The GEO-Jobe Blog

Improving Your Entire GIS Workflow Seminar (Franklin, TN)

Neill Jobe — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:13:47 +0000

Join ESRI for a no-cost seminar designed to help improve your entire GIS workflow. This one-of-a-kind opportunity will help you quickly gain the key benefits of ArcGIS 9.3. From map production and data sharing to modeling and increased mobility, you will see how the newest GIS tools can enhance your operations. GIS professionals and GIS managers from any type of organization or industry are encouraged to attend the ArcGIS 9.3 seminar. Read more.

Register Today
The ArcGIS 9.3 seminars will fill quickly, so please choose your location and take advantage of no-cost registration. If you have any questions, e-mail us at 93seminar@esri.com.

Hidden, Never Mentioned, Best Feature of ArcGIS 9.3!

Joel Smith — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:49:42 +0000

I have been waiting for this ever since I started using ArcGIS 5 years ago! The ability of the mouse scroll zoom to zoom to the cursor location (yes, just like CAD)! I stumbled onto this little gem while working on a coworkers computer, who had the zoom in/out reversed. He wanted it changed and right under the reverse zoom in/out option I find an option for “Wheel Zoom Centers On: Display or Cursor” To get there click Tools > Options > General Tab, down at the bottom.

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!

Update to Microsoft Virtual Earth

Joel Smith — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:19:09 +0000

I heard from an ESRI representative that the subscription for the imagery and base maps from VE will cost $200/person/year. Incredibly affordable! One catch is that for now it will only be available as streaming information so you’ll have to be connected online to use it for now. They are working on a hosted solution, but no word on pricing for that just yet.

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.

Microsoft Virtual Earth coming to ArcGIS 9.3

Joel Smith — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:19:26 +0000

Coming soon to ArcGIS 9.3 as a subscription based service that will allow you to add the Microsoft Virtual Earth imagery and base maps. The real benefit of using this service is that it removes the responsibility of finding and sometimes purchasing the latest base mapping files. Also, it frees you to map beyond your normal “home territory”, expanding your mapping abilities. No word yet on pricing, stay tuned! For now, investigate the beta program ESRI already offers for free as a GIS Server layer (http:/services.arcgisonline.com/v92) for imagery, topos, shaded relief maps, etc. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google follows suite if not just to show up Microsoft

WunderMap - Interactive Radar and Weather Stations

Joel Smith — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:07:43 +0000

Weather Underground has a map that shows the output of thousands of weather stations around the world. As well as NEXRAD radar of current precipitation! The weather stations report temperature, wind speed and direction. This site is a wonderful mashup of mapping all things weather. You can even track current hurricanes by clicking on the tabs at the top of the map. Each hurricane displayed shows its progression from tropical storm, to depression through the category stages, and even the projected path. Very Cool!

San Diego, Here I Come!

Joel Smith — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:57:21 +0000

The countdown has begun…In less than 1 week I will be in Sunny (hopefully) San Diego, California for the 2008 ESRI Users Conference. I shall do my best to document the entire ordeal for those that cannot be there. I plan to include as many pictures as I can to completely capture the enormity of this event. If there is anything specific that you would like me to check out or blog about, let me know in the comments! This is going to be my first ESRI Users Conference, and according to ESRI I won’t be alone; 40% of attendees will be first timers… Anyone that has been before, feel free to leave me some pointers in the comments as well!

EarthNow! Landsat Image Viewer

Joel Smith — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:07:34 +0000

USGS has a new trick up its sleeve. Almost realtime satellite imagery from LandSat 5 & 7! Landsat 5 was launched in 1984 as a backup for Landsat 4 and scans the earth once every 16 days. Landsat 7 was launched in 1999 and circles the Earth at an altitude of 438 miles. These two satellites stream imagery continuously to the earth, specifically to the USGS where that data is compiled and analyzed and then hosted for public view on the EarthNow! site: http://earthnow.usgs.gov/ There you can view the latest pass of either Landsat 5 or 7 with a countdown till the next pass over the US. Each pixel of the images displayed is about 250 square meters, so I would worry about your personal privacy just yet (not to say other government agencies aren’t watching…don don don).

You can also link to http://glovis.usgs.gov from the EarthNow! page where you can download 20% or less cloud cover images of the US.

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 6 Now Available

Neill Jobe — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:00:11 +0000

If you have not yet installed ArcGIS 9.3, then Service Pack 6 has been released for your ArcGIS 9.2 installation. I am assuming this will be the last Service Pack for 9.2 since the release came after ArcGIS 9.3 started shipping last month. Click Here to go straight to the download page.

For those of you who have installed ArcGIS 9.3 we would love to hear from you. Please leave us a comment and let us know of any great new features, shortcuts, tips, bugs, etc. I am sure the community would like to know a little more before upgrading.