Mapping Center

Last week we started telling you about the new ArcGIS Online World Topographic Map. As I was working on the design of that map, with the intent of providing a better basis for mash-ups, I had an idea. It was born of frustration with the fact some mash-ups don't work because too much information obscures the base map, making for an unreadable, often ugly result. Demographic layers represent a great example of the kind of information that just doesn't always work well in a simple mash-up. Read More...

Not long ago we received a question via Ask a Cartographer that our map projection experts frequently get; it goes something like this:  "When projecting data to WGS84, for example, which transformation is the best to use?"

There are two contexts for this scenario in ArcGIS. The first is as described above, namely, you need to project data and are potentially confronted by a lot of transformation methods and don't know which to choose.  The second context is a bit more complex, which is that you've added data from several sources to your map and you get a somewhat verbose warning (shown at right) that is, if you are like us, all too easy too ignore since it looks complicated. Read More...