ArcGIS 9.2 SP 5 released

Service Pack 5 has been released and it is available from ESRI's support page. From this page go to section that interests you like ArcInfo Desktop or ArcGIS Server.

For New Zealand users, you can get it from Eagle's GIS download page.

ESRI Developer Summit

Tomorrow ESRI Devlopement Summit starts in Palm Springs. Since I am not a developer (I can do simpler stuff but it takes a bit longer) I am not attending the Summit. A friend of mine, Jithen is over there and for details read his blog, Mandown.

So far the Business Partner Conference took place and here are some of the highlights:

The growth of the products are as follows:
Desktop +15%
Server + 31%
Developer + 52%

Some improvments on ArcGIS Server include:
30% or more performance increase with ArcGIS Server 9.3
REST and JavaScript API's
Improved cache management tools
OGC (WFS, WMS, WCS)
Role based security
Print tasks and map tips
Animation libraries and more wizards
Streamlined

The official site is 2008 SRI Developer Summit and includes on-line agenda, Code challange link (think you can write ArcGIS Server code worth $15,000?) and other useful informatio including keynote speakers like Alan Cooper, "father of Visual Basic".

So, head over to ESRI site or Mandown for full info or come back here for brief outline.

ArcGIS 9.2 SP 5 update

ESRI added the details for ArcGIS Server issues addressed in Service Pack 5. There aren't too many in here what is a good sign.


ArcSDE administration issues resolved

• NIM011017 - Using sderaster -o copy command to copy large raster datasets from a 9.1 geodatabase to a 9.2 geodatabase results in pyramid level 0 to be displayed as nodata when viewed in ArcMap or ArcCatalog.
• NIM012843 - Source raster data with high precision extents are truncated when stored in a SDO_GEORASTER. This causes that data to be stored in the wrong coordinate space.
• NIM013560 - The shp2sde and tbl2sde commands need to support Unicode nstring data to allow users to properly import data that contains non-English characters.
• NIM013939 - sdetable -o create_view fails with Error: Table not registered (-220).

Non-database specific server fixes

• NIM008463 - Cannot use Java API to insert feature that contains CAD data, such as a circle.
• NIM010667 - Setting the ArcSDE server configuration TCPKEEPALIVE parameter to true does not terminate orphaned gsrvr processes as it should.
• NIM011286 - Geocoding a large number of addresses returns: Error executing SSA function [Error while calling SSA_init() function in locssa.::Out of server memory].
• NIM012755 - Cannot add the British National Grid ID 27700 to a Web service's capabilities file. This is caused by the projection scale factor not matching the internal definition of the coordinate system.
• NIM012821 - Posting a version to the DEFAULT version when a user has no privileges on a class registered with move edits to base results in the edits not being moved to the base table. See KB article 34045.
• NIM013039 - On Windows Vista operating systems, when making a database connection in ArcCatalog, the entry for the Server text box has to be fully qualified (i.e, .), otherwise the connection fails.
• NIM013737 - Certain geometries cause Java functions SeShape.getWKBSize and SeShape.asWKB to fail.
• NIM013816 - Provide support for 9.2 SP5 clients to connect to 9.3 geodatabases.
• NIM013823 – The sdeimport command does not correctly load raster datasets that have a pyramid origin set. The pyramid must be rebuilt before it displays correctly.
• NIM013840 - Enhancement to cache the properties of state 0 on the session handle to avoid recursive SQL statements to the underlying DBMS. See KB article 34215.
• NIM031119 - Locator cannot be created in ArcGIS Desktop if the reference data comes from a spatial database connection that uses a long server name — for instance, an IP address.

ArcMap Server

• 
  NIM012416 - Query functionality does not work in the HTML viewer when working with an embedded map service in an ArcMap Service.
• NIM012804 - SDO materialized views for a feature service in ArcIMS 9.2 SP 1 does not display in ArcMap.
  
  

There are database specific issues fixes listed on this page. The list includes Oracle, Informix and DB2 and only one issue for SQL Server.

ArcGIS 9.3 will support COLLADA models

In a brief news release on main ESRI web site they have announced support for COLLADA models in ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server. There isn't much in the announcement so we'll have to wait and see when software ships later this year.

Adding support for COLLADA is opening a whole range of options for creating 3D content for ArcGIS. There are various tools available for creating models in COLLADA including Blender, SketchUp, Maya, 3D Studio Max and many others.

If you want to find more about it have a look at the forum. This includes specification, conformance test and examples.

ArcGIS 9.2 SP 5 announced

ESRI has announced the release of Service Pack 5 for ArcGIS 9.2 on their support web site page. Service pack will be available latter this month.

The list of issues addressed with this service pack is quite long (148 at the time of writing) and most of the issues resolved are for Desktop, Engine and Server.

Here is my pick of important fixes:

• NIM004970 - Performing an Identify operation or interacting with the Editor task can cause SOC processes to be abandoned under heavy load
• NIM005584 - After running the Synchronize geoprocessing tool in ArcCatalog, the SDE connections used by the process are released
• NIM007342 - Terrain to Raster geoprocessing tool may produce incomplete results when a problem occurs enforcing a breakline
• NIM007623 - SDE-based terrain dataset can't be previewed by a user with SELECT privilege
• NIM009652 - The polygon contiguity method (build neighbor list function), when used with the Hot Spot Analysis tool, does not include the target polygon in the list of neighbor features. As a consequence, results from the Hot Spot Analysis tool aren’t accurate
• NIM010212 - The Multipart To Singlepart tool fails with polygon feature classes containing very thin parts
• NIM010511 - The translation for a parameter on the Set Representation Control Point By Angle geoprocessing tool is not loading properly
• NIM011533 - ArcMap crashes after intersecting smoothed polygons
• NIM011631 - Labels disappear in the upper part of the ArcMap data frame if data is in a geographic coordinate system and the projection of the data frame is set to a projected coordinate system
• NIM012153 - Microsoft Vista: Allow Copy/Paste of a personal geodatabase with managed rasters to work correctly when a copy of the personal geodatabase already exists in the target location
• NIM012316 - Enable Zoom to Layer for map server layers of geoprocessing service results in ArcMap and ArcGIS Explorer
• NIM013010 - Building a map cache from a compressed file gdb feature class can exhaust memory and lead to a crash
• NIM013171 - ArcMap and ArcCatalog crashes while adding or previewing an ERDAS Imagine 16bit colormap image that contains negative values
• NIM013180 - Memory leak with SpatialFilter when using a SpatialRelDescription on a search
• NIM013293 - Where clauses of the form “value = field” can give incorrect results when the field is indexed and on the left side of the join for file geodatabases and shapefiles
• NIM013326 - Select By Location does not select from multiple layers in ArcGIS 9.2 SP4
• NIM013487 - Crash occurs when adding a field programmatically, and the data is corrupted
• NIM013932 - Label halos are lost when exporting a map to PDF format using ArcGIS Server (MapServer)
• NIM031074 - Delta for circular curve may be stored larger than 180 degrees
• NIM031116 - Allows copy/paste from Access or SDE with long domain descriptions to work when going to file geodatabase. Personal geodatabase allows a description as long as 255 characters. File geodatabase was limited to 160 characters
• NIM031210 - A relationship may be broken when synchronizing several generations of changes involving a feature and its related data with a 2-way replica
• NIM031256 - Cartographic line symbols intermittently do not maintain CMYK color values when exported to EPS format from ArcMap
• NIM031328 - Point symbol draws a larger size than designated in output when the map contains masking and character marker symbols
• NIM031354 - Importing a .mxd that has a feature layer containing a large number of filters corrupts the Schematic dataset
• NIM031372 - Improve memory usage for reading spatial referencing of TIFF format
• NIM031373 - Auxiliary file (.aux.xml) created for NITF in 9.3 is not readable in 9.2
• NIM031426 - The UPPER and LOWER SQL functions do not work on the right hand side of a join
• NIM031451 - Running the Dissolve tool repeatedly causes the operation to slow down and eventually the tool fails with an error

The list of fixes will be updated with ArcSDE issues some time later. I'll add my favourites once it is published.

ArcGIS 9.3 and SQL Server 2008 spatial data

At the end of February Microsoft held a launch event at Los Angeles. At the launch upcoming version of SQL Server 2008 was demonstrated. ESRI was one of the partners present at the launch. Here is ESRI's press release for this event.

One of the big new features for SQL 2008 is introduction of the spatial data types. These are listed as "Top new features" on Micosoft's SQL Server 2008 web site. Spatial data type includes two forms: Geography and Geometry.

From this page here is what these types are:

Use the new GEOGRAPHY data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it.

Use the new GEOMETRY data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it.

The Geography data type is equivalent to Geographic Coordinate Systems in ArcGIS. At this time there isn't much what will be included (supported) but we know for sure that WGS1984 is there.

Geometry is equivalent to Projected Coordinate systems and we should expect to see most common projections supported in initial release. I don't expect to see New Zealand Map Grid or New Zealand Transverse Mercator there in early days but Microsoft may surprise us.

In the white paper about spatial data types there is a graphic of the spatial index.

It is hard to say if this picture is real representation what will be used (multiple levels with coincident tile boundaries and each tile in next level 4x bigger) in SQL Server or this is just a generic example.

Just few days ago I watched the demo of ArcGIS 9.3 and SQL Server 2008. In this demo you see ArcMap using SQL 2008 spatial data types and how to perform basic retail service area analysis. Unfortunately, this page does not seems to work any more. It is important to say that ESRI was the only company that demonstrated working application utilizing new spatial data types of SQL Server 2008 at the launch event.

Fujitsu's 500 GB 2.5" hard disk announced

At the end of May Fujitsu will start selling notebook disk drives (2.5") with 500 GB capacity. This is the MGHZ2 BT series and it requires only 1.8 W of power with rotational speed of  4200 RPM and average seek time of 12 ms for read and 14 ms for write.

 

 

Let's hope it will not be too long before we see these available in New Zealand...