite which happens at the previous Check Out). Each feature can support multiple sets of attributes in separate tables. The user will be able to edit the features as well as the related tables in the field.

Interesting, though I don’t think I can handle another file type. I’m not too high on ArcPad for reasons I’ve outlined before, but since that post I’ve run into many people who swear by ArcPad. Of course our GPS unit has ArcPad built into it so I guess I should be thankful I don’t have to go through the hassle of Pathfinder Office like I used to deal with years ago.

Its been out a over a week and I was waiting until there was a “real” post before commenting on it, but the ESRI Support Center News Blog seems to be in a holding pattern. It should be a great way to get information out about the ESRI support site as many notices get lost in the clutter of the support homepage. I’m sure we’ll hear something about it at the BPC or maybe the Dev Summit. In the meantime you can always go here.

Paul Ramsey caught my eye last week when he posted the following:

ESRI will be participating in FOSS4G 2007 as a silver sponsor! This is a great chance for ESRI to articulate some kind of framework for co-existence with open source alternatives, and for the open source community to educate ESRI on the options for interoperability.

Go ahead and read his post as I think his thoughts on how ESRI might start a relationship with the open source community.

Looks like Microsoft is working hard on some interesting features for Virtual Earth.

The map-search technology required Microsoft to get millions of street-level pictures of Seattle’s buildings and landmarks. Those pictures were added to a database and indexed by distinguishing features that can be cross referenced to pictures sent in by users.

Increasingly sophisticated mobile phones are becoming a popular device to search for maps, directions and other local information and Microsoft said the service is a logical next step.

“When you are using a mobile phone, then inputting text can sometimes be difficult. So we decided to make the camera the input,” said Xing Xie, a Microsoft researcher who was demonstrating the technology.

Fascinating how all these acquisitions Microsoft has made over the past few years are beginning to work together to make what could be a very useful application. Being a Geographer I’m never lost, but my wife can’t find her way out of a closet. I could see this being great value to her (as opposed to call him and trying to describe where she is over a cell phone).

It looks like this technology is very hard to get working so it might be a long time before it gets out of the Microsoft research labs and into the public.

Might be time to update the old Motorola

Are you ready for the ESRI Developer Summit? I keep hearing stories about ice/snow and cold weather somewhere in the world, but I’m choosing to ignore it. Remember to pack your warm weather clothes on your way to Palm Springs. Phoenix is already hitting 90 degrees.

I was just reading in Google Earth Blog about some who put their Resume/CV in KML. KML isn’t exactly rocket science and to me it hearkens back to all those “HTML” resumes that people sent out in the late 90’s. Plus it isn’t like people in the corporate world can actually read it legally unless they purchase Google Earth Pro (though I guess you could always view in Google Maps). Just because something can be done, doesn’t make it a great idea. If someone attaches a KML to a email asking for a job I can tell you my company won’t accept it and many others won’t either. Your resume should be in PDF or better yet sent snail mail (I’m sure most companies are like mine in this regard).

Gordon Gecko isn’t impressed with KML

Lost in all the big celebration of the One Year Anniversary of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation I noticed that there is an OSGeo Store. Now you too can look smart wearing all that wonderful OSGeo clothing and even magnets! And for that special person in your life:

**Update – ** At the risk of offending people at large on the internet, I’ve decided to remove the image above and toss it to the trash. sigh

Hint, it was a thong…

Well it looks like the Open Source GIS Gathering that happened last year at the ESRI 2006 User Conference will occur again.

Folks, save the datum… We’re tentatively planning a 2nd Annual Open Source GIS Gathering to be held on Monday, June 18th – probably starting early afternoon, ending late in the evening. The same Monday of the Plenary Session(s) of another famous GIS conference held in San Diego. Don’t be lost in space… San Diego State University’s Visualization is easy to find via trolley from the San Diego Convention Center area.

We filled the visualization lab in 2006, and arrangements are being made to accommodate more. Suggested ideas for this year include technical workshops and round-table discussions.

If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in presenting on an open source GIS topic, or conducting a technical workshop, please contact Dana Nibby here: danaspatial at yahoo dot com.

There’s now a mailing list for OSG-SD 2007. If you think you may be interested in attending, please sign-up below:

http://lists.telascience.org/mailman/listinfo/osg-sd

Spread the word to the extent possible.

Spatial Regards,

Dana

Everyone who showed up had a wonderful time and I suggest anyone who is planning to go to the UC should seriously look at attending. It will open your eyes believe me. And don’t worry, it isn’t an ESRI bitch session. While I’m sure there are plenty of people who feel like that around, the talks and demos at the OSG last year were excellent and showed the power of open source GIS projects.