Try Our New Ocean Basemap

by Matt Artz on June 30, 2011

The ocean makes up a huge part of our planet. Yet “there is still so much we don’t know about the ocean,” says Prof. Dawn Wright, ocean scientist and geographer at Oregon State University (and incoming Esri chief scientist). “How can we understand and mitigate the impacts of climate change, clean up oil spills, protect species, sustain fisheries, and so forth, if we still have not fully explored and understood the ocean?”

  • Podcast: Get the inside story on the new Ocean Basemap from Rafael Ponce, Esri’s Maritime Program Manager.  Listen

As a company dedicated to building tools to help better understand our world, Esri recently made available a comprehensive map of the world’s oceans and coastal areas. The first basemap of its kind, the Ocean Basemap is designed to support a variety of maritime GIS applications and move us towards gaining a more complete understanding of our complex planet.

Try it yourself. How will you use the Ocean Basemap?

View Larger Map on ArcGIS.com

Matt Artz

About Matt Artz

Matt Artz joined Esri in 1989. In his current role as GIS and Science Manager, he helps communicate the value of GIS as a tool for scientific research and understanding. He writes extensively about geospatial technologies, manages the GIS and Science blog, and is the editor of GIS.com. Prior to joining Esri he worked as an Environmental Scientist at a large science and engineering consulting company, on such diverse projects as highway noise modeling, archaeological impact assessment, and chemical weapons disposal. His educational background includes an M.S. degree in Environmental Policy and Planning and a B.S. degree in Anthropology and Geography.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

5 Comments

  1. azolnai says:

    Here’s a simple yet effective example for current affairs:
    ArcGIS – Disputed_Maritime_Areas http://bit.ly/qbFEWK

    July 27, 2011 at 2:37 am
  2. selva_tutic says:

    Here, the bathymetry makes sense, but integration of Current circulation data (simlated monthly avg), Altimeter data (wave height), coastal sediments, etc as a layer add would be more catchy, i guess…

    July 30, 2011 at 3:47 pm
  3. azolnai says:

    Has anyone else experienced difficulties with this service? It worked fine and today I don’t seem to be able to raise it. Thanks for any info on this. Also posted: ArcGIS – Ocean Basemap http://bit.ly/oZDgNE

    August 26, 2011 at 1:25 pm
  4. wikgrebc says:

    Will this basemap be available for download for use offline?

    September 12, 2011 at 8:15 pm
  5. iwatkins says:

    Really love this new basemap but there does seem to be a problem with the extents given by the MapServer service.

    If we look at at World Topo basemap (http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Topo_Map/MapServer) you will see that the Full Extent is given as:

    Full Extent:
    XMin: -20037507.0671618
    YMin: -19971868.8804086
    XMax: 20037507.0671618
    YMax: 19971868.8804086
    Spatial Reference: 102100 (3857)

    You’ll see you get the same for World Street, World Terrain etc.

    However, for Ocean Basemap (http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Ocean_Basemap/MapServer) you get the following:

    Full Extent:
    XMin: -22041259.1770665
    YMin: -33265069.1542242
    XMax: 22041259.1770665
    YMax: 33265069.1542243
    Spatial Reference: 102100 (3857)

    So if you load Ocean Basemap into a new Flex application (etc.) the JSON reports this Full Extent and when the user pans “off the edge of the world”, you get lots of failed tile requests, because they don’t exist.

    Only way around it at the moment is to define your primary basemap as one of the ones that does work then overlay the Ocean Basemap over the top. Not ideal.

    Any chance this can be fixed?

    Cheers

    Ian

    (ian.watkins@metoffice.gov.uk)

    September 28, 2011 at 1:09 pm