ESRI Expands Virtual Earth Access in GIS by Teaming with Microsoft

ArcGIS Users to Bring Dynamic Basemaps into Analysis and Service Applications

Redlands, California—March 26, 2009— ESRI announced today a new agreement with Microsoft Corporation that gives ArcGIS users fast access to Microsoft Virtual Earth for their geographic information system (GIS) projects. As part of ArcGIS Online at the ArcGIS 9.3.1 release, ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server users will be able to connect directly to Virtual Earth and quickly start their GIS projects with ready-to-use content.

“Our agreement with Microsoft defines a pattern of sharing geospatial data on the Web that promises to grow the GIS community,” says ESRI President Jack Dangermond. “By bringing Virtual Earth into their GIS projects, people will have a greater opportunity to perform spatial analysis based on dynamic data.”

ArcGIS users who are current on maintenance and have an Internet connection will have access to Virtual Earth for a variety of up-to-date mapping content.including aerial imagery, roads, and hybrid (aerial with labels) imagery. With a familiar look, imagery access will appear as another data layer in GIS. The imagery will provide excellent background maps on which users can overlay their operational data. This means users will be able to focus more on their business data than on its context.

For example, an electric utility can layer its distribution line data over a Virtual Earth aerial view of a neighborhood to create a map of its lines and customer connections. This Virtual Earth background layer is useful for editing the company’s data and can be easily shared online with other company users.

ArcGIS users can build Web applications that support geospatial services through ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Web Software Developer Kits (SDKs) , including APIs for JavaScript, Flex, and Microsoft Silverlight. This enables them to provide their clients with access to Virtual Earth content from their applications.

“ESRI and Microsoft share a long history of building geographic information systems solutions that combine both of our companies’ strengths,” said Chris Sampson, director of Virtual Earth at Microsoft. “By integrating Microsoft Virtual Earth across all ESRI ArcGIS products, we can provide our mutual customers with spatial analysis software that has instant access to comprehensive geographic data that can only be found in a software plus services solution.”

ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 users who are current on maintenance will be offered access to Virtual Earth at no cost. ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 users will have instant access to a built-in 90-day evaluation of Virtual Earth. After the evaluation ends, ArcGIS Server users will be able to purchase an annual subscription that will be based on transactions.

For more information, visit www.esri.com/agolwhatsnew.

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What is new in the current beta release is the ability to directly embed the API from Microsoft and Google into ArcMap – the movie below explains all:

As brian states on the Spatial Data Logic Blog, you can drape your own data over the existing globes and then use this as an element on your Page Layout for exporting to either paper or digital copies. The process of draping your current map over the globes happens automatically and on a background thread, so its really intuitive to work with and doesn’t stall the main thread ArcMap uses for most of its own work . As you change your Map contents in the TOC, the changes are reflected on the globes as well.

Find out more via http://www.arc2earth.com/

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Here at digital urban we do have a tendency to track down the latest gadget, all in the name of research of course. As such the Capturx digital pen for ArcGIS has caught our eye. Using the digital pen you can simply print out a map from ArcGIS, draw features on it using the pen and when you sync all your features are geo-referenced and integrated into your digital map.

Capturx for ArcGIS can be used with any ArcGIS Desktop licenses, including ArcView®, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo®, and is compatible with geodatabase feature classes, such as personal and enterprise ArcSDE®.

Take a look at adapx.com for more info.

We will have more on the digital pen soon as we can get hold of one to try out..

The post Digital Pen: Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop – On Site Digitising appeared first on Digital Urban.

Here at digital urban we do have a tendency to track down the latest gadget, all in the name of research of course. As such the Capturx digital pen for ArcGIS has caught our eye. Using the digital pen you can simply print out a map from ArcGIS, draw features on it using the pen and when you sync all your features are geo-referenced and integrated into your digital map.

Capturx for ArcGIS can be used with any ArcGIS Desktop licenses, including ArcView®, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo®, and is compatible with geodatabase feature classes, such as personal and enterprise ArcSDE®.

Take a look at adapx.com for more info.

We will have more on the digital pen soon as we can get hold of one to try out..

The post Digital Pen: Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop – On Site Digitising appeared first on Digital Urban.

The main plus point of Explorer is its license free distribution, allowing local government to install it on their desktops, which is not possible with Google Earth unless they pay for the pro version. This alone makes Explorer a inviting prospect for data visualisation and query. Combine this with the possibility to import .shp files and carry out GIS functionality via a ArcServer linkage and its a product that does indeed have the potential to offer GIS for Everyone.

At the moment however it appears to be slow, clunky and lacking features that users of other Digital Globes – such as Google Earth – are used to. As a first test we loaded up our KML file of London, which now extends cover 2000km of the city. Each section of London is divided into KML Network Links allowing each model to seamlessly load in Google Earth. Explorer on the other hand is not able to load the top level KML file, resulting in the the global view zooming into Africa.

We finally found a way around this by opening the files individually but the render times are painfully slow on a machine with 3Gb of ram and a top end graphics card. Where as in Google Earth we can fly around the city with smooth framerates, in Explorer the scene redraws frequently leading to a frustrating load times and a poor data viewing experience.

Google Earth excels in the ability of the user to drag a image around the globe and self geo-reference. Explorer, on the other hand, will not allow to the user to load a raster overlay without a spatial reference file. This is exasperating and clearly goes against the aim of GIS for Everyone – if you have to know about spatial co-ordinate systems to load in a simple .jpg or .tif file how can it be GIS for Everyone (?).

At first look ArcGIS Explorer is sadly disappointing with poor rendering of KML files and the ability to add data only if you are GIS literate.

We hope these issues can be sorted out before its full release.

The post ESRI ArcGIS Explorer Beta – GIS for Everyone (?) appeared first on Digital Urban.