ArcGIS Explorer Blog : ESRI User Conference 2008

ESRI 2008 User Conference Wrap-Up

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:15:00 GMT

The Explorer team had a great week, and we hope you did too. We really appreciate your feedback and comments from the sessions and in the Showcase. We'll be summarizing some of the questions and feedback here in future posts.

In case you missed it, here's a photo taken during the closing session on Friday, showing (left to right) Jack Dangermond, Dirk Gorter, Jim McKinney, David Maguire, Clint Brown, Nick Frunzi, Chris Cappelli, Don Berry, and Linda Hecht.

And just in case you haven't had your fill of User Conference photos to look at, ESRI has a Flickr set where you can find more. Or just search for "ESRI" or "2008 ESRI User Conference" at the main Flickr search.

ESRI 2008 User Conference - Explorer Thursday

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:29:00 GMT

The Showcase closed at 1:30 after another very busy day of sessions, meetings, demos, and more great feedback. Here's the crew at the close of the Explorer island area. From left: Euan, Mark, Bern, Michael, Andrei, Paul, Rob, and Edan.

Most users and some team members were headed to the UC Party, but some of the team headed towards home, or just relaxed. The SDCC waterfront from the Coronado side.

ESRI 2008 User Conference - Explorer Wednesday

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:57:00 GMT

Jeff explaining how Explorer can be used along with ArcGIS server in emergency management applications.

(Left to right) Paul takes Explorer through its paces, Jeff showing Explorer in the fire and emergency response showcase, and Nick ponders before his workshop on using Explorer's SDK.

Joe (middle) works a KML over for a user (on left), Mark (right) seems to have a headache just looking at all that XML.

ESRI 2008 User Conference - Explorer Tuesday

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:47:00 GMT

Today marked the opening of the showcase and general sessions, and it was a busy day all around. The Explorer team got lots of great feedback, and lots of suggestions for enhancements, and we're looking forward to more. Here's a few pics of the day's Explorer events.

Michael and Mark at the Doing More with ArcGIS Explorer session this afternoon. This session and the intro will be repeated on Thursday, the SDK tech session is Wednesday.

Edan makes a few points about Explorer in the Showcase island.

Rob giving his demo theater presentation on the Explorer SDK.

Michael, Andrei, Mark, Euan, and Paul still smiling at the close of the Showcase this evening.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Plenary Part III - Explorer 600

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:30:00 GMT

The afternoon plenary "look ahead" at ArcGIS 9.4 and Explorer was hosted by 9.4 development lead Euan Cameron. Euan noted that Explorer has a rapidly paced release schedule, and that Explorer 600 will leverage some of the new capabilities being developed for ArcGIS 9.4, but will be released sooner.

Andy MacDonald delivered the preview of what the Explorer team has been hard at work on. Here's the new user interface which is based on the Microsoft Office ribbon. Andy showed how Explorer's tools and functions can be organized so they can be easily found. The new user experience, of which Andy is a key architect, will reveal only the tools that you need when you need them, simplifying thing for users and making for an uncluttered look and feel.

Andy also demonstrated how symbols are being organized, showing the new symbol gallery which allows you to choose from many different kinds of symbols that suit many different kinds of data and industries.

Andy mentioned that a continuing development focus is on presentation, and that the team has been working to improve these capabilities by providing tools that allow you to step though your map content much like you step through a slide deck, but an interactive slide show where you can pause and explore further, and include Web-based content.

Andy also showed how Explorer 600 will work with basemaps in different ways. He showed some of the new basemap choices, and how they can be used to layer directly underneath your own data. The basemaps can be easily swapped out, allowing you to visualize your information in different contexts. The basemap gallery allows you to choice from a variety of ESRI basemaps and basemaps of your own choosing.

Andy showed local data draped over terrain, and the controls in the ribbon which allow you to experiment with how your map looks. You don't have to open property pages to view your options, everything is right at your mouse tips.

Finally Andy showed how you can toggle from 3D mode to 2D mode on-the-fly, demonstrating how you can work with your content in either mode.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Plenary Part II

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:06:00 GMT

Following Jami Garrison's excellent demonstration, Bernie Szukalski followed by highlighting additional capabilities introduced in Explorer 480.

First Bern showed Explorer running inside a Web browser. Explorer can be configured to fill the entire browser, or just a part of the Web page, which was shown (below). It's the same Explorer with the same features as when you run it on your desktop.

Next the newly added support for graticules (lat/long in various units) and reference grids (MGRS and USNG) were highlighted. Shown below is a lat/long graticule.

Bern next mentioned that Explorer had included support for several new kinds of services and data sources. First he showed a connection to a USGS GeoRSS feed with all the magnitude 2.5 or greater worldwide quake events that have occurred during the last weeek. Each GeoRSS feed location displays additional information via a link that is part of the feed when you click to open its popup.

Next, support for enterprise geodatabases, or data stored via ArcSDE was highlighted. Moving to show a part of the City of Redlands parcel database, Bern explained how map tips are now supported, displaying the owner name for each parcel as he moved the mouse over them, and also that the attributes displayed in the feature popup window could now be controlled.

One of the attributes displayed was a link that opened a new window onto the San Bernardino County Assessor's Parcel Information Management System. Bern explained that this was a mashup, but not a map-on-map mashup that was shown earlier, but rather a different kind of mashup. One that mashes up a features viewed in Explorer with an online information system.

The new e-mail capability was shown next. You can e-mail a layer, result, or the entire map. The e-mail message and the attachment are generated on-the-fly, making it easy to share your work with others.

Add Photo is a new task delivered with Explorer 480. Bern showed opening a folder and adding several geotagged images. Geotagged images have the lat/long of where the image was taken embedded in the image file header, and this task reads the header and places a result at the correct location of the image. When the result is clicked, the image is viewed in the popup window.

Next Bern used the Find Telephone task to locate the Grand Hyatt in San Diego, then explained that while these tasks are authored by the ArcGIS Explorer team that users can create their own using Explorer's SDK, which is also free to download. Bern showed some interesting and different kinds of mashups, these showing both Google Maps StreetView and Microsoft Virtual Earth Bird's Eye views via popup windows in Explorer.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Plenary Part I

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:04:00 GMT

During Monday morning's opening day plenary presentations, ArcGIS Explorer 480 was showcased. We'll review the Explorer presentations here.

Jami Garrison, from the Arizona Department of Transportation, was the Explorer featured user, and was introduced by Explorer product manager Bernie Szukalski. Bern explained that Explorer has been evolving rapidly, with the 480 release in July, and a preview of the forthcoming 600 release to be shown in the afternoon plenary session.

When ArcGIS Explorer starts, it connects to a home server which by default are ESRI's. But you can choose a different home server, and using your own you can control the startup map and tasks, the look and feel of the application, and enable or disable capabilities. Jami used a custom home server for Explorer, and had changed some elements of the skin; adding a custom logo, using a display overlay (for "ADOT Explorer'), a cactus north arrow, custom home page, and her own startup map and tasks.

Jami first talked about the need to connect to and use not only GIS assets in the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), but also GIS content that comes from other state agencies and local governments that they work with. Here is a map showing the Maricopa Association of Governments IMS service along with ADOT's fuel depots.

Jami added results that showed ADOT's live traffic cameras, enabling users to get the most recent image of traffic conditions from a variety of locations along the highway system. By clicking on the result, the latest traffic image is displayed in the popup window.

At any given time, ADOT has numerous construction projects going on around the State. Jami showed how aerial imagery helps ADOT track and monitor the progress of these multi-million dollar projects. These local data sources can be added quickly to Explorer, and tools like swipe and transparency can be applied to aid visualization.

ADOT's Explorer users really liked the ability to quickly add data to their maps using the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center. ADOT took that idea and created their own Resource Center to quickly distribute news and data to the Department's users. For instance, if a user needs to view the Engineering Diagrams for a bridge, they can go to the resource center and choose what they want to view.

Explorer zooms to the location of the bridge and then opens the Engineering Diagram in the popup window.

Jami described how the Incident Management teams at ADOT really like the ability to perform GIS Analysis right in the application. For example, if there was an incident involving a chemical spill, the Incident Manager could right-click and send the location information to the model (in this case she used the Emergecny Response Guide (ERG) by Chemical model). Then input some parameters about the incident: type of chemical (select from a drop-down list), wind direction, time of day and size of spill. After the model is run, a containment area based on the input parameters is added to the map.

Explorer has a lot of great features. ADOT has another type user, though, that does not need all of these features. They just need something simple so that they can quickly and easily get information about various incidents and projects around the state. The latest release of Explorer (Build 480) introduced the Quick Content task. The Quick Content is an embedded webpage so it can be quickly updated to provide current information on top events. Jami showed how easy it is to use the Quick Content to click on an icon and Explorer then zooms to the location of the event and pops up information about that event. The example below shows information about a landslide northeast of Phoenix.

The Quick Content area can also be used to get project data and information out to anyone. Jami demonstrated a project along State Route 260 designed to reduce vehicular collisions with wildlife. ADOT had built several wildlife underpasses along this section of roadway but there were still a significant amount of crashes in the corridor. The Arizona Game and Fish deparment used telemetry from GPS-collared Elk to determine where they were crossing the roadway, as incidated in the analysis shown below (the high red columns are the areas where the elk were corssing the roadway most frequently).

Using the analysis, the project team was then able to determine the locations to place fencing so that the wildlife could be funneled into the underpass areas.

The results of that project are then shown in the 2005 crash data where the amount of vehicular collisions with wildlife are greatly reduced, providing a much safer environment for both the wildlife and the traveling public.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - The Opening

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:37:00 GMT

Once empty seats now filled, with people and anticipation.

The view of the opening minutes of Jack's welcome from behind the stage.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Sunday Part II

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:14:00 GMT

Here's the beginnings of the heart of the Explorer island in the middle of the ArcGIS Server area at the Showcase. Please stop by to meet the team, ask questions, and learn about Explorer 480 and what's ahead. The Showcase opens on Tuesday. We promise it will look more inviting than this.

Today was the final day of preparations and rehearsal for the plenary presentations tomorrow. Here's Chris manning the control center, he's one of the hard working ESRI staff behind the scenes making sure the plenary goes perfectly.

Here's Euan, Andy, and Doug prepping for their demos covering the road ahead for ArcGIS, including Explorer 600.

Here's Andy rehearsing his Explorer 600 demonstration. Note the new ribbon interface. We're sure excited about 480, and where we're heading with 600. You'll see some great highlights of both at the plenary. See you tomorrow!

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Sunday Part I - The EdUC

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:49:00 GMT

ESRI's User Conference has grown into several concurrent conferences in one. One of the intra-conferences that started today is the Education User Conference. Here's a look at some of the Explorer highlights from today's opening presentation.

Derrick Burke showed some of the interesting ways Explorer can be used by Educators. The theme of the opening revolved around history, and Derrick started by using the new Quick Content task (with eye catching blinking eyeballs) to examine the history of the US, and how cartography has evolved. Here's the Pinkerton 1912 layer from the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center, along with the unique cartography of the 1833 map of the US. Both are from the David Rumsey collection.

Here Derrick has added the 1783 boundary in green, the Louisiana Purchase boundary in orange, and all US cities in 1810. The popup shows the population. At that time Philadelphia had a population of just over 87,000.

The BioBlitz projects are popular among educators, and here is the results of a BioBlitz shown using Explorer. Each observation includes popups of the name of the observed species, a photo, or in this case a photo and a sound - a scream Eeeeek! Ok, it might be corny, but kids (and educators) love it.

ESRI User Conference 2008 - Saturday Part II

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:43:00 GMT

More behind the scenes looks at the UC 2008 Plenary preparations.

Euan, Andy, and Jami (from Arizona Department of Transportation) ready their demos.

The end of a long day...