Esri Insider: The First Year

by Matt Artz on June 30, 2012

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Esri Insider blog launch.  It all started on June 30th, 2011, with a simple little post about our (then) new Ocean Basemap.  Since then, we’ve brought you more than 30 posts about Esri’s vision, technology trends, and other important and entertaining topics for geospatial professionals.

In terms of page views, the top 5 most popular posts to date have been:

  1. The Future Looks Bright for Spatial Thinkers
  2. GIS and The City 2.0
  3. The Intersection of GIS and Gaming
  4. GIS without the Box
  5. Telling Stories with Maps

What was your favorite post?  And what would you like us to discuss next?

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What’s the Cost of a Power Failure?

by Bill Meehan on June 18, 2012

Measuring the impact on customers

This year, New England had one of its worst late season storms in recent history. Heavy snow brought down trees, which in turn, brought down many power lines. Some people were out of power for more than a week. In March, a fire in a substation shut off power to the historic Back Bay section of Boston for several days. The blackout left hotels, office buildings, and subway stations dark and shuttered some of the most exclusive shops in the city. Continue reading →

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Multi-dimensional Mapping: The Civil War Story Map

by Allen Carroll on June 15, 2012

Ongoing sesquicentennial observances have heightened interest in a topic that millions of Americans have always found spellbinding. The saga of the Civil War seemed an ideal opportunity to test some techniques for timelines, animations, and search functions tied to interactive maps.

The “Battlefields of the Civil War” map was the latest in an ongoing effort to show how intelligent maps can help users explore subjects over both space and time. We’re also seeking to give users different options for browsing, navigating, and discovering content—even within a single story map. Continue reading →

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Linear vs. Non-Linear Storytelling: The Map Tour Template

by Allen Carroll on June 9, 2012

We’ve been developing story maps for over a year now, and from the start we’ve defined the term liberally. Many, even most, of our stories are non-linear; that is, they allow the user to browse and wander through the story at will. We’ve organized these stories using elements such as headlines, text blocks, map legends, and user interfaces that help guide the user through the map. But there’s no “correct” sequence by which users are supposed to navigate through these story maps.

Traditionalists might insist that a story is by nature linear. Written or oral stories are in fact linear narratives. Even stories that jump back and forth in time are written and read in a linear fashion. The mediums of text and the spoken word require it: you can’t tell, read, or listen to a story all at once, or back to front, or at random. It’s at least theoretically possible, perhaps, but doing so makes comprehension difficult.

Continue reading →

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Esri’s Ocean GIS Initiative

by Dawn Wright on June 8, 2012

On a planet where 71 percent of the surface is covered by water, the oceans are critical for life itself. They feed us, regulate our weather patterns, provide over half of the oxygen that we breathe, and provide for our energy and economy. Yet only 5 to 10 percent of the ocean floor and of the waters beneath the surface have been explored and mapped in a level of detail similar to what already exists for the dark side of the Moon, for Mars, and for Venus.

GIS technology, which has long provided effective solutions to the integration, visualization, and analysis of information about land, is now being similarly applied to oceans. Our ability to measure change in the oceans (including open ocean, nearshore, and coast) is increasing, not only because of improved measuring devices and scientific techniques, but also because new GIS technology is aiding us in better understanding this dynamic environment. This domain has progressed from applications that merely collect and display data to complex simulation, modeling, and the development of new research methods and concepts.
Continue reading →

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Geomedicine: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

by Bill Davenhall on May 23, 2012

For decades the public health field has generated incredible knowledge about what makes us sick. Public health agencies and authorities tell us in general what is good and bad for the general population, hoping that we will individually change our behaviors or pressure others to remediate assaults on our collective environments. Frankly, it’s a never ending job faced with difficult information choices, deaf ears, and mixed messages.

On the other hand, we have medicine at its apex of specialization, where doctors know a great deal about a few things and fewer know a little about everything. More problematic, however, is the new paradigm of a virtual physician in the palm of your hand: as society embraces the use of smartphones, people increasingly search for their own diagnoses and cures in absence of a more creative approach for bring public health knowledge into close proximity of personal medicine.

Continue reading →

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What Every Warfighter Needs to Know

by Eric Patten on May 21, 2012

Bringing spatial awareness into your mission

Before making a decision, military commanders gather a lot of information to analyze. First, they ask the same six questions journalists ask when gathering the news: who, what, where, when, why, and how. The critical question that ties the others together is where. Knowing the answer to where often helps the commander determine the who, what, when, why, and how. When you understand where and take advantage of that knowledge, you will make better decisions. You will, in many cases, get a sharper, 360-degree view of what’s happening within your area of operations, when and why it’s happening, and who is involved. Continue reading →

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Virtual 3D Cities Anytime, Anywhere

by Bern Szukalski on May 16, 2012

Virtual 3D cities and geodesign in 3D are hot topics these days, and with new and upcoming technology the ability to not just view cityscapes, but do meaningful work, design, and planning around them, is increasingly becoming possible – and more portable.

While many of these developments are part of core ArcGIS (as found in ArcGlobe, ArcScene, and Esri CityEngine) they are also now becoming more broadly available via lightweight desktop and browser-based applications to knowledge workers, planners, and city managers – where many geodesign decisions get made.

Continue reading →

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What’s the Big Deal about Big Data?

by Victoria Kouyoumjian on May 7, 2012

The technology tides have shifted again and, as the notion of cloud computing is becoming mainstream across most industries, a new buzzword is emerging: Big Data.  Never heard of it? Simply put, the term refers to the ever-growing mountain of data, generated from myriad sources, that organizations must effectively address.

Big Data Caricature

Courtesy: Keith Mann, Esri

For instance, according to a recent MeriTalk survey, 96% of Federal IT professionals expect their agency’s stored data to grow in the next two years by an average of 64 percent.

Big Data is often described using the Three “V”s:  Velocity, Volume, and Variety.  By example, let’s take a few of the real world case studies gathered by IBM and provided by Mike Rhodin, Senior Vice President at IBM Software Solutions:

Continue reading →

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Bridging the Gap between IT and OT

by David Totman on April 30, 2012

GIS: The universal language

To understate the obvious, there appears to be a communication gap in many public works departments between information technology (IT) and what could be called operational technology (OT). However, clear communication between these departments is critical for the successful completion of city projects. Continue reading →

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