At the recent European User Conference, hosted by ESRI's distributor in Lithuania HNIT-Baltic, ArcGIS Explorer was featured during the opening plenary. Here's a few highlights from the demonstration.

ArcGIS Explorer was introduced as a way to provide broader access to GIS data and to reach out to new users. The demonstration began with some highlights of the conference venues, using notes to add photos and more to the Explorer map, here using the Bing maps hybrid.

Added to the basemap gallery, from which the Bing hybrid was chosen, were additional basemaps showing EUC attendees and basemap topos and orthophotos for Lithuania.

Here's the basemap of Lithuania, chosen from the basemap gallery shown above.

One of the defining characteristics of ArcGIS Explorer is its ability to work directly with GIS data, including layer packages, making it ideal for sharing the results of GIS analysis. Here's an example using a layer package authored in ArcGIS Desktop showing traffic noise levels throughout the city of Kaunas.

Several custom add-ins were demonstrated, including one which performed a drive-time analysis. Below is and example showing three minute drivetimes and restaurants near the conference location in Vilnius.

Presentations were also highlighted, and the featured ArcGIS Explorer presentation was one about UNESCO World Heritiage sites in Lithuania. Here a PowerPoint slide has been incorporated into the Explorer presentation as an image overlay, one of the many Add Content types supported.

Here's an image overlay that's unique, showing the cockpit of plane. Using this overlay and the dynamic navigation offered by an Explorer presentation, the audience was flown (virtually) over the Curonian Spit.

Because ArcGIS Explorer presentations make use of whatever data you have in your map, including enterprise data, real-time information, and rich media content like photos and videos, you can use these during a presentation. Here protected areas along the Curonian Spit are show, and when clicked show the attributes in the popups. Also integrated are panaromas of various areas along the spit.

Finally the presentation wrapped up with a virtual tour of the historic heart of Vilnius, one of the largest surviving medieval towns in northern Europe. Here's the view from the top of Gediminas Hill, an excellent place from where the panorama of the historic town center can be admired.

It was another great Explorer demonstration and presentation, and a great way to introduce attendees to the conference and the unique history of the host city.