ArcGIS Desktop Tag
Over the last couple of days at the 2012 Esri Partner Conference and Developer Summit we’ve had a number of questions about ArcGIS Explorer Desktop and the road ahead. If you’re at the DevSummit this afternoon Mark Bockenhauer and Jim Barry will present and demonstrate some of the new features coming up in the Explorer Desktop 2012 release at the Getting Started with ArcGIS Explorer Desktop SDK session.
As we have written about previously in this blog after the earthquake in Haiti (here and here), OpenStreetMap is a great source of data for you to support disaster and/or humanitarian operations. Esri has created a specific tool to empower the GIS Community to contribute and use OpenStreetMap data within ArcGIS. The ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap is a free tool you can download for ArcGIS Desktop from CodePlex. It allows people to do two key things from a disaster management / humanitarian relief perspective:
- Contribute data to OpenStreetMap using familiar tools
- Enable the conversion of OpenStreetMap (*.osm) files to a feature dataset for editing in ArcGIS
By Kenneth Field, Esri Research Cartographer
In many industries, simple geometric shapes such as squares and circles do not adequately represent objects. Some phenomena are just more complicated and require alternative approaches to represent them meaningfully. We had a question on Ask a Cartographer recently about creating pie segment shapes as features to support a requirement in the telecommunications industry. The geometry of the feature needed to represent the signal emitted from a cellphone mast. This sort of geometry cannot be built out of the box but by using Python we were able to build a custom Geoprocessing tool that could automate the process and build the features required. In this blog entry we explain why a pie segment better represents a cellphone signal, how they were constructed and what data are needed to run the tool. We also share the Geoprocessing tool so that others with this requirement can make similar maps.
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ArcGIS 10 introduced the concept of editing with feature templates, which define a new feature’s symbology and default attribute values, among other properties. Anytime I want to add a feature, I use the Create Features window, which displays a list of available feature templates and tools for creating new features.
Sometimes, though, I do not see the template I want to use in the Create Features window. This could be because there are no templates for the layer, but it could also be that the template exists but is being filtered out of the Create Features window. The underlying philosophy for determining whether ArcMap shows a feature template is that new features created with the template must be visible after creation. Therefore, templates are hidden whenever new features would immediately disappear and not be displayed on the map.
While a layer being turned off is one of the more obvious reasons why feature templates are not shown on the Create Features window, layer definition queries can be subtle causes. A definition query displays only the subset of features that match an attribute query defined on the Layer Properties dialog box; the remaining features are not drawn on the map or shown in the attributes table.
This post provides an overview of and best practices for the use of definition queries while creating features.
The National Geographic basemap has now been added to the File > Add Data > Add Basemap dialog in ArcGIS Desktop 10. It has also been added into the list of basemaps that appears if you choose the File > Add Data From ArcGIS Online command in ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1.
In the Add Basemap dialog, the Shaded Relief basemap entry has been removed in order to make space for the National Geographic basemap and keep the number of basemaps to 12. However, we have updated the Terrain basemap so that it includes the Shaded Relief service. So if you want to add shaded relief to your map, choose the Terrain basemap, and then in the Table Of Contents you can choose between the terrain service and the shaded relief service, whichever looks best for your map. The layer also includes reference overlays that you can turn on.
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National Geographic and Esri have collaborated to produce this cartographically distinctive basemap that reflects National Geographic’s cartographic design, typographic style, and map policies.
This basemap provides a visually appealing background for web mapping applications for mobile users, consumers, and educational purposes, and is also well suited as a general reference map for many GIS projects.
This National Geographic World Map has been added to the collection of existing ArcGIS Online basemaps that users can access freely for internal and external use.
Get more details about this map and start using it today.
In ArcGIS 10, feature templates define all the information required to create a feature, such as the target layer and the attributes the new feature will receive. Most of the time, you interact with feature templates on the Create Features window. However, some editing operations present a dialog box containing templates that you can choose for the output for that particular feature creation workflow. For example, the Select Feature Template dialog box used with the Editor menu > Buffer command allows you to set the feature template that will be used to create the new buffer feature. The list of templates is filtered to show only editable and visible polygon or line layers in the map; feature templates for other templates are hidden and cannot be used for the buffer output.
If you are developing a custom command or tool that requires the user to specify a feature template for the output of your workflow, you have two options for working with or presenting feature templates in the map. You can require the user to select a template from the Create Features window or you can implement a feature template dialog box that works similar to the Buffer command. Often, implementing your own feature template dialog box is the better option, as you can ensure the user has specified a template that meets the criteria of your customization. For example, you may only want the user to choose from templates from certain layers or those that are of a particular geometry type.
If you decide to create your own template dialog box for a customization, you can start by downloading a sample that Esri has created and shared in the Editing Labs group on ArcGIS.com. This sample is a Visual Studio 2010 project written in C# that creates an add-in containing simple dialog boxes to display templates. The sample was modeled after the template dialog box from the Buffer command and contains the same controls and considerations for displaying feature templates. You can use some or all of the functionality from this sample for your own customization. It is important to note that the dialog box can only display existing templates; you must create, delete, and manage templates for layers as usual through the Organize Feature Templates window.
Using the Template Dialog Sample command
The sample creates an add-in command that provides a similar chain of dialog boxes as Buffer: clicking the command opens a dialog box containing a button that opens another dialog box with a list of feature templates. The command is called Template Dialog Sample, which is TemplateAppButtton.cs in the Visual Studio project. To explore the sample’s functionality in ArcMap, compile the project or install the add-in that accompanies the download. Then, drag the Template Dialog Sample command from the Customize dialog box > Commands tab > Editing Labs category and place the button onto any toolbar. The command is only enabled when you are in an edit session.
Click the Template Dialog Sample button on the toolbar to which you added it to display the template application form (TemplateAppForm.cs). Click the Template button on the Template App Form dialog box to open the Template Picker Form (TemplatePickerForm.cs). Similar to the Select Feature Template dialog box opened from the Buffer command’s dialog box, the Template Picker Form allows you to choose a template and search for templates by name, tag, and layer.
In this sample, the Template Picker Form displays feature templates from all visible point, line, and polygon layers in the current editing workspace. If you want to enable filtering by geometry type, for example, you can modify the sample code through an enumeration in TemplateAppForm.cs when calling the TemplatePickerForm.
Most of the internal work in the sample occurs in the TemplatePickerForm class. This class contains a Visual Studio ListView control to display the templates as ListViewItems arranged into ListViewGroups that represent the layers. Selecting a template sets the _currentTemplate variable back on the add-in button, which can be used to set the current Editor template target on IEditor3.CurrentTemplate. The template can then be used to help you create new features as described in the Working with templates section in the Using feature templates help topic.
Content provided by Sean (Editing Team)
Registration is now open for the 2012 Esri Developer Summit. The summit will be in Palm Springs, CA March 26-29, 2012.
This is the developer event for ArcGIS. Plan now to attend and get the inside developer details on ArcGIS 10.1
