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GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems

ArcGIS Desktop: 9.3 Top Ten Improvements

Posted: August 4th, 2008, 9:36pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

As part of this morning’s segment of the Plenary Session at the ESRI User Conference was a well received (at least judging by the level of applause after each item on the list was announced), “top ten” improvements for ArcGIS 9.3. As a precursor to the list being unveiled, Jack Dangermond stressed that the foundation [...]

James Fee GIS Blog

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 is available

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 10:40pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

For all those who can’t resist installing the latest service pack for ArcGIS, here it is:

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5
ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 5
ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 5
ArcGIS Image Server Service Pack 5

In case you can’t remember if you care or not, check out the Service Pack 5 announcement.

Freakin’ sweet!
Reflection on the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 7:08pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

Well I think most would agree, the 2008 DevSummit was one of the best. There was tons of new stuff to learn about, much more attendees, more ESRI staff, better layout of the conference (the Community Center was particularly good) and better session (and more of them). So what did I take away from the conference?

ArcGIS Platform

So underneath it all, what has changed. Well first ESRI has really focused on bug fixes. I know we’ve all heard this before, but I think the new crash reporting dialog will give better feedback to ESRI and internally they’ve caught many bugs that might not have been caught without the crash reporter. In addition ESRI is using Coverity to help uncover hidden bugs in the code (read some of these case studies, very interesting stuff). I was told that they found stuff that has been hidden for years in the code that would have caused problems, but for one reason or another never was discovered. I think it is safe to say the 9.3 code base will be as bug free as anything they’ve ever released (hold for joke) and given how short this beta period is I think they are confident that they’ve delivered on this.

The focus at 9.3 is stability, performance and security. Those are 3 areas I know have been a great concern for most ESRI users/developers and the examples that we were given between 9.2 and 9.3 showed great performance increases (I can’t comment on stability until I’ve worked with 9.3 for a while). The new security improvements aren’t revolutionary, but address the specific concerns users have had with the product (specifically check out the security presentation on EDN from the DevSummit for the details).

ArcGIS Server

Well there are tons of new "exciting" features with 9.3 as we’ve all heard. First of the REST API is the real deal. The REST API can server up tiles to Google Maps and Virtual Earth (assuming you use the "web Mercator" projection) and the ability to use ArcGIS Server with Yahoo! pipes really opens the possibilities of taking ArcGIS Server and moving it into areas that we’ve not been working in. Providing results from Geoprocessing is as easy as appending f=kmz to the URL (don’t you just love RESTful services?). The JavaScript API is based on Dojo so you’ve got some power in there to make some really interesting JavaScript applications. The Google Maps and Virtual Earth (2D and 3D support) extenders allow you to bring your ArcGIS Server services right into consumer mapping products. The JavaScript API is hosted by ESRI and in the Akamai cloud so it should be very stable anywhere in the world. We’ll be seeing a ton of new applications out there based on the JavaScript API in the next year, that I’m sure of.

Now don’t forget about the .NET Web ADF (didn’t hit any Java sessions this year). It is now what ESRI is calling a "hybrid" model meaning that there is both server and client side stuff going on (rather than the total server side stuff at 9.2). The key new feature is ASP.NET AJAX, but it is still very compatible with 9.2 projects (usually just change a line or two of code and your old projects should still work). The core controls are now scriptable with the ASP.NET AJAX libraries so you can do a ton more on the client than you did before. The JavaScript API in the Web ADF is totally different than the other one (the Server JavaScript API for use with RESTful) so your code may have to be customized between the two versions if you jump between the REST API and the Web ADF. The Task Framework is much improved and you can now build them using User Contols. In addition they are releasing tasks into the code gallery on the ESRI Resource Center for Server (I’ll talk more about the Resource Centers later) so you’ll be able to see what ESRI has done and create your own modifications. The documentation in the Resource Center is so much better than what was available in 9.3. The examples are great and the explanations are detailed and well written. The performance of the Web ADF at 9.3 has increased at least 100% if not more. If you ever blended two data sources (one tiled, one dynamic) you know that it takes the dynamic one time to match the tile scheme that the tile scheme already existing. Now each resource has its own tiling scheme and the layers load much faster. The Web ADF (and obviously the JavaScript API above) will be "uncoupled" from the ArcGIS Server release schedule. This means that you won’t have to wait years for new features to be implemented. Silverlight 2.0 support will probably happen way before 9.4 arrives which would have us all complaining down the road I’m sure. Dave Bouwman has a great write-up on the details of the .NET session so head over to his blog to read up on his thoughts.

ArcGIS Explorer

I’ve already posted on the new features in the 480 release due in May and the 600/700 release due by the end of the year in my Plenary session post, but I’ll list some of the new features in Explorer that caught my eye. First off 480 will increase performance (multi-threaded), direct connect to SDE, GPX support, GeoRSS support and improved task frameworks and popups (the bubbles). Build 600 has the new Microsoft "ribbon" interface and looks great. From a usability standpoint, the information you are working with gets presented right to you and not hidden by interfaces. You will also be able to finally view the maps in 2D mode. I think this will be a boon to organizations who are using AGX as a decision making tool. Ease of use goes a long way. The "enhanced" ArcGIS Explorer SDK will allow you to embed AGX inside your applications. I asked how ESRI would charge for this SDK and they are still thinking about it (will the SDK be free and the deployments cost, will the SDK cost and deployments be free, or will everything be free).

ESRI Resource Centers

New at 9.3 is the ESRI Resource Centers. You’ve already been looking at the first one for quite some time (the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center) and the ones for ArcGIS Server, Desktop, Engine, Image Server, Mobile, IMS and Geodatabase are currently available for those in the 9.3 beta program. These are help centers where you can get support, online help, code samples, interactive SDKs and other resources that you can use with developing (or even using) the ArcGIS Platform. The forums are due to be re-launched based on the Beta forums (which means you’ll be able to subscribe to a forum topic via RSS). There will be many new blogs available from teams that haven’t blogged yet and there *might* be community aspects introduced as well. How this all interacts with the EDN site I have no idea.

Issues?

The one thing that scares me and Dave Bouwman did bring it up at the closing session is overselling what you can do with the new REST API and JavaScript API. Have sales staff running around that you can create "rich" JavaScript applications "consuming" ArcGIS Server services using only 12 lines of code is going to put many of us in a bind. JavaScript is easy to pick up, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be adding complex geoprocessing to your Google Maps mashup with one line. The speed that you can develop has increased, but the complexity will still be there. The JavaScript API will increase your productivity, no doubt. But telling everyone all you need is 12 lines of code will result in disappointment.

What now?

Well I’ve got both ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Desktop installed on my laptop and they seem very stable. Moving forward I think we’ll jump with both feet into the RESTful API and the JavaScript APIs. I think users will want to get their services published via the REST API as soon as possible so Google can start indexing them. What a great way for organizations who want to share their data with the community, just publish and let Google index your services. The ArcGIS Services Explorer is going to be a great tool to learn what is available out there. I had quite a few ArcIMS developers say that they can finally feel comfortable working with ArcGIS Server. The .NET and Java Web ADFs were too much for them and they were usually used to working with simple HTML pages. Compare the speed of JSON vs the speed of sending XML (AXL) requests to the server and see how fast you get a response. It really does highlight why the community at large has really moved to JSON.

So go get on the 9.3 beta, but you’ve got to hurry as 9.3 RTM could happen as early as "June".
ArcGIS 9.3 Beta

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 5:02am CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

I don’t think there is anything wrong swinging by the office on the way home from the Developer Summit to pick up the 9.3 Beta disks to install tonight while I watch UCLA destroy Mississippi Valley State. My wife just doesn’t understand me but I’m happy with who I am.

Lets see, I have my .NET Sombrero beer hat and cigar. I’m ready to install the ArcGIS Beta
Multi-cores and 64-bit GIS

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 9:35pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

We’ve hit on this discussion before and with the Developer Summit coming up maybe it is a good time to think about the direction processors and their movement to multi-cores and 64-bit processors.

At 9.3, ArcGIS Server Enterprise (or whatever ArcSDE is called these days) will move to 64-bit. This is a huge improvement as I would guess most new database deployments are built on 64-bit servers. But clearly ArcGIS Server itself is not going to be 64-bit at 9.3. When spec’ing out new servers, it is impossible not to go down the 64-bit route and servers going multi-core only in the next year ArcGIS Server will only get slower because it cannot take advantage of new technology. With the focus moving from clock speeds to cores, ArcGIS Server users run the risk of being stuck at a level of performance that is going to be unacceptable in the future.

I’ve been told that ArcGIS 10 will support multi-core/64-bit, but given that it probably won’t go final until at least late 2009/early 2010 that means we’ll be running into trouble way before we can even deploy beta version of ArcGIS 10. But is this really a concern for users? Generally speaking, most folks I’ve talked to don’t seem to really be bothered by this and maybe that is why ESRI is waiting until v10 to ship multi-core support.

Is the lack of 64-bit ArcGIS Server going to impact your business moving forward?

Moony only runs 64-bit servers, do you?
ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5

Posted: March 10th, 2008, 4:50pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop
ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 will be available by the end of March. This appears to be a “true” service pack release and not a feature release. I’m not sure I’ll bother installing it on our ArcGIS Server implementations, but we’ll deploy on all our ArcGIS Desktop seats. One change did catch my eye.
Launching maps and globes from web pages (new in SP5)
- Service Pack 5 includes a fix that enables you to launch maps (MXDs), globes (3DDs) and scenes (SXDs) by clicking on them in web pages. Previously you had to right-click the files and save them to a folder, and then launch them from the folder. With this fix, it is much easier to launch maps and globes containing internet content, such as those on the ArcGIS Online beta website: [arcgisonline.esri.com]
  This enhancement provides a useful way to make map services that you are serving with ArcIMS or ArcGIS Server easily accessible to other ArcGIS Desktop users, because you can simply include a map or globe referencing your service(s) on a web page.
  Layer files can also be added to web pages for download, but ArcGIS Desktop 9.2 users have to right-click on a layer file on a web page and save it to a folder in order to access it. In the ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 release we are adding full support for adding layer files from web pages to your maps and globes simply by clicking on them.

GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems

Python and GIS Resources

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 3:03am CET by Caitlin

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

Find resources to web sites about Python scripting to use in ArcGIS as well as ArcView 3.x software. Learn how to use Python to expand your geographic information system. AvPython Python language support for ArcView 3.x software which allows you to embed Python within ArcView 3.x Code Samples Python code samples for GIS mostly involving USGS SDTS DEM files. [...]

James Fee GIS Blog

ArcMap Crashing

Posted: January 29th, 2008, 4:31am CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

I just love the Technical Article title: “Problem: ArcMap crashes periodically every half hour“

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8 items tagged "Desktop"

GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems

ArcGIS Desktop: 9.3 Top Ten Improvements

Posted: August 4th, 2008, 9:36pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

James Fee GIS Blog

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 is available

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 10:40pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

Reflection on the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 7:08pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

ArcGIS 9.3 Beta

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 5:02am CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

Multi-cores and 64-bit GIS

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 9:35pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5

Posted: March 10th, 2008, 4:50pm CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems

Python and GIS Resources

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 3:03am CET by Caitlin

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

James Fee GIS Blog

ArcMap Crashing

Posted: January 29th, 2008, 4:31am CET by James Fee

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop