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ESRI Development Summit 2010 Summary

Eric Edmonds — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:53:31 +0000

So I get to write a blog entry about the 2010 ESRI Development Summit in Palm Springs California! Do I tell you about the 86 degree sunshine, the college kids on spring break, the street party, the beautiful women by the pool (gotcha!), the breath taking mountains or the serene desert? Okay! Well, no, I did not get to see any of that. But, I did learn a lot of cool stuff about the ArcGIS 10 pre-release which is planning to ship out April 1st, 2010. Of course, it is April Fool’s Day, so I am not holding my breath.

I started Monday at 8:30 a.m. with the “Getting Started with the ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs Session” by Presenters Jeremy Bartley, Kelly Hutchins, and Sterling Quinn. I’m telling you…lot’s of cool stuff in the new APIs for JavaScript, Flex, and Silverlight. The Version 2.0 Beta was released Sunday, so I am pretty excited about that and the new editing widgets that are avaialable in all three api’s.

Over the past few days I attended sessions back to back, including: “Using and Extending the ArcGIS WebMap for Flex”, “Working with the ArcGIS API for Flex”, “Distributed Geodatabase Development”, “Working with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript” and several user presentations on Javascript and Flex work. All that flexing can wear you out! But it is Palm Springs!

Of course, the most exciting news to some of you will be the new Iphone Application Development API. There is also a rumor of an Android Development API, which was the subject of many questions during the mobile technology question sessions. Everybody seems to be hot to jump on the Android bandwagon.

I also spent a lot of time with several of the ESRI development team leads whom helped me with answering several questions and providing
issue solutions.

Well that was a brief flash of the summit. I am incredibly pumped about getting the pre release and implementing all the new stuff as soon as I get back to work!

Blog at you all again soon!
Rodney

Oh to leave with a list of a few of the new things for ArcGIS Desktop here is a list straight from Jack Dangermon’s slide!

An ArcCatalog window built into ArcMap for quick data access
Easier and faster ways to find and use symbols and tools
Auto hide and dockable windows (e.g., table of contents) so your focus remains on the map
Ability to execute geoprocessing in the background, allowing you to continue to interact with your map
Integration of a new window in ArcMap to simplify project management and collaboration
New Query layers that allow you to access all data (including spatial data) stored in relational databases via standard SQL
Creation and management of time-based data
Can display and animate temporal datasets
Python window console within ArcMap
Being able to automate everything with Python
Desktop add-ins template

2008 ESRI UC – Day 2

Joel Smith — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:36:16 +0000

Day 2, and for the rest of the conference there are technical sessions. Many, many technical sessions. From getting started with ArcMap to Building Models with Python. There is almost too much to choose from. The key is planning out your day.

The exhibit area opened up this morning and it is amazing. There are hundreds of exhibitors here: Google, BAE, USGS, Trimble, Topcon, HP, ITT… (full list here) I’ll get some more pictures today!

2008 ESRI UC – Day 1

Joel Smith — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:54:04 +0000

14,000 GIS users converge on San Diego, California’s Convention Center. This event is massive! One Plenary Session today led by the president of ESRI, Jack Dangermond. The topic of today’s talks – GIS: Geography in Action. Jack began this morning with a welcome and proceeded with some yearly awards. Next, began the showcase of technical demonstrations. One of the best demonstrations I’ve ever seen was given by MIT and their use of 3D modeling to map out the entire campus, including each room of every building by use. Then analyzed the data to show the impact of transportation upgrades in proximity to sensitive labs.

For the first time ever, ESRI demonstrated a preview of ArcGIS 9.4! The user interface looks like it may borrow some styling and functional cues from Bentley’s WaterCAD with dockable and pinable windows (the TOC for example). The editing interface looks like it will be greatly improved, removing the “target layer” and introducing a type of “legend” of features to pick from which determines the features you are creating or modifying. The tag line for that demonstration ended up being, “editing is as easy as drawing on a map”.

The final speaker for the plenary session was Dr. Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical Gardens on Biodiversity – The Foundation of Life. His talk was very moving, encouraging each GIS user to imagine the world as they would like it to be and strive in daily life to make the world as close to that dream as possible. Dr. Raven congratulated ESRI on its efforts to promote GIS in early education. While he never mentioned this phrase, it resonated with me throughout the entire speech, “Think globally, act locally.”

Finally, the Map Gallery… Hundreds of submissions this year for public display.

ESRI Releases a ‘How to Understand the ELA’ White Paper

Eric Edmonds — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:50:51 +0000

ESRI just released a guide to help us understand the ESRI Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). As many of you know, ESRI released the Small Municipal and County Government ELA which at the outset looked really good. As the details were released it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be a good fit for everyone. The program has certainly generated a lot of interest. For many though it has raised more questions. This white paper doesn’t answer all of these questions but it does provide a great deal of info about what you can expect from ESRI if you sign up for the program.

The White Paper provides insights into the following areas:

The function and makeup of the ESRI ELA team (called the Agency Central Support or ACS) that works with an end user agency
Initial software shipments and the requirements gathering to ensure the correct software is made available (for example floating or concurrent licensing).
Organizing mass installations
Technical Support

You can find the document HERE.

Check out our new poll on this topic on the left.

ArcGIS 9.3 to ship in July

Eric Edmonds — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:00:28 +0000

Just got a little bit more of an official word that ArcGIS 9.3 will begin shipping in mid-July. That means you can expect to see it in your mailbox during the last half of the month. For more info on what’s coming up in the new release, ESRI has a page dedicated to it.

ArcGIS Server & ArcSDE at the 9.3 Release

Neill Jobe — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:13:50 +0000

We found a great article, from Spatially Adjusted, explaining the future of ArcSDE at the ArcGIS Server 9.3 release. There is also great information on how ArcGIS Server will integrate with new Spatial Databases as well as connect to and create older versions of the GEOdatabase. Here are the bullet points listed below.

ArcSDE at 9.3 will become fully integrated into ArcGIS Server. ArcGIS Server Enterprise will be the “traditional” ArcSDE level where ArcGIS Server supports an unlimited number of users via either direct connect or connection to an application server. It offers DBMS support for IBM DB2, IBM Informix, all editions of Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and PostgreSQL. It has no data or memory limits.

ArcGIS will connect to Microsoft SQL Server via direct connect. Out of the box ArcGIS application will be able to connect to Microsoft SQL Server Express Spatial, but if you want unlimited users, you’ll need to purchase ArcGIS Server Enterprise.

ArcGIS supports older versions of the Geodatabase. At 9.3, ArcGIS can connect and create geodatabases (personal, file) back to 9.0. This means you won’t need to keep older versions of the geodatabase around to share with others. You also won’t have to upgrade your geodatabases just because ArcGIS went to a new release. If you wish, you can keep your older geodatabases running at whatever release you wish (back to 9.0).

SQL Server 2008 Spatial will be fully supported when Microsoft releases final version of SQL Server 2008. This might mean that SQL Server 2008 support might not show up until SP1 or SP2 for 9.3. It all depends on Microsoft’s release schedule.

PostgreSQL support will be available at 9.3 as has been reported. There will be support for both the PostGIS and ESRI data types.

ArcGIS Engine will allow developing with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express so you can scale down your enterprise applications to the workgroup level. You’ll no longer be limited to working with personal for file geodatabases.

ArcGIS Server Enterprise will support 64bit processors. This is only the spatial database application server and not the AGS Basic, Standard and Advanced product.

HT: Spatially Adjusted

ESRI Podcast Explaining GEOdatabase Replication

Neill Jobe — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:27:02 +0000

GEOdatabase Replication is an exciting new feature offered in the ArcSDE 9.2 release from ESRI. This new functionality does not get the “WOW” attention it deserves as the migration from shapefiles, coverages, and personal GEOdatabases has been slow. If you own SDE, you should seriously look into this exciting feature as a means of GIS data distribution throughout your organization as well as disaster recovery method for critical GIS datasets. ESRI has posted a podcast titled “Geodatabase Replication: Working with Replication that explains in more detail what geodatabase replication is and how it works.

HT: Spatially Adjusted