Inside the Geodatabase : Beginner

Raster Clipping – Part B - Using an irregular shape to clip a raster dataset

JonMurphy — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:42:00 GMT

This is a follow up to last week’s post . Last week we talked about clipping raster datasets based on a single polygon or graphic. This week we will look at clipping a raster dataset based on selected features within a feature class. Sometimes you will...(read more)

Better Raster Clipping options in ArcGIS

brentardenpierce — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:38:00 GMT

Many users like the Extract by Mask option that the Spatial Analyst tools provide, however they may want to perform the clip on a multiple band raster or may not have a Spatial Analyst license. Good news, at ArcGIS 9.3 we have added functionality to clip...(read more)

Water Utilities Resource Center and the Geodatabase

brentardenpierce — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:53:00 GMT

As we have highlighted in earlier blog posts the resource centers are a great place for user resources which span the different ArcGIS products and workflows. One interesting aspect to this are the community or industry specific sites. The first such...(read more)

What is the ESRI Knowledge Base?

brentardenpierce — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:46:00 GMT

The ESRI Knowledge Base is a searchable collection of useful resources including known issues with the software, “How To” type documents, frequently asked questions (FAQ), common error messages or problems and system requirement information. Often referred...(read more)

Podcast on Migrating to the Geodatabase now available

JonMurphy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:59:00 GMT

To follow up on our last post, this is just a heads up to tell you that Derek Law’s podcast for Migrating to the Geodatabase is now online. The podcast talks about how to migrate existing data into the geodatabase. Derek goes over migration details for...(read more)

Migrating your existing data into the Geodatabase

JonMurphy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:15:00 GMT

While I was at the user conference earlier this year I was getting a lot of questions about migrating to the geodatabase from other data formats. I talked it over with Derek Law and he thought he’d make a podcast about it (we’ll link to that podcast when...(read more)

2008 User Conference Presentations – Geodatabase Essentials: Parts 1 & 2

JonMurphy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:33:00 GMT

The Geodatabase Essentials presentations are designed to introduce the main concepts integral to the geodatabase and its use. Colin Zwicker and I will be presenting the first part, introducing the concept of the geodatabase and offering a high level overview...(read more)

Geodatabase Essentials - Archiving

JonMurphy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:48:00 GMT

Geodatabase archiving provides a mechanism for capturing and managing a record of your edits as features and rows are updated over time. This record is automatically updated as edits are saved and is available for query and analysis. This is handy when...(read more)

Five reasons why you should be using the File Geodatabase

brentardenpierce — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:13:00 GMT

There are many options to the GIS user when deciding what data store to use to store geographic data. At ArcGIS 9.2 we introduced a new type of geodatabase, the File Geodatabase. While all types of geodatabases have their strengths and weaknesses, we...(read more)

New Georeferencing Video in Raster Web Help

jona4440 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:22:00 GMT

Just a heads up to tell you that we’ve posted a georeferencing video in the raster section of the help. We’ve been receiving a lot of support calls about georeferencing so hopefully this video will help people understand and implement it a little better.

If you’re having troubles georeferencing raster data or are simply interested you should check out the video.

Geodatabase Essentials – Part I: What is the Geodatabase?

jona4440 — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:07:00 GMT

Now that the dev summit is over we can tone down the amateur journalism and get into some real topics. Seeing as how this blog is titled “Inside the Geodatabase”, I thought a good place to start would be an introductory topic on the geodatabase. So here is the first in a series of posts we’re calling “Geodatabase Essentials”. Future posts tagged with this title will contain introductory information laying the foundations for essential geodatabase topics.

What is the Geodatabase?

The geodatabase is the native data storage and data management framework for ArcGIS. Why would you want to use a geodatabase? Because it acts as an organizational tool to store and manage your data, and is also the gateway into advanced GIS capabilities.

The geodatabase is a container which houses a collection of various geographic datasets.

Geodatabases support all of the different types of data that can be used by ArcGIS. Also, there is a complete set of conversion tools available so you can easily migrate existing geospatial data into the geodatabase.

At face value the fundamental ArcGIS datasets are tables, feature classes, and rasters. These and other more complex datasets, such as topologies and geometric networks, are all contained within the geodatabase. The geodatabase can also add advanced capabilities to these datasets and model behavior. Some examples of this are:

Data Validation using domains and subtypes
Multiuser editing environment through versioning
Topologies to enforce the integrity of your spatial data
Networks to model and analyze flows
Terrains for modeling surfaces and Lidar data management
Distributed geodatabase replication
Managing historical archives of your data

There are 3 types of geodatabases: Personal, File, and ArcSDE.

Personal Geodatabases

Personal geodatabases were first introduced in ArcGIS 8.0 and are designed for a single user working with smaller datasets. They are stored and managed in Microsoft® Access™, which ties them to the windows platform.

One thing a lot of users like about the personal geodatabase is the ability to manage the tabular data using Access.

Access based personal geodatabases work well for small datasets and they support all the features of the geodatabase model such as topologies, raster catalogs, network datasets, address locators, etc…. They are single user and therefore do not support versioning and long transactions.

File Geodatabases

File geodatabases, introduced at ArcGIS 9.2, store datasets in a file system folder and are portable across operating systems. They are suitable for single user projects and small workgroups with one editor and multiple readers. Although they do not support versioning, it is possible to have multiple editors with a file geodatabase, providing they aren’t editing the same feature datasets, feature classes or tables.

The file geodatabase is optimized for use in ArcGIS so it provides very fast data use and storage, and can scale to over 1 terabyte in size. Also, the File geodatabase allows you to optionally compress your vector data, reducing the memory footprint used by its storage without affecting performance.

ArcSDE Geodatabases

ArcSDE geodatabases manage spatial data within an RDBMS such as DB2, Informix, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL and SQL Server Express. Through this architecture, ArcSDE offers a multi-user editing environment and can manage extremely large datasets. ArcSDE geodatabases also support version-based workflows such as geodatabase replication and archiving that are not supported with file and personal geodatabases.

Organizations requiring the full suite of geodatabase functionality and a geodatabase with the capacity for extremely large, continuous GIS datasets that can be edited and accessed by many users should use an ArcSDE geodatabase.

9.3 Beta users can find this information and more on the Geodatabase Resource Center page.

Also for beta users, a few useful topics from the help system covering this information in more detail are: An overview of the geodatabase, Essential readings about the geodatabase, and Types of Geodatabases.

Users not in the beta program can access similar topics covering this information in more detail from the 9.2 web help. See An overview of the geodatabase and Types of geodatabases.

Welcome Inside the Geodatabase

brentardenpierce — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:31:00 GMT

We’re excited to be launching this new Geodatabase-centric blog (unofficially titled ‘Inside the Geodatabase’).

The scope of this blog will range from introductory information regarding general Geodatabase functionality to some more advanced topics and developer related material. We’ll be blogging on things like best practices, new and existing Geodatabase functionality, example workflows and updates from events team members are part of.

Also, when new help documentation or SDK content is written we’ll throw it on here first, not only so that you’ll know it’s available, but also to give users a fresh first glance.

On top of this there will be other media content such as:

Code Examples
Graphics
Instructional Videos
Power Point Presentations
Podcasts
Etc…

This blog is written by the Geodatabase Development Team and we’re hoping that it grows into a valuable resource for the user community so stay tuned …