ArcGIS Explorer Blog

GIS Day with Explorer in Corpus Christi, Texas

2009-11-20T15:50:00Z

A total of 490 students plus teachers from 14 middle and high schools surrounding Corpus Christi, Texas, were hosted at Texas A&M by the University and Del Mar College on GIS Day. The City and local users of GIS gave presentations and demonstrated how their community is using GIS. ESRI showed ArcGIS Explorer and the students found their campus and vowed to download it as soon as possible. The picture below shows two teachers finding their school location using ArcGIS Explorer.

We only had about 5 minutes with each group of about 15 students – but they all “got it” right away and some didn’t want to leave the station. Wish I could have shown them more. We also had the Weather feed on live and NOAA was there so they could see the data at NOAA booth and see it in ArcGIS Explorer! I also quickly showed them how to make a presentation. I had to take weather off of the screen shot as it covered the city! Explorer was a big hit!

Contributed by:
Ann B. Johnson
Higher Education Program Manager

Exploring the Flood Path Project

2009-11-19T21:29:00Z

The US Geological Survey is working on a new technology that could make flood prediction much more accurate and easier for the public to recognize the danger spots. In this video clip the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Washington uses ArcGIS Explorer to demonstrate the power of their flood modeling technology during this local news special on extreme weather.

The USGS Floodpath model, currently being migrated to ArcGIS Server, forecasts the time of arrival, depth and destructive force for the watershed based on forecast data from the NOAA Weather Service. The animation effect in the video was accomplished using an ArcGIS Explorer presentation which allowed this complex analysis to be conveyed with just a simple push on the space bar to advance to the next "slide."

We think this is another great example of how Explorer enables you to use actual GIS data and analysis results to communicate geographically to a broad audience.

(Contributed by: David Gadsden, ESRI NW Federal Account Manager, and Scott Moore, ESRI Solutions Engineer)

GIS Day with the Arizona Geological Survey

2009-11-18T22:08:00Z

Earlier today Lee Allison, Arizona State Geologist and director of the Arizona Geological Survey, let me know of an event that seemed just perfect to share on GIS Day. Lee used ArcGIS Explorer during a presentation at a meeting of the Arizona State Legislature Ad-Hoc Committee on Mining Regulation.

Lee takes advantage of a number of ArcGIS Explorer capabilities, including presentations, the ability to work with live data, incorporating lots of different kinds of content, using layer packages, and a lot more.

It takes a few moments for Explorer to appear in the video. But view it, and you'll understand what communicating geographically means.

Show us your GIS: Water Resources Agency, Taiwan

2009-11-17T18:42:00Z

Our first submission in our show us your geography and GIS using ArcGIS Explorer challenge comes from Taipei, Taiwan.

The Taiwan Inquiry and Supply System of Water Resources Data delivers uniform data access and distribution capabilities. The Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, uses a variety of GIS and Web solutions to create a warehouse system for data collection, distribution, storage, and management. The site was developed using ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 and includes an Adobe Flex application.

Here's the ArcGIS services viewed using ArcGIS Explorer.

And here's the Flex application using the same ArcGIS services.

Many thanks to Yea-Huey Wang and Elisa Hsiao from the Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, in Taipei, Taiwan, for sharing their geography and GIS with us.

You can view the Web site at: http://gweb.wra.gov.tw/wrweb/gisindex.htm

Show us your geography and GIS!

2009-11-11T22:39:00Z

Next week starts Geography Awareness Week. And next Wednesday, November 18, is GIS Day. So we'd like you to show us your geography and GIS!

We're ready to highlight your geographic and GIS activities using ArcGIS Explorer. Send us your screenshots, maps or layer files, or a brief write-up, and we'll feature it here in a future blog post. Send all submissions to bszukalski@esri.com

GIS Day provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

Launched in 1987 by presidential proclamation, Geography Awareness Week is held the third week of each November, promoting the importance of geography education in the United States.

If you're new to ArcGIS Explorer you can get more information and download it for free from the ArcGIS Explorer product home page or the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center.

Adding logos to your maps

2009-11-11T17:01:00Z

We've covered image overlays a bit in a couple of earlier posts, one on adding some spiffy titles and another on adding legends to your printed maps. And here's yet another use for image overlays - adding your company or organization logo to your maps.

First, create a PNG file of your logo. Note that we've left a bit of a transparent border around the logo in this Photoshop example. This will keep it positioned slightly out of the corners of our map.

Next, add the PNG file as an image overlay and position it. We've chosen the upper right corner.

And here's what the logo looks like. We can also set its transparency if we like.

To always open a map with the logo set this map as your default. Choose Save As, then My Default Map.

An alternative method is to use the PNG logo in an application configuration. This is done using the Application Configuration Manager. We'll cover more about application configurations in an upcoming post, or you can read more about using them and the Application Configuration Manager in the Explorer Help.

Adding legends to printed maps

2009-11-09T18:13:00Z

ArcGIS Explorer provides basic printing capabilities that enable you to do a "quick print" of your map, and allows you control (via the chosen printer) options like orientation and page size.

You can view the legend for a map item by choosing its Tools tab, then clicking Show Legend. Or by right-clicking the item in Contents and choosing Show Legend. Though the legend is displayed, it is not captured in the quick print of the map. But here's a way to include one on your print using Image Overlays.

First, capture the legend and copy it to a program like Paint or something similar. Here we've used Photoshop to add a blue border, and we've also offset the legend by 50 pixels or so from the left side.

When you're satisfied with how it looks, save it out as a PNG file, then add the PNG as an Image Overlay.

Once you've done so you can choose its position.

We've chosen the option to center the overlay along the left side of our map. Because we left a transparent margin in the PNG file, it will be offset from the edge.

Now all we have to do is print.

My National Parks and ArcGIS Explorer series concludes

2009-11-06T17:00:00Z

If you've not been following along on the GIS Education Community blog be sure to check out George Dailey's series covering National Parks and ArcGIS Explorer. The 10-part post was inspired by the PBS special The National Parks: America's Best Idea and not only provides a great tour of parks, but also demonstrates how the unique capabilities of ArcGIS Explorer can be leveraged to do some really interesting things. Part 10 was recently published, and here's a handy reference to all of the posts.

Corny geography with ArcGIS Explorer

2009-11-06T16:41:00Z

Mapping corn mazes using ArcGIS Explorer is one of the latest posts found on the GIS Education Community Blog. Written by ESRI education manager Joseph Kerski, the post covers adding data by importing text files to create an Explorer map showing the spatial distribution of corn mazes throughout the US, and then looking at the relationship of where corn is grown to where mazes are located. Cool!

Creating cool text and titles for your ArcGIS Explorer presentations

2009-11-06T01:15:00Z

It's easy to add a title or text to your ArcGIS Explorer presentation, just use the following controls on the Presentation tab that let you add and remove text, and change colors and styles.

Here we've chosen from one of the built-in styles to add a title.

Now that's a pretty good title, but using image overlays (one of the types of content you can add to Explorer) you can really spiff things up. In this example we'll use PowerPoint and Photoshop, but you can substitute whatever you prefer and you can accomplish the same using a variety of alternatives.

First using PowerPoint, create the text you want to display using WordArt and other text effects.

When you're happy with the result, copy and paste it into Photoshop, making sure the background is transparent.

Next, use the magic wand

to select the white areas, making sure to select the "holes" in the letters (like in the A, p, o, and e). Then delete the selection, leaving a transparent background under the letters.

Save the file as a PNG and then add it as an image overlay using Add Content.

And now you've got some cool text you can position and use in your next Explorer presentation.

Pizza anyone? Local business search with Bing and Yahoo!

2009-11-04T16:06:00Z

We thought we'd take a closer look at a couple of add-ins you can find on the ArcGIS Explorer Labs group (authored by Explorer team member Michael Waltuch). Both are useful for locating businesses and more, and placing them on your map.

We've added both, and both work similarly; they search within a 10-mile radius from the center of your map. How do you know where your map center is? If you use Find the map will automatically be centered on the match. So, for example, below we've entered "Philadelphia, PA" and the map is automatically centered on the match location. To zoom out or in while keeping the center, just use your J and L keys or the navigator zoom slider.

A way to show the map center is to toggle the target indicator. Do this by clicking the ArcGIS Explorer button

then choosing ArcGIS Explorer Options

then choose the Map Window category and you'll find the Show target indicator option under the Position Information heading.

Now in the center of your map you'll see the target indicator - "+"

First we'll take a look at the Bing add-in.

We've searched for "cheese steak." The matches appear, and we've clicked one to get more information, including a link to the business Web site.

To move any of these to your map as a note, just select, right click, and choose move to map.

Here's the Yahoo! add-in

And we've done the same search.

The information includes a link to the business Web site and ratings and reviews.

ArcGIS Explorer at the EUC

2009-11-02T16:18:00Z

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.

Happy Halloween with ArcGIS Explorer

2009-10-30T23:38:00Z

Halloween is just around the corner, and we couldn't resist highlighting a couple of.. well... bewitching examples.

First, on the Google Earth blog there was a post about a pumpkin KML. We downloaded the KML, added it to Explorer, and gave it a little extra twist by switching to our World Physical basemap and using Swipe on the pumpkin KML to reveal a slice of it.

And then we switched to 2D mode for a different look.

And here's another post on the GIS Education Community blog by Angela Lee that takes on a Halloween theme by displaying a layer package shared on ArcGIS Online to show a thematic map of US pumpkin production.

ArcGIS Explorer system check utility updated

2009-10-29T20:36:00Z

The ArcGIS Explorer online system check utility has been updated to include Windows 7, and is a handy tool to check to see how your system meets minimum and recommended system requirements.

Visit the ArcGIS Explorer download page and look for the system requirements link.

The link will bring you to the detailed system requirements information, which includes a link to run the online system check utility.

Run the utility and you'll get a full report on your system.

Getting Started Tips

2009-10-29T01:58:00Z

The latest issue of ArcWatch, ESRI's e-magazine for GIS news, views, and insights, publishes an article by ArcGIS Explorer product manager Bern Szukalski with information on getting started, providing tips and pointing out some great resources. Even seasoned Explorer users will find the resources useful.