Podcast: Dangermond Challenges Users to Adopt a New Geographic Approach

This week Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica, who’s on site in San Diego for the 2007 ESRI User Conference, discuss some of the themes from the opening plenary held Monday morning including “the geographic approach,” a focus on modeling and planning, and updates to ArcGIS 9.3. Also: the innovation that got the crowd really going - and it’s not ESRI technology!

The podcast is 10 minutes long (3.5 Mb) and was recorded on June 18, 2007.

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ESRI Unveils ArcGIS Explorer - View the Demo

A few weeks ago, ESRI officially unveiled ArcGIS Explorer (AGE), a world data viewer in the ilk of Google Earth. Rather than try to contrast and compare, you can view this brief MPEG demo. Downloading a version of AGE is free (registration required). You’ll need to download a few "globes" as well to add the data you want to view from the ERSI website that supports AGE. Even more data and resources are available for the also newly unveiled ArcGIS Online, now in a beta mode.

ESRI UC: Like Going to Camp

In discussing the ESRI User Conference with my colleagues I realized something: the event is a lot like going to camp! I don’t mean the short-sheeting of beds and the terror of forced swimming lessons, but rather the idea that there’s a known schedule and rituals. If you heard the recently repeated This American Life episode called “Stories from Camp” you know what I mean. In among the stories of campers is a camp director noting how the way to get campers back is to insure there’s a comfortable sameness and ritual.

ESRI UC is like that. If you’ve been there once you know the rhythm:

Monday: Long day of all plenary sessions.
Monday night: Map Gallery.
Tuesday: Sessions begin
Wed: 5k run (good luck!)
Thurs night: Party
Fri: Closing session

(Don’t look for me in San Diego; I’m home manning the fort/magazine.)

ArcGIS Server 9.3 - in brief

ESRI is highlighting the following features in the 9.3 ArcGIS Server release:

1. Printing pretty maps
2. Map Tips – add information directly on a map
3. Enhance interoperability: In 9.3, ArcGIS will support WFS, Web Cover service for raster, Simple Feature KML and GML.
4. Spatial data management and cartographic cabilities are now available to the AutoCAD users with ArcGIS for AutoCAD which is available now in ArcGIS 9.2
5. Rest API and Java Script API support
6. Caching and performance: pre-cache data to optimize web application
7. Security for Web applications and services – system can define users based on Windows authentication.
8. ArcGIS Server 9.3 now includes a mobile client within a Windows Mobile platform

Redifining the roll of consumer web portals and GIS

At the ESRI UC opening plenary, Dangermond focused some of his remarks on positioning Google and Microsoft with respect to information produced by GIS professionals. He believes that the world of the consumer and geospatial professional will eventually merge. Dangermond explained that "the vision of Google and Microsoft is to geo-reference all content on the web; making it one more dimension of ‘search.’ They are demonstrating the reach which the web provides. GIS professionals are also using the web..and creating a new dimension. Soon we will be able to fuse these dimensions together. Integrating geo-reference information of all types and fusing them into our own (GIS) systems. It will extend geographic information to everyone."