Author: James

The reviews are in and most seem to think that ArcWeb Explorer isn’t up to the task. Adena started off with a pretty light review, but that was about the best ArcWeb Explorer could hope for. Jithen brought up the speed and GUI issues (that most everyone noted) as well as it having trouble displaying tiles as you panned or re-sized the browser window. I have to admit, the demo I saw before had much smoother panning that this beta version does. I can only assume that this is a result of many people using it. The navigation does seem backwards to what most web mapping applications do (My preference is to use the mouse wheel for zoom and the left click for pan). I had some problems with Flash 7 on some other browsers I don’t use as much and didn’t tell me to upgrade (Yahoo Maps did this too so its not just ESRI’s problem). I also spend WAY too much time trying to figure out if there was anything exposed from the API, but I came up empty.

Anyway, the verdict is mixed, but since this is a beta we’ll be able to help ESRI figure it out. I’m more interested in the API and seeing what people can do with the Public Services and ArcWeb Explorer. ArcWeb Explorer isn’t a competitor for Google/Yahoo!/Microsoft, but a front end to ArcWeb Services. We got to keep that in mind, but if it isn’t at least an equal to their web mapping services, people will look elsewhere.

I would have posted this much sooner today, but I was nowhere near an internet connection. Ever since I saw this demoed at the 2005 UC, I’ve been waiting to get my hands on it. Andrea has a nice post outlining what features are interesting with ArcWeb Explorer. You can give it a shot whenever you want to by going to the ArcWeb Explorer page on ESRI’s site. It is quite different than Yahoo!’s flash mapping tool and uses SWF and REST to make the browsing experience really smooth (hint – right click on the map). I’m very happy to see how fast it is and I am looking forward to seeing the JavaScript API as soon as ESRI gets around to exposing it soon. Adena has a short review from an users perspective and I’ll try and get some more up after the API is released.

Seems many bloggers are reporting that the 9.2 beta is beginning to show up on their desks this morning. I’m traveling for the rest of the week so I’m going to have to wait and see what the new .NET web ADF can do.

…or I can live though others. 🙂 I hope to work on something for the ESRI Developer Summit Contest using the new 9.2 Beta (Probably ArcIMS or ArcGIS Server).

I’ve cleaned up my GIS blogroll and added a few blogs that I’ve discovered over the past month. As always you can view them here. If you know of any that aren’t in that list, please feel free to email me (james.fee at gmail.com). Not all of them are in Planet Geospatial so you might want to add some of these to your own RSS aggregator.

It appears that ESRI has rolled out a new search tool for their support site. The new search also has a link at the top to perform the same search in EDN. One nice feature is that you can customize your search settings by product (ArcCad, ArcView 3.x, ArcWeb, etc), areas (ArcScripts, Data Models, E-mail List, etc) and display (results/page, date created). This really simplifies the search process right from the front page of the support site, rather than having to go into the advanced search. EDN’s search has been similarly upgraded as well. We’ll have to see if the results have been improved as well, but the interface is much easier to work with.

Interesting, the MapPoint.WorldRoutable data source allows you to create routes that span multiple countries and even continents. On top of that, the API supports 13 languages for driving instructions on these routes. The MSDN Library has more on this MapPoint Web Service so if you do live somewhere other than the United States, you might want to take a look at Microsoft’s offering. The Virtual Earth Weblog also teases at what might be in store for the next Virtual Earth/Live Local release.
via Virtual Earth Blog

PostGIS 1.1.1 is now available up on their website. It appears to be a minor release so I’m not sure if we’ll be rushing out to update just yet. Then again my DBA hasn’t been one to not pass up an update. 🙂 Still waiting for locking and mult-versioning, but maybe that will happen soon. Oracle Spatial is still the gold standard in my book.

Phillip Holmstrand has put together a very interesting site that allows you batch geocode addresses in your browser. He’s using the Yahoo! Maps API to geocode address you can pretty much just copy and paste out of any spreadsheet. I love how its so easy to use, no longer will you have to pay people money to geocode addresses as just about anyone can use it. Best of all it uses REST so there is no reloading your browser window while you perform the tasks. Its a great idea with a wonderful interface.

Both Art Haddad and Steve Citron-Pousty have posts up asking for users to ideas for their respective SIGs. I’ll keep an eye out for the Cold Fusion SIG and post back when I learn more.

In regards to my insistence that the Data Interoperability extension be included with ArcGIS ArcView by default, I’ve been emailed that at least OGC GML Simple Features data will supported without the extension license. Also that KML support will also be included with ArcGIS 9.2. The beta should be here next week so we’ll have to see what exactly this entails.