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The later morning session started out with one of the largest customers of ESRI software, FedEx. The integration of ESRI software into FedEx’s workflows is impressive and if you are interested in seeing some really great uses of ESRI Server software, you should pay attention. Heck if you use ArcGIS Server Java, they might want to learn a lot more given the platforms they are running ArcGIS Server on (non-Microsoft).

Jack then dropped into the ‘What’s Next’ part of the Plenary. He showed a video of Scott Morehouse talking about what he is looking at for the future of ArcGIS from a design standpoint. 9.4 is going to be a large release (Jack joked about it being release 10). Jack says it will fundamentally change how we work with ArcGIS by making us more productive.

At 9.4 you can also have 9.3.1 installed at the same time, the ability to check out licenses and take them with you. The user interface is allows dockable windows so that you can hide the TOC when you aren’t working with it. ArcCatalog is now embedded in ArcMap and can be docked as well. Attribute results are also dockable and gives you the ability to work with tables much like you’d work with them in Excel. Search is also now integrated into ArcMap. The problem is that it isn’t geoenabled so you can’t search by your map window. ESRI says they have new reporting tools, but they seem to still be based on Crystal Reports so I’m not sure what has changed other than some new templates and save/print. 9.4 now can put all the analysis tools on the toolbar (toolbar overload!) and models can run in the background (about time!). You can have your layers appear and hide depending if they appear in the map window. You can actually search the symbol libraries rather than browse them. There is a new time tab on layers that have temporal attributes. There is also a slider like Google Earth to move back and forth in time to see changes in layers over time. There is a new ‘basemap layer’ feature (special group layer) that improves redraw of features so you don’t have to wait for the background to draw. No mention of the penalty of this basemap layer on your system.

Editing tasks at 9.4 allows you to predefine features you can create with rules already defined. I know many people who are going to really like the new editing/creating features. I think finally people who have no familiarity with ArcGIS should be able to complete edits without much direction. The bottom line is editing will be much more usable and while it isn’t as sexy as RESTful API, web editing is going to be huge.

Map Automation and Generalization is one of the key features of 9.4 IMO. We had map automation at Workstation years ago and then ESRI took away AML. Python is now integrated directly into ArcMap. I say it every year, but if you are an ArcGIS Desktop user, you need to take a close look at python as your scripting language. Using a mouse to perform analysis is really a bad idea. One of the greatest things with Python integration is the ability to create map books using python and export out PDFs. The DS Mapbook example is used by way too many people for map production and of course it is really just a demo. Now with Python, we’ll have the ability to populate dynamic text to update page numbers and such. You can also publish Python scripts to ArcGIS Server so that users can leverage the Python script in your web applications. Python is totally integrated into ArcGIS 9.4 so you’ll be able to take python projects and import them into your ArcGIS projects

ArcGIS 9.4 3D support allows you to take more control over your maps. Performance seems greatly improved. You can edit in 3D (ArcScene and ArcGlobe), but it is still not integrated directly into ArcMap (you have to deal with two programs). Import of SketchUp models is much improved, click and place. You can update model changes by right clicking on the model and click update. You won’t lose all your new attribute data. You can also place video layers in ArcGlobe and drape them over the the terrain.

So that is the improvements to ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server is next up. I’m not sure we saw anything different than we saw at the Developer Summit so it just goes to prove how important that conference is to keeping on top of the direction of ESRI software.

At 9.4 ESRI will provide an ‘open API’ to read the Geodatabase. Any client can embed the API and use it. Lawrie Jordan (who joined ESRI last year) then demonstrated imagery analysis at 9.4. There are a ton of new features to discover and add updated imagery that I’m sure will go over well. ESRI also has improved the speed at which imagery draws (you can pan around without waiting for it to appear). The Image Analysis tools are now all combined in one panel for easy manipulation.

Mobile GIS has been a part of ESRI for some time and I think we are beginning to see a shift from from Windows Mobile to the iPhone and Blackberry. The first demo though was the classic Windows Mobile demo that we’ve seen for years and saw at the ESRI Developer Summit in March. The new iPhone app looked nice and allows you to use ArcGIS Server services. You can click on the map and get attributes and it seem to integrate in with the GPS. You can add notes to the map and then share them back with via email, sms or sync back to the ArcGIS Server. The iPhone already does a better job with interaction of ArcGIS Server than Windows Mobile so the future is very bright.

This year ESRI is 40 years old. Jack says ESRI is financially secure and growing. Break for lunch and keynote later.

Over the past year I’ve found myself working more and more with cloud based SaaS products. We presented at Where 2.0 how we were using SaaS cloud services to help deliver data to the community in New Orleans. I then presented a keynote at the Safe FME UC about removing barriers to data sharing and how you can use cloud content management services to help share data within your organization or with the world. Clearly my mind was on pay as you go geospatial content management.

Well lucky enough for me a great opportunity presented itself and Thursday was my last day at RSP Architects. I’m really going to miss working with some very innovative people and the friendships I made there will definitely last me a lifetime. Starting next week I will be working at WeoGeo helping integrate their Library content management system in with existing workflows. Starting all this off will be the ESRI User Conference and we’ll have a booth (booth 217) where we’ll be demonstrating how the WeoGeo Library can help people manage their spatial content with ESRI ArcGIS. If you are at the ESRI UC next week, please stop by and say hello to myself, Paul or Dan.

I still plan to keep this blog exactly the way it is, blogging about GIS and whatever geospatial catches my eye. Planet Geospatial will continue to stay the way it is (and hopefully I’ll have a little time to improve it). I’ll be blogging the ESRI UC Plenary as usual so if you aren’t there, check back on Monday for all the latest news.

I’m really excited to be joining WeoGeo and the excellent team that has built the cloud based services and the great RESTful APIs that I’ve been able to use on projects. You can reach me at my new email address jfee@weogeo.com.

I’ve been seeing more and more articles like this one from Computerworld about abandoning SQL databases.

The meet-up in San Francisco last month had a whiff of revolution about it, like a latter-day techie version of the American Patriots planning the Boston Tea Party. The inaugural get-together of the burgeoning NoSQL community crammed 150 attendees into a meeting room at CBS Interactive. Like the Patriots, who rebelled against Britain’s heavy taxes, NoSQLers came to share how they had overthrown the tyranny of slow, expensive relational databases in favor of more efficient and cheaper ways of managing data.

NoSQLers? Oh boy are we going to be in for it when they hear how critical databases are for the geospatial industry. To me this “revolution” sounds more like a backlash against the traditional SQL DBA who doesn’t want to change in the face of “Web 2.0”. Of course it is very easy to move to a new data storage platform when you either have a ton of money or no product yet. While I do think technology such as Google’s BigTable and Amazon’s SimpleDB as an inevitable course for many web applications, wholesale abandonment of SQL and databases such as Oracle/SQL Server/PostgreSQL is absurd.

No-SQL “Patriots” dump RDBMS without a care to the implications…

So ESRI has a new product arriving:

Another major/joint effort involves the development of a new ESRI product called **MapIt. **This technology provides simple geocoding and mapping capability for the Microsoft environment. MapIt enables developers to create maps of their enterprise data stored SQL Server 2008 and Excel. MapIt is designed to give non-GIS organizations the ability to easily create maps and share them within a variety of Microsoft environments like SharePoint. Details will be announced in July.

There were rumors of such a product coming out at the DevSummit, but nothing came of it. This appears to be the continuation of the Silverlight/WPF product that ESRI has been working on. What is interesting here is it would appear not to be using ESRI Servers (ArcGIS Server/ArcSDE) and direct connecting to SQL Server then visualizing on Bing Maps. It would appear that you can develop using ESRI’s APIs, but not deal with ArcObjects. As an ESRI developer though, I’m wondering if this could be my new MapObjects?

No word on pricing and licensing, but I’m going to be paying close attention to MapIt in two weeks.

Every year ESRI sends out a questionnaire to attendees of the UC and they’ve just posted the results from this year. Some of the questions are C-level and probably not interesting to this crowd, but it does get into some of the 9.4 (as was seen at the DevSummit), map automation, file geodatabase, and new technology. A couple that caught my eye:

Q: When will ESRI support direct access to the spatial types within relational databases (i.e. SQL 2008, Oracle Spatial, etc) that are not geodatabases (i.e. does not utilize ArcSDE technology)?

At 9.4, ArcGIS introduces new functionality called ‘query layers’ to allow users to directly access spatial type data stored in a database that is not a geodatabase. Query layers allow users to use a SQL query to access spatial type data and create a new (read-only) layer in ArcMap. This layer will allow users to map, query, and analyze data from spatially enabled databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, or Informix without registering the spatial information in a geodatabase or installing and configuring ArcSDE.

Additionally, geodatabase users who store their spatial information in spatial types can use this functionality to work with their data using complex SQL queries.

Q: Will ESRI support the iPhone?

Yes, we will support the iPhone as a mobile platform to get maps from ArcGIS Server and do queries and edits on data from ArcGIS Server. We plan on releasing an application for the iPhone later this year and then adding additional capability as part of our 9.4 release. In addition developers can build their own solutions for the iPhone using the REST APIs available from ArcGIS Server.

Q: Is ESRI moving into any new business lines?

Our fundamental business is building ArcGIS and supporting our users and partners with effective technical support and professional services to help them implement their technology. In the last year we have extended ArcGIS with online services. Fundamentally, this is ESRI’s implementation of GIS in the cloud. This environment involves a large deployment of ArcGIS Server and an extensive library of GIS content. This direction is principally focused on providing Web services to our software users. Generally speaking our users have been very pleased with these services. ESRI now receives several million requests a day for the use of these services worldwide, and we believe it’s just beginning.

**Q: How will ESRI support professional standing through certification? **

Professional certification provides proof that an individual has attained competence at a defined level of performance. With the ArcGIS 9.4 release, ESRI intends to offer a technical certification program designed around the use of our products in successful ArcGIS implementations. This program will be available to ESRI users, partners, distributors, and staff. While it will focus on the use of our products, it will be complementary to the GISP certification offered through the GIS Certification Institute, which focuses on the practice of GIS. We hope this will help create an active and qualified user community that can expand the reach of GIS in solving problems around the world.

Safe was nice enough to let me post the video from my keynote on my blog. I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak at FME UC and had a wonderful time meeting everyone there.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5376764&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

The wait is over, OpenLayers 2.8 has been released. Some of the highlights I think are important:

• Add support for multi-layer feature selection when using vector features
• Added support for “XYZ” layers to interact with standard caches of tiles; includes OSM support built in
• Add support for drawing text on vector layers
• Support for loading ArcGIS Server data
• OSM layer
• Improved KML support with better styling, networklink support, ExtendedData Support

The full list is here. ArcXML support is “interesting”, but I havne’t touched an AXL file in years.

Hooray OpenLayers!

I just finished reading a new book by Gretchen Peterson called GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design and I really enjoyed it. Gretchen wrote this book independent of any GIS tools so that you can apply it anywhere, from ESRI and Autodesk to PowerPoint and Web Mapping. So much of computer books include sections on preferences, installation and best practices, that it takes away from actually learning key concepts. Cartography is critical to visualization of spatial data and with so many different ways to visualize that information these days, you need these key concepts to ensure that you are getting your message out.

Gretchen’s writing style was enjoyable and she was able to cover detailed concepts without losing my interest. I’m guessing because we come from similar GIS backgrounds, I really was able to follow her though process and better understand how I should look at GIS cartography. Another think I really liked was the ability pick the book up and find a section to review so I can see this being a great reference book as well.

The chapter on fonts was particularly enjoyable. So often I believe this is an area overlooked by GIS cartographers and can greatly affect the ability of readers to understand your maps. Color is another area that Gretchen covers and in great detail. The world is much more complicated than just polygons so she goes much deeper than most websites and GIS books have into how color affects your output.

GIS books aren’t cheap because they never do the volumes that general computing books do, but when you can apply them across multiple software packages and disciplines, you get much more value out of them. Gretchen’s book is something that you can use almost anywhere with any medium and won’t get out of date. That is a great value that most technical computing books overlook. GIS Cartography is a great resource to have and one that I’m glad that I have in my technical library. I’m guessing though that it will spend more time next to my computer than on the bookshelf. Flip through the pages at Google Books and see how valuable this book is. Great job Gretchen!

As you can imagine, Adobe John Dowdell responded to the HTML 5 “flash killer” talk in a way only Adobe could.

It’s hard for Adobe to have an official opinion on whatever this consortium of minority browser vendors chooses to do… seeing what the final agreement turns out to be, and how it is eventually manifested in the world, both are prerequisites for practical tool-making.

I suppose when Microsoft becomes the minority browser to WebKit/Firefox then things might change? Guess we’ll see next year when it happens. So if my previous post didn’t excite you, maybe John’s will.

Hey if you like HTML 5, take a look at Flash

IronPythonMan to the rescue!

I’m surprised that IronPython doesn’t get more love in the ESRI development world. Beyond Matthew’s blog posts I can’t recall seeing anything really being done. Considering how important .NET is to ESRI, it wouldn’t hurt to see a little embrace of IronPython.

ArcObjects is hard enough to write with C#, so why not allow devs to use the simple Python. Of course Matthew proves you can do it yourself, but it seems like a great combo, writing by Python code for geoprocessing and IronPython code to work with ArcObjects. Heck, why not throw in a little IronRuby for those who roll that way?

I’d really like to see an ESRI wiki were devs can add their own help for those who want to extend ArcObjects more directions than just the C#/VB.NET/C++ ways currently offered.