ArcGIS Explorer build 500 released

New release of ArcGIS Explorer is available for download from AGX resource site. This release includes support for subscription based services and new features and enhancements.

Complete list of new features in releases 480 and 500 is available here or you can read my earlier post.

While your Explorer is downloading have a look at the ArcGIS Explorer blog to see what custom task you could add or what other people are using AGX for.

Next release will be the major one with lots of new features. Most prominent one will be change of the user interface. New UI will be MS Office 2007 ribbon like.

GeoCart 2008, only 10 days away

Fourth GeoCart will take place in Auckland at The University of Auckland from 1- 3 September. Here is where to go if you are not from Auckland.

 

The Conference is endorsed by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and this year it will run in conjunction with SIRC 2008, 20th Annual Colloquium of the Spatial Information Research Centre.

 

The programme is diverse and presenters are coming from New Zealand, Australia, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland and other countries. Papers are equally diverse as the presenters. Papers presented will vary in subjects from remote sensing, spatial analysis to visual exploration.

On Tuesday New Zealand Cartographic Society will have Annual Group Meeting.

 

I will spend most of my time at the Exhibition area (we have site 4) but I'll try to get to as many paper presentations as I can. This will be another opportunity to meet the cartographers and GIS specialists from New Zealand and world. I look forward to being there.

Solid State Disk comparison

Solid State Disks (SSD) are becoming an option for your server, workstation or notebook. Deciding which one to get is never easy. If you are considering getting one you should do a lot of research. Tom's Hardware has an excellent article about current state of SSDs.

 

It also clarifies differences between the types of SSD - SLC and MLC.

All the premium products are based on Single-Level Cell (SLC) flash memory. You can identify these by their high write performance and I/O performance.

And then there is the flash SSD mainstream, although we’re having a hard time declaring this a “mainstream” segment when it still averages several hundred dollars per drive. The mainstream differs from the high-end in its utilization of Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash products. These can be read quickly, but their write and random access performance generally lag behind.

Then they compare 14 SSD hard drives in various test configurations for workstation and a notebook.  Make sure you have enough time for reading, the review is 19 pages long and as usual, loaded with graphs of performance results.

The tests are

• access time, interface
• read/write, throughput
• PCMark benchmark
• I/O performance
• workstation performance
• streaming read and performance
• power consumption at DVD playdack

 

Finally the conclusions - there is no a single drive that will rule them all. Instead, consider the criteria for choosing SSD - performance, cost or both.

For me these drives are still too expensive, too small to go and buy. Most of drives reviewed are 32 or 64 GB. In my laptop I have 100 GB hard disk and I'm struggling with free space (I have to move data to external USB drive). Definitely when capacity increases (for mainstream products) to 128 or 256 GB I'll have another look at the cost/performance of SSD hard drives. For sure, they are here to stay and in long(er) run replace magnetic hard drives.

ESRI international user conference 2008

ESRI UC is in the full swing and it is a big one, as usual. This time I am not there so I'll point to some other blogs and sources of information about it.

For start there is the ESRI's UC blog with plenty of information and screenshots, photos (where applicable).

Some of the highlights of the conference so far are:

• Conference proceedings are available on-line
• Top 10 usability tips in ArgGIS 9.3

10. Bookmarks are now accessible at the top level menu to make visiting common places faster and easier. Additionally, the bookmark manager has been redesigned allowing you to rearrange the bookmarks in the order you want, and you can save and load your bookmarks to a file to share between map documents with other users.

9. Pause labeling allows you to temporally suspend drawing of labels while you navigate about the map and perform other tasks. You can return to labeling with a single click of the button on the toolbar.

8. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to step through time series data; for example, just hold the ALT key as you turn on a layer and it turns off the previous layer, or you can use the same functionality to switch to a completely different map and a different set of layers.

7. Clipping a raster or an image to a graphic shape can be useful for defining a study area as a graphic shape-then use that shape to extract or clip a terrain model to your study area.

6. Working with transparent legends in 9.3-transparency is often used to improve the cartography of the map, when the brightness of the map does not match the brightness legend-there is a new option in the dataframe properties to simulate the layer transparency for all legends.

5. Regarding table sorting, aliases, and joins, there's a new sorting option which allows for the sorting of multiple columns. Table joins now have aliases persisted-you no longer have to recreate field aliases after you perform a join.

4. On the Geocoding toolbar is a new option called the Address Inspector, which allows you to move your mouse and hold it down as you move around the map. It will automatically calculate the nearest address to that location and mark it and the address on the map. It also works for cross streets and intersections. For those who are using addresses and want to label addresses on a map, this process has been automated and streamlined.

3. On the drawing tool bar, you can now take graphics and automatically convert them to features. You can choose which graphics you'd like to convert, and they will now be converted to a feature class with all the attributes and symbology intact. This means that you don't have to go out and create a feature class before adding feature-you can add graphics and convert them after the fact.

2. Identify shortcuts and HTML popups by using the identify tool to change the color of a building footprint. For example, rather than searching the TOC for a particular layer, you can now select a feature on the layer, right-mouse click on the identify properties and get right to the layer symbology. HTML popups can be turned on for any layer, and they allow you to see the attribute information in a nicely formatted window-along with a leader line, which always updates to the map location. This can be used for custom content like Web pages as well.

1. Quality is always a focus for ESRI but with 9.3 a new error reporting system has been implemented that allows users to send error reports directly and anonymously to the development team. The system also identifies where in the software a random crash occurred. ESRI has spent a lot of time reducing the number of crashes, but if you should encounter a crash, please send the report so we can continuously improve our software.

• Discover what is WebGIS - WebGIS is a platform that can be used to connect all your GIS business systems and this framework allows you to consume real-time information from multiple business systems, so emergency responders can make time-sensitive decisions in critical situations.
• Demonstrations of mashups
• ICA awards Jack Dangermond with Mannerfelt Gold Medal. This is ICA's highest honor, first awarded in 1980 to recognize extraordinary merits in cartography including the conception, production, dissemination, and study of maps. Dangermond is only the 11^th recipient of the medal.

 

ArcGIS Explorer

There is plenty of information about AGX on the blog especially about the upcoming release - 600. This release will include a new user interface from Microsoft Office 2007 - the Ribbon. Here is an example.

 

 

 

There are some interesting maps, like this UC Route Finder. This is very handy because the Convention Centre is huge and it is easy to get lost if you are there for the first time.

 

There is also an Attendee Map - if you want to find out how many visitors are coming from a certain city...

 

For more detailed updates on the conference have a look at the Jithen's blog.