Spatially Adjusted

Author: James

  • Where is ArcGIS Explorer?

    For years ESRI has had versions of ArcExplorer. The first versions were based upon MapObjects while the later ones have grown out of ArcIMS Author. They work pretty well for most people, but their limitations are beginning to show. I think ESRI should introduce a new ArcGIS client that would enable people who want and need to view GIS data, but not perform analysis. The current versions of ArcExplorer don’t support Personal Geodatabases, Coverages and other GIS data formats that users need to see. ArcReader does a good job of displaying the data, but the PMF documents can only be created in ArcGIS with ArcPublisher and no data can be added in ArcReader.

    A simple solution would be to sell a version of ArcReader that allows the ability to read PMF/MXD as well as add data to them. Leave the ArcToolbox and ArcCatalog out of it and sell it for about $49. I don’t think this would hurt the sales of ArcView as people who need to edit or perform analysis on GIS will still need at least an ArcView license. This ArcGIS ArcExplorer (it should be called ArcView, but that is already taken) would be able to connect to ArcSDE, ArcIMS services, ArcWeb as well as read all the GIS formats that ArcView can. I’m guessing one could create such an application using ArcGIS Engine, but I’d rather just have our planners, engineers, biologists and other users of GIS have an ESRI product on their desk. The cost of ArcView is just too much to put on as many desks as we have users who want it (since most of our clients are using Geodatabases we can’t have them view the data sets with ArcExplorer).

    ESRI should be putting GIS tools in front of as many people as possible and this new ArcGIS Explorer would fit the bill very well. There are just so many datasets on the internet for download and if people could access them even on the home PC with ArcGIS Explorer they would have a tool to introduce them to GIS and eventually become an ESRI customer.

  • Busy Month Ahead

    I’ve got one heck of a month planned. I start by visiting a client that I haven’t seen in some time to try and help them get a handle on their GIS. They have been so busy during the past year that they have not had much change to make sure their GIS is as compliant as it needs to be. We’ll spend this week trying to prioritize what datasets they need either cleaned up or created and then go from there. I’ll be home a week, but then I travel to a new client to see what we can do to help them with their web based GIS. The implementation needs to be ESRI based, but we might still get to do some interesting things on the backend with Oracle Spatial. After that, I’m home for a week and then it is off to the ESRI User Conference in San Diego. I’m glad I have those weeks in between to clean up loose ends in the office and check on the progress of existing projects.

  • Roger Tomlinson’s Book, Thinking About GIS, Details GIS Planning for Managers

    Think_gis

    Roger Tomlinson’s Book, Thinking About GIS, Details GIS Planning for Managers

    The revised and updated second edition of this book, which provides planning wisdom for implementing a GIS, is now available from ESRI Press.

    If you haven’t read this book and work in the GIS industry, you should go ahead and buy it now. Heck, now it is in paperback making it an even better deal.

  • Tracking GIS Across the Blogosphere

    Trying to find GIS information on the Internet can be like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Well lucky for us we have a couple tools that enable us to see what other users are saying about topics we care about. I use my RSS aggregator to read the blogs that I feel keep me up to date the most, but what about the thousands that mention GIS?

    Enter Technorati, PubSub and Feedster. These three tools allow me to use keywords or “tags” to find blog postings that match terms that I want to follow. What is ever better about them is you can subscribe to them with your RSS aggregator. I will use the keyword/tag “ESRI” to show you how each of them finds and displays blog entries.

    PubSub is a little different than those two as you really need to create the keywords yourself, but I think I get better results with PubSub than Technorati or Feedster.

    I’ve got PubSub feeds for ESRI, ArcGIS, PostGIS, Oracle, MapServer, Ka Map, Cartography and Geospatial. I don’t have one for GIS because you get many results for GIs (think Iraq). Any time almost anyone posts about the above terms on their blog, I get to read the post. I know many users know about these services, but if you don’t you should really check them out.

  • The “New” Spatially Adjusted

    I’ve moved from Blogger to TypePad to get better control over the site. You’ll also notice that the web address is now http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com rather than the more complex old address. Make sure you are using the following RSS feed rather than any old ones to make sure you area always up to date.

    http://feeds.feedburner.com/SpatiallyAdjusted

  • Title Graphic

    The title graphic on the top of this blog was found online at the USGS.

    Historical Photos of Geographers at Work

    The photo dates from circa 1925. I’m going to change the graphic monthly to a different interesting image that somehow relates to GIS, mapping or programming.

  • Needed Vacation

    My first vacation in over two years (pretty sad when I have to count the 2003 ESRI User Conference weekend as a vacation) is about to happen. Building a GIS practice from scratch is a lot of work, but I’m glad I had an opportunity to do it, again.

    Anyway I’m going to a place that has no phone lines so I won’t be able to check my email at all, what a concept! No GIS for 5 whole days.

    OK, maybe not. I’ll have my new bluetooth GPS with my Dell Axim v50. I’m a geographer, what can I say?

  • Improving ESRI Developer Network

    Rob Elkins asked me in my previous post about EDN for any suggestion I might have.

    • ISO downloads – I’ve come to rely on this for MSDN. Many time while traveling I might need something and I always know I’ll have access to the complete MSDN catalog. I could see where I might want to install another server product on my laptop or reinstall one that screwed up my system. While I love the EDN binder, I can’t imagine carrying it around with me. Also updates could be gotten much quicker than waiting for UPS.
    • ArcGIS Desktop – I can see why ESRI didn’t include it with the EDN, but I think to get the full functionality out of ArcGIS Server or ArcGIS Engine, you need ArcInfo/ArcEditor/ArcView. My company has ArcInfo and ArcView, but no ArcEditor. Many of our clients do have Editor and I’d rather have an ArcEditor license to test my applications on. I’m not really sure how this could be implemented, but I do think ArcGIS developers need access to ArcGIS Desktop.
    • ArcPad and ArcPad Application Builder – EDN seems to focus on ESRI’s server products (well ArcGIS Engine aside), but why not mobile GIS?
    • MapObjects and MapObjects Java – Yea, it isn’t sexy, but MO is and still will be very popular. Adding this to the EDN can only help existing programmers get more out of the products by sharing code and samples via EDN.
    • Python – What about scripting? Python is used quite extensively with ArcGIS and I can only assume will increase in the future. The EDN web should focus much upon this to get people caught up who are stuck on VBA and Avenue/AML.
    • EDN Magazine – I’d love to see more detailed articles than those that get published in the current ESRI publications.
    • Additional EDN website enhancements – I’m sure these will come, but more RSS feeds (so I know when to download those new ISO CDs), webcasts, columns or blogs by EDN staff and “power programmers”. The start is good, but don’t let it slide over the summer. With the User Conference around the bend, the traffic at EDN will grow. New content will keep them there and improve the community for all of us. Heck, who wouldn’t like to see http://blogs.edn.esri.com or something similar. ESRI has very bright people, let them tell us what they know about the development tools and some great new ideas they have come up or have seen.
    • EDN User Conference – Why not? Could be just held at Redlands as long as you don’t continue to have earthquakes right under the campus. This would be more technical that the Business Partner Conference.

    EDN is still early in its life and I’m sure ESRI has thought long and hard about most of my suggestions before I even knew about EDN. Personally I love it so far as we have finally gotten into ArcGIS Engine development and we’ve only had it for a little over a week.

  • Working with Ka Map

    One of more intriguing reasons to use UMN MapServer is Ka Map. I’m quite impressed with how it is able to pan and zoom without having to load the whole page. We’ve tried to do as much as we can on the client side of ArcIMS and with Ka Map we can continue that trend.

    Since ESRI released ArcIMS 3 a couple years ago, there haven’t been any big changes to the default templates. I’d love to see ESRI offer some new ones on their site for those who can’t hire someone to customize ArcIMS for them or have the to do it themselves. Maybe with the advent of ESRI Developer Network and the Code Exchange we’ll see some more, but I doubt it.

  • A quick look at the ESRI Developer Network (EDN)

    I’m quite impressed with ESRI and their EDN. For a first time effort, they really did a great job. I haven’t seen any pictures of what it looks like so I thought I’d upload a couple of our copy. I apologize for the quality of the pictures as the only camera we had left in the office today was quite old.

    EDN Cover

    The front cover of the EDN

    EDN Getting Started

    Getting started with EDN

    EDN GIS Servers

    The GIS Servers section

    EDN CDs

    Information about GIS Servers

    EDN Tabs

    A close look at some of the tabs of the EDN