Link – Value of GIS
I can’t bring myself to actually watch that video, but I hope this is the start of something similar to what Channel 9 is doing over at MSDN. I think video is a great method of showing what ESRI is doing behind the curtain. It is so hard to figure out what is going on over there that a behind the scenes view would be great.
No more PR videos though on EDN, I’d guess most of us going there already know the “Value of GIS”.
Link – An Interview with James Fee of spatiallyadjusted.com
Howard’s done another podcast, and this one is an interview with me. It worked out pretty well over Skype so go click on the link above and take a listen.
Link – Mashups and Web Services
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the Google API, and think that I’ve put together a pretty good application of it. But ArcWeb Public Services seems to be much more data rich and correct. Google maps (the service, not the API) can’t even find my house. ESRI can find it, show thematic data about the area, give me topographical data, display a much better satellite image, and in general is just better (from a data standpoint).”
Link – ArcWeb Mini-HOWTO
“Creating mapping applications for the Web with ArcWeb Public Services can be daunting at first, so here are some helpers to get you started. Part of the code used here comes from Andrea Rosso’s fine example.”
Kudos for Walt for posting a writeup on how to create a ArcWeb project via PHP.
Link – TerraServer Download for ArcGIS 9.0 (Version2) via ArcScripts
I was just thinking as I was using this extension that finding extensions, scripts, and other software created by ESRI is very difficult. Much of this gets lost in the ArcScripts and overlooked by many GIS users. Thomas Emge’s TerraServer Download toolbar is excellent and includes the source code if you want to use it for your own projects. I’m sure there is a ton of similar projects that exist both on ArcScripts and on many workstations at ESRI. It would be nice if there was a place ESRI developers could upload these projects in a sandbox were users could play with them (with the understanding that anything in the toolbox isn’t supported by ESRI). Anything from ArcGIS Desktop to the server and development products could be there for users to look and and implement in their own workflows and projects.
Link – More pros support Google Earth
“I’ve never heard of Ambercore before, but that’s because I’m no GIS pro. What I do know is that there is a definite trend by pro GIS software vendors to accommodate KML. It means Google Earth is becoming the default free viewer for spatial information.”
I tend to agree. Google Earth has much going for it (including that the install is only 11mb compared to ESRI’s “free” ArcReader which is about 100mb) and one has to begin to question the need for ArcExplorer. If Google can get Google Earth out of Beta (which they seem to milk for all its worth) then it might become the default viewer. If Google waits too long and somehow ESRI hits a home-run with ArcExplorer then it might be a free for all. Of course there isn’t any information from ESRI about ArcExplorer so smart GIS professionals are beginning to use Google Earth since we don’t know what to expect from ArcExplorer.
Link – Rasmus’ 30 second AJAX Tutorial via digg
I find a lot of this AJAX stuff a bit of a hype. Lots of people have been using similar things long before it became “AJAX”. And it really
isn’t as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. Here is a
simple example from one of my apps.
Normally I don’t bother too much with these “30 second tutorials” you see posted all the time, but this one is great. If you know even a little PHP (or some other server side scripting languages) you should be able to follow this tutorial.
Looks like they are finally beginning to build the light rail station outside our office in Tempe, AZ. They have a simulation to what it will look like (why do people build things in the desert without shade structures? Those “sails” are just not enough). Being an ASU alumni, I love the excavator in ASU colors.
Link – Not a Mashup
“Yes, one can use the ArcWeb SOAP API to push point data to the service to be rendered onto a map and display the resulting map image in a web page, but this is not what we’re talking about when we say mashup. A web map mashup, in the chicagocrime.org sense, combines data (locations, images, etc) and maps in your browser. The browser is where the mashing occurs, increasingly with the use of tools like Greasemonkey, not a GIS server.”
I’ve actually thought much about this as every time I write the word “mashup” on my blog, but I’ve decided to call anything that takes two desperate sources a mashup (I guess by my definition everything done in GIS is a mashup). Maybe we need to define mashup more, but lets just say I’ll use the lowercase form of mashup instead of the more formal Mashup. All mashups are not created equal, but when dealing with a buzzword what is one supposed to do?
I just checked out Walt’s progress on his ArcWeb mashup and it is looking great. I like how he put buttons right on the map much like Google Maps does (but he added a “Topo” button that Google doesn’t offer). Considering where this was last week, I’m very impressed with his progress.
**Update – **Walt offers up his ArcWeb Zoom PHP code on his blog.