Last week marked ESRI's Federal User Conference in Washington, D.C. During the plenary on Tuesday a variety of ESRI software and applications were showcased, including ArcGIS Explorer. We've had a few requests to recap what was shown in a little more detail, so here's the overview of the ArcGIS Explorer plenary presentation.

First, the new Resource Center (introduced with Explorer 440) was highlighted by adding one of the newly published results - State Capitals - and showing the popup links to the USGS Science In Your Backyard Web site for each result. From there the Physical Features layer was added to the map, with a demonstration of the swipe and transparency tools. Shown below is the swipe tool being used with the seamless USGS topographic map layer that is included in the service.

The next part of the presentation showcased Explorer's ability to connect to and integrate a wide variety of different content services, each published through different servers at locations throughout the US. The layers included:

  • several ArcGIS Online layers
  • an ArcIMS service from the ESRI Geography Network
  • a WMS services found via the FGDC clearinghouse
  • an ArcGIS Server map service (population growth by county)
  • a dynamic weather map service that updates every 15 minutes. The weather data is collected in an enterprise geodatabase (ArcSDE) via a connection to a Meterologix weather service, and published as an ArcGIS Server map service. The Explorer layer properties were set to update every 15 minutes to match the updates on the server.
  • an ArcGIS Server globe service (hurricane tracks)

Added to the map was a stamp of "confidential." This was done using the new Display Overlay property added to Explorer 440. Go to File, then Map Properties, and look for the Display Overlay property. The overlay can be placed at a variety of different locations, and is a great way to include your company logo with your map.

Next, Explorer's ability to add a variety of local data sources was highlighted. Shown in the map below are a raster file (the historical map), a file geodatabase (Oregon county polygons), a shapefile (airport locations), and a KMZ file from the NRCS Web site (Snotel precipitation and snow levels). Also shown is the KML/Z popup window.

The airport symbol is part of Explorer's new billboarded point symbol set. These are optimized for performance, so even though there are many 10s of thousands of airports worldwide (see below) the navigation speed is not impacted significantly.

The city of Portland was visited next, with a 3D cityscape of the downtown area. The buildings were authored using ArcGlobe, extruding building footprints based on attributes containing elevation. Also shown are tax lots (an ArcGIS Server map service) and a link to a YouTube video showing a walking tour through Portland.

 

Several tasks were demonstrated, including a few of the default tasks (powered by ArcGIS Online) and a Weather Finder task downloaded from the Explorer Resource Center. Finally, a custom service area analysis task was used to determine drive time service areas, shown below as a red polygon. The geoprocessing task was authored using ArcGIS Desktop, and published via ArcGIS Server.