Category: Thoughts

ESRI posted a pretty good explaination of all those new ArcGIS Server levels and what they mean.

ArcGIS Server is offered in a scalable line of editions (Advanced, Standard, and Basic) that are built from a common set of technology components. These editions are distinguished by their functionality.

• Advanced – ArcGIS Server Advanced is designed for GIS organizations that want to provide a central, server-based GIS for distributing GIS services across the organization or over the Internet. I provides spatial data management, visualization (both 2D and 3D), and spatial analysis capabilities.
• Standard – ArcGIS Server Standard is designed for GIS users who want to provide a central, server-based GIS for publishing geographic data as maps and globes. It provides spatial data management and visualization (both 2D and 3D) capabilities.
• Basic – ArcGIS Server Basic is designed for GIS users who want shared access to geographic data. It provides core geodatabase management tools and technology for data storage, management, and distribution (Web-based data replication).

Each ArcGIS Server edition is offered at an Enterprise level and a Workgroup level. These levels define each edition’s capacity.

• Enterprise – The Enterprise level of ArcGIS Server supports an unlimited number of users via either direct connect or connection to an application server. It offers DBMS support for IBM DB2, IBM Informix, all editions of Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. It has no data or memory limits.

• Workgroup – The Workgroup level of ArcGIS Server supports a maximum of 10 direct connect users. It includes an embedded DBMS (Microsoft SQL Server Express). It has a data limit of 4 GB and a memory limit of 1 GB.

So when ESRI says you are getting a copy of ArcGIS Server Standard Enterprise, you know now what that means.

Jonathan emailed me to let me know that ESRI is now pushing ArcGIS Image Server on their front page. Image Server has always been sort of a phantom product, you heard about it at the conferences, but damn if you saw a thing on the website. Well there is an overview in the ESRI help if you want to see what all the fuss is about and probably a podcast on its way.

Thanks to Joel for the heads up via email!

The first ArcGIS 9.2 service pack, ArcGIS 9.2 SP1 is planned to be available as a download to the public late the week of December 18, 2006. This service pack is to help address issues users have encountered in the ArcGIS 9.2 release. CD media will also be made available by request. The 9.2 SP1 page will be available in the next couple of days and will provide a detailed list of the issues addressed.

Righteous!

Manifold arrived this morning via FedEx:

DISCLOSURE – This copy of Manifold was provided to me by Manifold for evaluation.

We were all simply amazed at the birds eye view portion of Virtual Earth (I’ve not been a fan of the implementation since day one). That said, it has grown on me so I’ve learned to deal with the grid navigation. Well tonight Microsoft announced that they have replaced the old birds eye navigation with one that makes a ton more sense.

I mentioned a couple days ago that the Birds Eye navigation control was being replaced soon, and today marks the day. Makes me want to sing the witch is dead song from Wizard of Oz. No more thumbnail grid – You can now navigate in Birds Eye using the new inset map similar to Streets and Trips. You can also drag to the end of a birds eye scene and VE will try to bring in the next scene based on where you are dragging.

Hallelujah!

Another new features is the ability to measure distance as you use the drawing tools. GIS professionals will appreciate that feature. I now see that I am only 200 yards from the front gate to Sun Devil Stadium (now that we have a real football coach again).

Installing Manifold was pretty easy as I had .NET already installed. After running Manifold for the first time, Manifold let me know there was an update and I had to uninstall the version I just installed and then reinstall the update. I like it when Setup applications check before installing rather than this route. That said installation was quick so it wasn’t too much of a hassle.

Now the GUI. I’m a fish out of water here. To be fair Manifold acknowledges this:

A Note for ESRI or MapInfo Users

As mentioned in the For Experienced GIS Users topic in the introduction, Manifold’s user interface is not at all like those used in older GIS products. Instead, Manifold’s nomenclature and commands are based on a combination of several stylistic approaches:

• Microsoft methods and terminology wherever a Manifold capability matches something within the Microsoft spectrum of products. For example, Manifold uses “Tools – Options” because that’s where user preferences are kept within most Microsoft products.

• Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual C++ and Visual Basic user interface style for development and programming.

• Adobe PhotoShop concepts for photographic/artistic image editing.

• Manifold System logic and mathematics for GIS.

The manifold.net team is often asked why we did not simply clone ESRI methods and interfaces in GIS, since ESRI dominates GIS markets. There are three reasons why:

• The potential user base for GIS is far larger than the current ESRI population, which is a very small number by mass-market Microsoft standards. Making Manifold accessible to hundreds of millions of Microsoft Office users means adopting Microsoft terminology and methods, not ESRI’s.

• Older GIS systems were created in a technologically less sophisticated time. Providing the full range of modern capabilities means adopting modern ways.

• We seriously intend to deliver a fusion of GIS, CAD, advanced database, image processing, photo editing, mathematics modeling and many other disciplines. The right user interface that works with a blend of such intense functions is a new user interface that blends the best ideas from all these disciplines and not just GIS.

We realize that the above approach make transitioning to Manifold more difficult for experienced GIS people who have a lot of ESRI or MapInfo experience they would like to leverage. However, for many ESRI or MapInfo users a transition to Manifold is really their first transition into the bigger world of Microsoft standards and mass-market PC software standards. For any professional person using computers this is a necessary step and not wasted effort.

I’m not going to post too much on Manifold and how it compares to GIS systems that I’m used to until I get some practice with the application. I’m used to the ESRI way, good or bad, so I just need to spend some time and work though the new concepts. Smartly Manifold has a whole help section devoted to the “Experienced GIS User” which goes over the differences between the two products. I’ll find some time tomorrow to really get into Manifold before trying some more complex tasks.

DISCLOSURE – This copy of Manifold was provided to me by Manifold for evaluation.

Looks like one of the commentators on this blog went ahead and created his Blogger WordPress blog on Manifold. Could this be the first Manifold blog out there? If there are a couple of constructive posts it might make it into Planet Geospatial.

Oh and my copy of Manifold is in the mail so I should have that soon so I’ll get to see what all the fuss is about. 😉

While on my trek to rural Oklahoma and the land of 14.4 AOL modem connections, I began to rely on my [Treo 700p](http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo700p/index.html?creativeID=RMFB

treo700p_snowflakes) for email and web access. One thing I noticed that navigating my blog was impossible. Well after some work and a great little plugin my blog now works on all mobile browsers, from small Motorola and LG phones, to Palm/Windows Mobile browsers. Just go to http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com on your mobile device and it just works.

Next I need to do the same with PlanetGS. 🙂

Howard Butler had this problem back in October and now Paul Ramsey seems perplexed by the ESRI licensing agreement. I don’t believe we’ve heard anything back from the last time. If there is anything more confusing that ESRI licensing agreements, I’d like to see it. Our company is run by lawyers and they have trouble understanding some of the statements in the agreements.

I’m about to get on a plane back to warm Phoenix (I don’t know how you people live with freezing temperatures), and I’m trying to get back on top of my email/rss feeds. I did see that Google created a new category in the table of contents called “Geographic Web” in Google Earth (and turned on by default). The name is a very poor choice, but that is a topic for another day. I’ll admit I never use Panoramio, so this was the first time I’ve seen the logo in months but I did notice that it looked very similar to another logo out there.

Panoramio updated their logo back in October so I’m not sure what the logo looked like before as I can’t find it. Now this could all be a coincidence as the process of developing the logo seems innocuous. One might say it is natural to have a compass with a “geo” site, but the similarity has to make some in the open source community a little disappointed. Of course this is the second time Google Earth has been involved with using a logo similar to OSGeo so maybe deep down everyone just loves it.

Update – There is a similar discussion on Geowanking.