Tag Archives: ArcGIS.com
The Road Ahead for ArcGIS
The primary theme for ArcGIS 10.1, which is expected to be released in early 2012, is sharing and collaboration. Users will find that this release makes it simpler to put mapping and geospatial analytics into the hands of more people without requiring that they be GIS experts. ArcGIS users will be able to deliver any GIS resource, such as maps, imagery, geodatabases, and tools, as a web service. The ability to access these services will be built into ArcGIS, as well as any application built with one of the ArcGIS APIs.
With this release, cloud computing—both public and private clouds—will play an increasingly critical role in how users get their work accomplished. ArcGIS software will take advantage of the powerful, scalable, and ubiquitous nature of cloud infrastructures to store and distribute geospatial content. Users will be able to easily package their maps and layers and make that content available to staff, stakeholders, partners, or the public via online groups while maintaining complete control and ownership of their content. Additionally, users will be able to quickly deploy GIS servers in the cloud when they need them as fully functional production systems for publishing services and supporting desktop, mobile, and web applications.
At 10.1, ArcGIS for Server will run natively on 64-bit operating systems. Users will notice significant performance improvements for activities such as web editing, map caching, spatial analysis, finding addresses, and using imagery.
Imagery will also be better integrated into the core of ArcGIS. ArcGIS will not only make it simpler to use imagery but also support more imagery sources, as well as lidar and radar.
An exciting addition to ArcGIS at 10.1 will be ArcGIS Runtime, which lets developers create and deploy focused, stand-alone GIS applications for desktop users, who have been asking for a small, lightweight deployment that, in terms of capabilities, fits between ArcGIS Engine and the ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs. The new runtime is designed for both desktop and cloud development. It has a fast display and does not require installation; it can be run directly from a CD. The learning curve for the new runtime is expected to be very gentle for developers familiar with the web APIs.
In addition to these enhancements to ArcGIS, Esri has also concentrated on providing core GIS tools to help users create better maps. These tools range from dynamic legends to contextual generalization, the ability to track edits, parcel editing tools, analysis tools, and a whole lot more.
Finally, as Esri moves toward ArcGIS 10.1, Python is becoming foundational to ArcGIS. It essentially bridges the gap between GIS analysts and programmers.
We will be sharing more and more about what’s coming in ArcGIS 10.1 over the next few months so check back often.
Sneak Peek: Browsing ArcGIS.com Maps in Business Analyst Online
by Sooria Jeyaraman
As you all know in our latest release we’ve added the capability to integrate ArcGIS.com maps in Business Analyst Online. Now we are stepping up the game and making it much easier to load. You can load the ArcGIS.com maps with a single click. How is that done you may ask? Continue reading
Landsat Imagery
If you need access to Landsat imagery checkout ChangeMatters Viewer or you can access multi-temporal, multi-spectral worldwide Landsat GLS data from ArcGIS Online.
ArcGIS.com Popups and Business Analyst (Identifying Vulnerable Populations) – Part II
by Mehak Sujan
In my previous post, ArcGIS.com Popups and Business Analyst (Identifying Vulnerable Populations) – Part I, I demonstrated an application that identifies geographic areas within the US which are most vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters by taking into account three demographic factors: household income less than $30K, population greater than 65 years, and children less than 18 years. Continue reading
ArcGIS.com Popups and Business Analyst (Identifying Vulnerable Populations) – Part I
by Mehak Sujan
With the ArcGIS API for Flex 2.3 that was just released on April 15th, support for ArcGIS.com popups has been added.
Our team is really excited about this new added support and we want to do something cool to integrate it into the Business Analyst APIs. I’ve written a sample application that demonstrates one way of identifying geographic areas which are most at risk to natural hazards and disasters (e.g. floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, etc) within the country by taking into account demographic factors. It blends together Continue reading
Announcing ArcGIS for Water Utilities
We’re proud to announce the next evolution of Esri’s offerings for water, wastewater and stormwater utilities – ArcGIS for Water Utilities.
Over the next few weeks leading up to the Esri User Conference, we will be reorganizing the Water Utility Resource Center and our templates into ArcGIS for Water Utilities. In the meantime, we thought it would be helpful to give an overview of ArcGIS for Water Utilities and answer some questions we’ve already received from members of the user community that have helped us bring ArcGIS for Water Utilities together.
What is ArcGIS for Water Utilities?
ArcGIS for Water Utilities is a collection of maps and apps packaged for the ArcGIS platform. It is designed to meet common needs of water, wastewater and stormwater utilities. The maps and apps that are part of ArcGIS for Water Utilities are the next generation of the Water Utility Resource Center Templates.
ArcGIS for Water Utilities is a configuration of ArcGIS software and is included in the cost of licensing the ArcGIS system.
What do you mean by the “ArcGIS System”?
ArcGIS is a scalable system of integrated software that is designed to be deployed in a variety of ways. The advances in ArcGIS 10 truly make ArcGIS a geo-spatial technology platform that meets the common generic needs of any organization for creating, managing, analyzing and sharing spatial data. All components of the ArcGIS platform – ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, the geodatabase, mobile GIS clients, web GIS clients, work seamlessly together when deployed as a system.
Water utilities are finding it easier to license the whole system because it fits their business needs better than buying individual pieces of software in a piecemeal manner. ArcGIS for Water Utilities enables users to get started fast and to become immediately productive. It provides a framework that can be extended and improved both by individual organizations as well as by valued business partners that support the water utilities community.
This sounds a lot like the Water Utility Templates you already have?
Yes – because it is the next generation of our templates. Based on your experiences and requests, we’ve decided that we can make water utility GIS easier, faster, cheaper and less confusing to implement by delivering all the parts you need to successfully implement ArcGIS to serve your organization’s mission.
How does this relate to Esri’s cloud efforts?
The cloud is already part of Esri’s platform, so it should come as no surprise that ArcGIS for Water Utilities can be implemented on site or in the cloud and will continue to evolve with the cloud capabilities of ArcGIS platform.
Why are you doing this?
We want to make ArcGIS easier, faster and cheaper to deploy for water utilities.
Are you going to a formal release schedule for ArcGIS for Water Utilities?
Yes. We have definite plans to continue to make incremental improvements and additions and will release these on an on-going basis.
How can I get ArcGIS for Water Utilities?
Download the set of maps and apps from the ArcGIS.com Water Utilities community, just like you currently download the Water Utility Templates.
10 Steps to Configure the COP Template within Your Organization
The Public Safety COP Template is designed to be starter application to help you quickly implement the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex to provide situational awareness for your organization. This download package contains many of the tools and feeds that you have seen in our demonstrations and training. If you already have ArcGIS Server installed and configured you can go through these steps in about an hour. Obviously having an ArcGIS Server instance available somewhere within your organization is a prerequisite. Your data should be well organized and you should have your operational layers and basemaps published. This blog post contains the 10 basic steps to get this application set up within your organization.
To get started you can download this template from http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=1d90b418b78e40158914bd5178b6892f. For these 10 steps we are going to basically walk through the main configuration file (config.xml). More information is in the help documentation – see http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/help/mainconfig.htm
Step 1 – Pick your title and subtitle
Up at the top select the title and subtitle for your application. Often terms like GIS get lost on the broader Public Safety Community. Terms like Common Operational Picture (COP) or Situational Awareness seem to resonate more. In some cases specific application names and/or acronyms seem to take on a life of their own. For example applications like Virginia’s VIPER or Florida’s GATOR applications are great examples of this. Consider coming up with a good acronym (such as an aggressive animal) for your organization.
Step 2 – Pick your logo
Next find an image to include in the upper left of the application. This image should be 48 x 48 pixels.
Optionally include your logo over the map as a Static Image Widget – see – http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/help/widgets/staticimage_widget.htm
Step 3- Pick your colors
There are several color options that you can change quickly. See – http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/help/styling.htm. I’ve been coached by our graphics department not to go overboard and have colors so bright that they distract from the map. Setting the colors to match your organizations current web theme or “brand” can be quickly achieved by setting the colors appropriately.
Step 4 – Set your initial extent
Set the initial extent of your map for your jurisdiction. There is a handy helper utility here – http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/help/extenthelper/flexviewer_extenthelper.html – where you can zoom in to an area and copy the initial extent parameters and paste it in to your config.xml file. Note to make sure you match the aspect ratio of the helper utility to how our app will be normally displayed.
Step 5 – Basemaps
In order to provide context to your operational layers select the basemaps that are appropriate for your organization. New in version 2.2 of the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex you can combine local basemaps with global basemaps like those from ArcGIS Online or Bing. There are several local government templates for basemaps. Those include:
- The Public Safety COP Template comes with a Public Safety basemap. This is a modification of the General Purpose basemap with an emphasis on Public Safety like critical infrastructure being highlighted and addresses showing up on the building footprints.
- Topographic – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0daade53e0e540de98a0d5d0b0ce89df
- Imagery Hybrid – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=9c8b3044c4054d59b658184c3737c432
Step 6 – Live feeds from other organizations
The COP Template is already configured with live feeds from both the USGS and Pacific Disaster Center. Add other feeds such as your State or Location Department of Transportation or make your own using the Live Feeds Template.
Step 7 – Your operational data
The next step is to organize the data you manage. From the Emergency Management perspective this can include things like shelters, incidents, damage assessment, and field crew locations. The COP template provides layers for these. The other thing to consider is organizing your critical infrastructure data. Access to other business systems is also important; this is where the “Common” in COP comes in to play and things like Computer-Aided Dispatch, AVL, and Traffic Systems are important to be connected to.
Step 8 – Configure Public Safety COP widgets
The Public Safety COP Templates comes with three custom widgets – the ERG Widget, Report by Exception and Find Closest Facility. Configure these widgets to point to your own data. For example you can configure the ERG Widget to point to your own critical infrastructure layer.
Step 9 – Get other widgets and organize them
There are many widgets that come with the application out of the box. There additional widgets from the community – http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/gallery.html. I’ve listed some of the Public Safety related widgets here:
- Street View and More – Widget for FlexViewer 2.* – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=dc56d2ab11534d24a5559ea9dc8f5119
- Route Widget version 2.2.3 for FlexViewer 2.2 or higher – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=992b1f691f44489aa4dcbafe2db66700
- TwitterSearch Widget – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=5f3bf5febd9e4a1d8cf92b15c75b9e41
- National Grid/MGRS WebMercator Widget for Flex Viewer 2.x – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=56d4d2ed5d474eb4b8e29973d2376652
- WMS Radar Layer Widget for ArcGIS Viewer for Flex v2.2 – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=75d3bf48976c44ef986a70e0dcad0f75
- Chart Widget 2.2 for FlexViewer 2.x – http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=51558a31b24a4139bf915a0ba47bd25d
Step 10 – Configure the Splash Screen
Finally configure the Splash Widget for your organization using HTML formatting standards. You can include hyperlinks.
Now that you have this set up promote this within your organization! Perhaps you can use this in support of upcoming exercise. Here’s an example of the COP Template that I have configured in support of the 2011 National Level Exercise:
Here are some additional resources that may be helpful as you move forward:
Introduction to the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex – FREE recorded Live Training Seminar – http://training.esri.com/acb2000/showdetl.cfm?did=6&Product_id=983
If you are looking to go from a configurator to a developer here are some good training resources:
- Basics of Flex programming (online self-training)- Adobe Tour de Flex http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex.html
- Learn about the ArcGIS API for Flex from Esri: Building Web Applications Using the ArcGIS API for Flex (2 day instructor led class) – http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=catalog.courseDetail&CourseID=50121730_10.x
- Watch this short video: ArcGIS Viewer for Flex: Creating a Custom Widget – http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/video/arcgis-server/details?entryID=870F152C-1422-2418-A010-7C82711FE22F
- Explore the documentation on the Resource Center – http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapps/flexviewer/help/developers/gettingstarted_dev.htm
Constructing features with precise measurements
In many scenarios, particularly in the built environment, you need to construct new features based on a series of measurements and offsets from existing features in your data. Although ArcGIS supports a variety of ways to create features using a combination of snapping and constraints, more permanent construction geometries are appropriate in some scenarios.
Rather than resorting to storing construction lines in a feature class, an alternative method to support construction lines is with the temporary guide functionality available by installing the Construction Guides add-in written by Esri’s Editing development team. You can use the guides to build a series of geometries to assist you with completing complex constructions for use while creating new features and modifying the shape of existing features. The guides can be created with common editing constraint capabilities, such as making geometry parallel to an existing feature, at distance from a known location, or at a specific x,y coordinate. You can use snapping both when placing the guides and creating features in relation to them, allowing you to precisely locate a position based on the construction guide geometry.
To use the Construction Guides add-in, download it from the Editing Labs group on ArcGIS.com and double-click the file to install it on your machine. When you start ArcMap you have access to the Guides toolbar, which hosts all the tools to create and manage the temporary geometries that can be used in constructions. Creating construction guides is a straightforward process. You just click the type of guide on the Guides toolbar and define its geometry on the map. You can do this interactively, or if you have specific values to enter, the tools support the ability to specify them using keyboard shortcuts.
To illustrate how the guides can be utilized during feature creation, I am going to digitize a new residential building with them. Once I position the guides, I use the regular feature construction tools to create the building feature. I have been given several measurements that I can use to place the guides, and ultimately, the new building. The northwest corner of the building is 12.5 feet from the corner of the lot. To locate this position, I first use a circle guide and snap to the corner of the lot to place the center point of the circle. I then drag a circle, but rather than clicking to define the circle’s diameter interactively, I can press the R key and enter 12.5 to define the radius. I also know that the edge of the building is offset eight feet from the western lot boundary. I can use the Line Guide tool to create a guide from that lot boundary and specify a distance of eight feet by pressing the D key. Similar to entering values in built-in editing dialog boxes, guide measurements are entered in map units.
With these two guides in place, I can now begin to create the building feature. Since the rresidential building is rectangular in shape, I can use the Rectangle construction tool to create it. To place the first corner of the building, I need to turn on Intersection Snapping from the Snapping toolbar and snap to the intersection of the circle and line guides.
Once I have created the corner of the building at that intersection, I set the orientation of the building in the lot by snapping along the line guide I created from the lot boundary. I can then right-click to access a menu that allows me to enter the length and width dimensions of my building.
The building feature is completed once I finish entering the measurements. The guides remain after the feature is created, so I could continue to use them for other editing tasks. In this case, I don’t need them any longer, so I can click Clear Guides to remove all the guides.
This is just one illustration of using guides to locate features precisely. In future blog posts, I’ll explain how this sample was developed and how you can extend your own code to utilize some of the same capabilities shown here.
Introducing Editing Labs on ArcGIS.com
The Construction Guides add-in is one example of how Esri’s Editing development team is building tools, prototypes, and practical examples and sharing them with you. We are adding these to an ArcGIS.com group called Editing Labs, which provides an opportunity, along with the ArcGIS Ideas site, for you to share feedback on some work that the Editing team is investigating. Tell us what you think about Construction Guides and our other samples by adding comments on the individual items in the Editing Labs group. We’ll be adding new content regularly to Editing Labs, so check back often.
Content provided by Doug (ArcGIS Editing Team)
ArcGIS.com website maintenance scheduled for Wednesday, March 2
The ArcGIS.com website will undergo maintenance on Wednesday March 2 from 5 p.m. PST until 9 p.m. PST. During this time period, you may notice some disruption in accessing the site. If you experience issues other than ones related to connecting to the site, please send feedback to arcgisonline_feedback@esri.com or post to our forum at http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/30-ArcGIS-Online.
Public Safety Common Operational Picture Template v. 2.2 Released
The February 7, 2011 release of the Public Safety Common Operational Picture template for ArcGIS 10 addresses the following:
New Functionality
1. Added support for the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex 2.2
2. Added support for the dynamic Legend Widget and removed the static Legend contained in About link
3. Updated symbology for incident point, line and polygon features
4. Added a custom pop up widget to display feature information (aliases, field formatting, etc.)
5. Converted imagery hybrid basemap in to a web map that now includes the World Imagery ArcGIS Online service and a reference overlay from the local government geodatabase
Resolved Problems
N/A
Known Issues
N/A
Also note that a video on How to use the Public Safety COP Template for ArcGIS 10 has been posted to the Local Government Video Gallery.
