Category: Thoughts

ESRI has posted a notice saying that there will be some updates to the ArcGIS Online services:

On August 9-10, 2007, the ArcGIS Online system will be updated to improve the network routing for service requests. We do not expect this to affect the availability of the ArcGIS Online services but you may experience some performance issues while the changes are being applied.

When completed, we expect the changes will improve the overall performance of the services. However, if you experience any ongoing service availability or performance issues as a result of this change, please post a description of them to the forum.

I see no mention of ArcGIS Explorer being affected but I assume since AGX uses ArcGIS Online, Explorer might also notice performance issues.

Jim Cser has updated his wonderfully simple and easy to use (and free) ArcMap to KML tool.

`Fixes in 3.2.0

Removed the extra commas between line segments. KMLs now have compatibility with Google Maps.`

As always it is so simple to use. Just add the toolbar to your ArcMap session. Get your data layers set up the way you want.

And enjoy your KML inside Google Earth…

As you can see, it works well with Google Maps now so you can share using Google Maps. Download it at ESRI ArcScripts.

I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the new features that Brian has been working on for Arc2Earth. The KML region stuff is simply amazing (check out some of the demos on his blog).

It’s best you go over to his blog and check out all the great information he’s posted on the next version as well as Brian’s thoughts at one of the more exciting things to be bantered about on the GeoBlogs, AtomPub + KML. There is no reason why all this sharing of GeoData should rely on old fashioned methods of distribution and updating. Brian hits it on the head here:

In short, make Google Earth a limited APP client and Google My Maps an APP server (read, write). The latter would use GData as the store and presumably provide server functionality to process feed updates from APP clients and some limited search based on OpenSearch. In the regard, I could see Arc2Earth enabling ArcMap as a full APP client for the MyMaps APP server. Many issues to work out but a GIS client with good editing tools and bulk loading capabilities combined with a flexible, easy to use client like MyMaps seems very attractive. Multiple editors could then work on the data from both ArcMap clients and MyMaps browser clients and the entire feed would still be available to any other client to view (GE, VE, OpenLayers etc).

I hope I’m not the only one excited about where that might lead.

I had a recent opportunity to try out Weatherbug Professional’s GIS Data Services. I had seen the Weatherbug booth at the 2007 Developer Summit and hear a little bit about it back then, but I never had an opportunity to stop by and see what was going on. Most people know who Weatherbug is and what they provide, but I had no idea they had a whole professional division (they should do a better job of advertising their own service as their business model for the consumer side is about brand awareness).

The monsoon rolls into the Phoenix area – Weatherbug Professional GIS Data Service over ESRI ArcGIS Online ESRI StreetMap World 2D

Anyway, the GIS data service that Weatherbug Professional provides is built upon ESRI’s server software, specifically ArcIMS. I know many folks aren’t too high on ArcIMS these days, but the map service was pretty fast compared to most ArcIMS services we are used to seeing. They offer up a image service as you’d expect, but if you require a feature service they can provide that also (I only sampled the image service so I can’t comment on the speed of the feature service). I did ask about WMS/WFS and they do not offer them, but they did say they would work with anyone so I’m sure if WMS was a requirement, they’d offer of the service.

What you get is at least a ton of weather reporting options (click to see a partial list) that you might expect. The professional product integrates into the consumer station network (so you get access to 8000+ Weatherbug stations) and they work with their professional users to add to that network to fill in gaps (such as county public safety organizations that want 100% coverage of their county) which in turn gets added back into the consumer product.

From an ESRI centric perspective, this service works really well integrating into ESRI’s desktop clients. Those who cannot consume ArcIMS services will be left out from the service currently. The future includes some “geoprocessing” tools to help those of us who are not climatologists perform analysis on weather data. I’ve dabbled with some of the “free” WMS weather services out there and Weatherbug Professional is far beyond what any of them offer (though obviously at a cost). The service is offered as a yearly subscription.

I like how we see a consumer product being marketed to professionals. We are beginning to see tons of data available to GIS users that wasn’t accessible even a year ago. It sounds from talking with the Weatherbug Professional folks that they are pretty successful in this endeavor so maybe we’ll start seeing more and more from them in the future. These GIS data services are expensive for a lot of people so maybe in addition to the new analysis tools, we’ll see some low end services for folks who want access to some weather data (if just for the GIS pro who wants to plan for his winter ski trip).

DISCLOSURE – Weatherbug Professional GIS Data Services was provided to me by Weatherbug Professional for evaluation.

Damian has the best news possible for everyone:

All,

After further investigation, it’s been determined that SP3 is OK as is and the initial files will be reposted this evening without any changes. Anyone who may have already downloaded SP3 should use what they have downloaded already as we have not changed the setups and what you may have downloaded is good.

The issue that caused the confusion is related to the use of Boolean values in GP tools in .NET. At 9.2 there is a bug that the TRUE value never worked for these GP tools, and the FALSE value only worked in some limited cases. Given that, we feel that the changes in SP3 have a positive impact on a majority of the user community and limited negative impact on very few applications.

There is now a Knowledge base article describing the API change as some people will be affected ( http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techArticles.articleShow&d=33441 ).

I will post an update as the files go live again on the site.

Again I apolgize for the confusion this caused.

Thanks,

Damian

The files are back and those who have already downloaded the SP3 won’t have to download a new version. Thanks to Damian to getting the word out on this. If you are still confused about what happened and why people were getting errors, make sure you check out the KB Article on the changes to ESRI.ArcGIS.Geoprocessor at 9.2 SP 3.

I love baseball, I admit it. I subscribe to MLB.tv to catch as many games as I can. My favorite “computer related book” is Baseball Hacks. In the spirit of that, I present the United Countries of Baseball Map.

via Strange Maps

Damian Spangrud posted some information about the issue with the Service Pack 3.

All,

I apologize for the confusion; please let me clarify the situation with SP3.

A minor issue was found in the final version of SP3 which impacts developers and applications using geoprocessing tools via .Net, the core ArcGIS products functionality is not impacted. The specifics of the issue are that the .NET Geoprocessing wrappers in SP3 changed Boolean to Strings for ease of use in Visual Studio. However this API change impacts some GP tools and some existing applications and requires a minor code change and recompile to fix. However, because we generally do not require developers to recompile at service packs, we have removed the impacted setups from the download page and will be reposting fixed versions of them today with the APIs reverted back to the 9.2 final APIs. We do plan on making this API change at 9.3 instead where it can be better documented and accounted for.

The setups impacted by this issue are:
Desktop
ArcViewDemo
DesktopHelp
Desktop SDK for .NET
Engine Runtime
Engine SDK for .NET
ArcReader
ArcGIS Server for .NET
ArcGIS Server Web ADF Runtime
ArcIMS ADF for .NET (IMS Web page)

The other setups are unaffected and still available for download.

The setups for the impacted SP3 install will be posted later today.

If you have already installed SP3 for one of the impacted files, you will just need to install the new version of the SP3 to fix the issue without uninstalling.

We are committed to quality and sincerely apologize for missing this issue.

Sincerely,
Damian

**Update – **Some information as to the “why” is posted.

ESRI has pulled down the ArcGIS Desktop/Server Service Pack downloads. If you have already downloaded these, you probably don’t want to install them until ESRI releases a new build.

ESRI Support Forums

Looks like I picked the wrong week to install service packs.

While many of us have been using FWTools on USB memory sticks, I noticed that there is now a script on the GDAL website that allows you to use FWTools on your USB Stick without having to install anything.

setfw_portable.cmd allows one to use fwtools for windows from a usb drive without installing anything on the host computer. It is non-invasive and won’t make any changes to the system registry or windows system directories or anything like that.

Now it was possible to do this without the script, but it sure does simplify it.

Richie Carmichael has updated his ArcGIS Diagrammer 9.2 Beta to improve performance and better handle UNICODE characters in the XML.