Community Maps Community
This month we caught up with Eric Spangenberg, GIS Coordinator for Lewis & Clark County and City of Helena, Montana. Eric also sits on the Board of Directors for The Montana Association of GIS Professionals.
Continue reading »
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 .
Two exciting changes will occur in the coming months for ArcGIS Online basemap users and contributors! First, we’re redesigning the cartography of the World Topographic Map. Second, we’re introducing the Community Maps 2.0 contribution methodology. This article describes these updates, how they are interrelated and how they are casting a new mold for the ArcGIS user community.
Overview of ArcGIS Online Basemaps
We designed the ArcGIS Online basemaps to accommodate a wide array of functions and applications. The current basemaps vary in style from little detail and color variety, like the Light Gray Canvas, to high detail and more bold color arrangements such as the National Geographic World Map. In between these highs and lows are other basemap flavors with varying degrees of color variety and detail. This spectrum of choices is essential to meet the needs of map makers who require different styles for different purposes: muted background basemaps to highlight colorful operational layers or standalone reference maps that need little operational data to be useful. Click the image to view the basemap collection webpage:
The 2012 Esri International User Conference will be here before you know it, and this year’s event will be a terrific opportunity for current Community Maps Program members and anyone who is interested in Community Maps to share their experiences, learn the benefits of the program and find out where things are headed in the future. Check out some of the exciting events we have planned for our week in beautiful San Diego.
We begin the week with a Preconference Seminar – Building the Basemap for the Community Maps Program. This one day seminar is a good fit for potential Community Maps contributors who want to learn the process involved in preparing their data for submission. The seminar is free, but spaces are limited, so make sure to register early.
The new Community Maps Program Resource Center includes an expanded gallery that provides a perfect opportunity to showcase innovative approaches in leveraging Community Maps content.
Whether you are planning a visit to a museum or analyzing the effects of natural hazards on the environment, the Community Map is there to help. Here are some examples that you can find in the gallery and ArcGIS Online.
For anyone planning a trip to the upcoming 2012 User Conference the San Diego Places To Go map highlights some of the popular destinations in close proximity to the San Diego Convention Center. This map pinpoints restaurants, museums, cafés, parks and neighborhoods and includes the entire trolley system for accessing them. It also includes detailed callouts by clicking routes and icons.
Many of our recent contributors went the extra mile to enhance their caches with special areas of interest. This is a great way to highlight the unique elements of your community!
St. Louis, Missouri came up with a nice solution for displaying their famous Gateway Arch. By itself, the building footprint is difficult to distinguish. They successfully expressed the height and prominence of that iconic landmark by adding a shadow effect:
Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
Announcement:
We are pleased to announce that Don Cooke is the Product Manager of Esri’s Community Maps Program. Don has been with Esri since October 2010 with the Sales department as Community Maps Evangelist, and has recently been appointed Product Manager for the Program. This new position within the Product Management Division shows Esri’s commitment to the Community Maps Program. This position was added to respond to the rapid expanse of the program over the last few years.
A few of Don’s responsibilities in this position will be:
• Developing and sustaining the Community Maps Roadmap – planning for future program enhancements
• Promoting and recruiting authoritative data owners to contribute
• Documenting and distributing success stories
• Connecting ArcGIS Technology with the Community maps program
Don brings a wealth of knowledge to the Community Maps Program. He was a member of the Census Bureau team that developed the “DIME” map encoding system in 1967. He has business experience as founder of three startups, one of them Geographic Data Technology (GDT), which was bought by Tele Atlas for €100,000,000 in 2004. In 2007 he received Esri’s Lifetime Achievement award.
We’ve heard lots of feedback over the last few days from users who want to find the old “Insert your favorite” blog. Unfortunately the redirects we had in place when we deployed the new ArcGIS Blog pointed to its home page instead of these specific locations, leading to many unhappy readers. We have most of these redirects in place now & will have the rest completed today. If you’d rather not wait, here’s a table matching the old individual blogs to their corresponding URLs and RSS feeds in the new unified blog.
Continue reading »
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
ArcGIS 10.0 Service Pack 4 (SP4) for English, is now available to our users for download via the ArcGIS Resource Center. This Service Pack contains performance improvements and maintenance fixes. Here are links to the downloads:
Release Note: ArcGIS 10.0 Service Pack 4 for the other five languages (French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Spanish) will be released in the next two weeks. A follow up blog entry will be posted to announce the availability once they are ready.
Some really good improvements are coming soon to the Resource Center. Checkout this sneak peak of the updates that will be released in conjunction with ArcGIS 10.1.
Continue reading »
