ArcGIS Server Tag
Have you ever wanted to add live weather, recent earthquakes, or perhaps current fire locations to your applications without writing any code? Many of the projects we address in Esri Technical Marketing have this very requirement.
We tackled this challenge by using what we call the Aggregated Live Feed methodology. This process downloads data from live sources such as NOAA and the USGS and aggregates it into a geodatabase, which is then served through ArcGIS Server as map services. You can see some of these feeds in action by visiting any of the ‘latest incident maps’ on the Esri Disaster Response site.
Recently we’ve developed a much simpler approach called ALF-Lite that doesn’t require specialized knowledge of the enterprise geodatabase or third-party components. This methodology can be deployed to any large or small environment that supports Esri’s ArcPy site package.
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When you create an intelligent web map or map service, you are sharing something that you hope will stand on its own and be useful to others. How can you deliver a map that is both attractive and useful for your audience?
This checklist helps you assess your map as an information product designed for a specific audience. When do you need to consult this checklist? Use it any time before you publish your map.
Various staff at Esri developed and honed the checklist over the years as we built and shared maps with our colleagues and customers. Over time, we noticed which “little things” seemed to help other people find and use these maps effectively.
The goal of this blog is to encourage you to develop and use your own checklist, perhaps using this one as a starting point. While this version focuses primarily on web maps and map services, additional sections in your checklist could focus on critical things you know to provide when serving image services, feature services, WMS or KML.
It was great seeing everyone from the Flex user community at the Developer Summit this year. If you were unable to attend hopefully we can see you next year or at the User’s Conference this summer. We received many questions and comments, and wanted to share some of it with everyone.
What’s going on with Flex at Esri?
The Flex Team at Esri is growing and doing great. In the last few months we’ve added three new team members. For more information about Flex at Esri and Adobe, please read the following posts.
- Some thoughts on the direction of the ArcGIS web mapping APIs (JavaScript, Flex, and Silverlight) [Esri]
- Adobe’s view of Flex and its commitments to Flex in the future [Adobe]
- Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes [Adobe]
Mobile
I’m always surprised by the number of people that don’t know that you can use the Flex SDK and the ArcGIS API for Flex to build mobile applications for Blackberry, Android, and iOS devices. Several people came by with new iPads and showed us some great Flex apps. The interest in mobile was more popular than expected at this year’s conference, possibly due to the fact we showcased it in several Technical Workshops. Below is a basic example of the ArcGIS API for Flex running as a native application on an iPad 2.
Version 2.8 of the ArcGIS API for JavaScript is now available! Highlights include:
Features
- Portal for ArcGIS API: An API to build applications that works with content from ArcGIS Online or an ArcGIS Portal
- Support for ArcGIS Server 10.1 editor tracking which enables automatic tracking of which user created a feature, when a feature was created, which user last updated a feature and when a feature was last updated
- Simpler constructor signatures for esri.SpatialReference class
- Feature Layers now fire an onQueryLimitExceeded event when a feature layer is unable to draw all expected features due to maxRecordCount restriction imposed on the server
- The Identity Manager has new methods to serialize its state and re-hydrate later
New Samples
- View web maps from a group on ArcGIS.com using the Portal for ArcGIS API
- Search ArcGIS.com with the Portal for ArcGIS API to display web maps with GPX data
- Add a non-Esri tiled layer with a single line of code
- Print Dijit with a web map from ArcGIS.com (requires 10.1 print task)
- Create Print Dijit templates using esri.request
- Use 960 Grid System to layout an application
Refer to the full What’s New in 2.8 document for the full list of new features and bug fixes.
Just in time for next week’s Developer Summit, we’ve made the version 3.0 Prerelease of the ArcGIS API and Viewer for Flex available for you to test drive.
API enhancements
This API release requires Adobe Flex 4.5 SDK or higher, which in turn requires at least Flash Player 10.2. The API includes more comprehensive support for ArcGIS 10.1 for Server, including:
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The 2012 Esri Developer Summit is coming up soon March 26 – 29 in Palm Springs, California. Although the Dev Summit has a relaxed, small conference feel, Esri sends an enormous pool of technical staff to visit with attendees throughout the week.
This year’s Dev Summit will introduce ArcGIS 10.1, which is just weeks away from completion. We’ll be demonstrating how you can administer your 10.1 server purely with web services, more easily launch elastic deployments, publish services to ArcGIS Online, view real-time progress reports as map caches are building, and more.
You can search the online agenda by track if you want to see all the sessions on a particular topic, or you can search by name if you’re looking for a particular Esri staff member. You’ll find many contributors to this blog at the Dev Summit answering questions and presenting workshops. Ask any staff member at the Esri showcase your question, and he or she will attempt to direct you to the software engineers or tech sessions where you are most likely to get the best answer. The “Meet the Teams” event on Tuesday evening also offers an informal opportunity to mingle with Esri staff and other attendees.
We look forward to meeting you in Palm Springs!
We recently presented a live training seminar titled Using HTML5 with ArcGIS. In the seminar we provided an overview of HTML5 and looked at a number of common examples of how to use HTML5 in your GIS applications. We also showed a bunch of tips and tricks to get you started. If you missed the seminar, the recording is available on the Esri Training site.
The seminar included three question and answer sessions. We thought it would be worthwhile to post the five most frequently asked questions along with answers.
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The ArcGIS.com map viewer provides a nice collection of picture marker symbols that can be used to symbolize features on your map. If you’re a developer, you might wonder how you can use these symbols in your applications. You could potentially use tools like Firebug or Chrome Developer tools to inspect ArcGIS.com and discover the image URL, but to make things easier, we’ve created a sample that allows you to select a symbol and generate the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) needed to draw the symbol:
When using this sample, just click a symbol and
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Now that you have shared your downloadable image service, how does a client download rasters? Below are the steps to download rasters:
- Add an image service into ArcMap.
- Make selection either by creating a query (Select By Attributes), or by using the selection tool (Select By Rectangle).
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Can I allow the users to download more than 20 rasters?
The “Maximum number of items downloadable per request” parameter limits the number of rasters that a user can download for each request. This means that a user can download 20 rasters (20 is the default value) at a time, and then they can make another request to download another 20. Obviously this can become tedious if you have thousands of images. If you do not mind users from downloading more than 20 rasters per request, then you can set the number to a higher value.
How do I set the maximum number per download to a higher number?
The number of rasters that can be downloaded per request on the server cannot exceed the maximum number that has been set on the source mosaic dataset (which is 20 by default). Therefore you will first have to edit the properties on the mosaic dataset itself. Then you can set the server limit.
- Right-click on the mosaic dataset, and click Properties
- Click on the Defaults tab
- Scroll to the bottom, and look for the Maximum Number of Items Downloadable per Request
- Edit the value in the “Maximum number of items downloadable per request” to the desired maximum value
- Click OK
Now the maximum number has been raised on the mosaic dataset itself. You can now edit the maximum value within the image service, as described in part 1 of this blog.
