ArcGIS Online Community
By Kenneth Field, Esri Research Cartographer
In the lead up to London’s big sporting event in July 2012, the symbolic torch will travel the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. The route has been designed to maximize the opportunity for the UK population to view the torch as it makes its way, across 70 days, stopping at over 1000 locations where bearers will parade the torch locally. The torch relay event web map provides a time aware window on the event for locals to follow and for more distant observers to explore.
We recently had a couple of questions in our inbox concerning map tips – the text that is displayed when you hover with your mouse over a feature – and here’s a summary of how they work.
The Ocean Basemap, a bathymetric map service by Esri released on June 21st of 2011 (World Hydrography Day), is being used by many ocean GIS users around the world; initially, the Ocean Basemap was created with data from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), IHO-IOC GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names, NOAA, Seafloor Mapping Lab of the California State University Monterey Bay, National Geographic, DeLorme, and Esri.
Due to its great success and in an attempt to enrich and improve data resolution, the Ocean Basemap is now open to receive bathymetric data contributions from data providers such as Hydrographic Offices and academia, for bathymetry and named features. If you want to learn more details please contact oceanbasemapteam@esri.com .
By Kenneth Field, Esri Research Cartographer
Tourist trail maps engage people new to an area and guide them to sights of importance or interest, often using a particular theme. The Esri story maps team recently published a trail map of New York City’s High Line and also a short walking tour around Esri’s Redlands campus. Both examples illustrate the way in which web maps allow you to combine basemaps, route information, point of interest markers and multimedia (e.g. photographs) to tell a rich visual story. Web maps like these can be used either as a virtual tour to give a narrative without actually visiting the area, or as a navigation aid as users follow the trail in reality using a hand-held device. In this blog entry, we’ll look at how you can make a walking trail web map.
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The ArcGIS Online team released a significant update to the light gray canvas basemap, to make it much more useful for thematic maps of subjects throughout the world.
The canvas basemap focuses attention on your thematic content by providing a neutral background containing minimal colors, labels and features. Its reference layer sits on top of your thematic layers, providing geographic context and allowing your data to come to the foreground.
The most significant change in this release is that the Canvas map now contains additional, useful coverage worldwide, and detailed nationwide coverage in nearly 50 additional countries. This map was developed by Esri using NAVTEQ data for North America, DeLorme basemap layers, and Esri basemap data.
The basemap now includes boundaries, city labels and outlines, and major roads worldwide from 1:591M scale to 1:72k scale. Thematic maps of country data, major administrative units (states, provinces, counties, etc.) and some smaller geographies benefit from this change.
We’re happy to report that the third batch of the large set (up to 50 million square kilometers) of high-resolution imagery to be added to the World_Imagery map service is fully processed and published to ArcGIS Online.
The World Imagery map was recently updated to include expanded coverage of 1m resolution GeoEye IKONOS imagery for parts of Central America and Indonesia and Malaysia. This represents the third of what will be several updates over the next few months as additional IKONOS imagery is fully processed and published. Below are some sample images.
1m IKONOS imagery for the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
The Ocean Basemap map service was updated to include bathymetric data from the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) for the east and west coasts of Canada. A large coastal area from Dixon Entrance north of Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands, Queen Charlotte Sound) to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, now includes bathymetry at a resolution of 500 meters. On the Atlantic Coast, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the St. Lawrence River, around the islands of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (Notre Dame Bay), and further north along the Labrador coastline (Labrador Trough), an improved resolution of up to 100 meters is now apparent.
Canada has the world’s longest coastline, and CHS is responsible for the creation and maintenance of hundreds of nautical charts. CHS’ participation in Esri’s Community Maps Program is significant for the Ocean Basemap and to marine GIS users.
Updated CHS bathymetry on the West Coast
The ArcGIS Online team recently updated several map services (services.arcgisonline.com and server.arcgisonline.com).
If you have previously used any of the hosted map services and you experience issues while using them, try clearing your cache.
Check out the Light Gray Canvas map updated, High-resolution imagery for Central America, Indonesia, and Malaysia added to ArcGIS Online World Imagery map, and ArcGIS Online Ocean Basemap updated with Canadian bathymetry and additional scales blog posts for more information on our improvements.
If you have feedback or comments, please post them to our forum at http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/30-ArcGIS-Online.
By Kenneth Field, Research Cartographer, and Damien Demaj, Online Cartographic Product Engineer
We all have favorite maps that we think are great, but rather than just saying a map looks great, how many of us are able to take a critical look at it, evaluate it, and explain why it looks great? Having the ability to reflect on and evaluate maps as information products is important to understanding effective cartographic design so you can optimize communication of the intended message in your own maps as well as be able to understand why other maps work. In this blog entry, we’ll briefly look at some static maps and a web map to see what we think makes them great and then show you how using a checklist gives you the tools to reflect on maps in the same way.
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The ArcGIS Online World Topographic Map (World_Topo_Map) was recently updated with several more contributions from the user community.
Austin, Texas, at 1:2K
