GIS Wikipedia is alive

As ESRI user I am used to visit support center in search for software requirements, technical articles or description of workaround and known bugs. Now ESRI has created a new Wiki site  http://wiki.gis.com/

Even if it is initiated by ESRI Wiki.GIS is not about ESRI, it is about GIS and us, users being successful in what we do day to day.

Wiki.GIS.com is a community-generated, GIS-centric encyclopedia that serves as a repository for factual, unbiased GIS content. Wiki.GIS.com will seek to involve the GIS community in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration of conceptual GIS information. Wiki.GIS.com will use the passion and knowledge each one of you has, in order to offer another resource for users to help others. All content ownership will be shared by the GIS community

There is already reasonable amount of content there including list of all ESRI software, 32 free software packages and Google Earth section with 5 pages.

As described below it is up to us to make this work.

The success of wiki.GIS.com depends on the contributions of GIS professionals, students, and the GIS community-at-large. We invite all the people who have a common interest in sharing GIS knowledge and ideas to create a login account on wiki.GIS.com and then begin editing existing pages or adding their own GIS-related content to the wiki. We have a list of requested pages on the wiki for which we are seeking content, but please feel free to add more topics/content as you deem fit. All unbiased GIS-related content is welcome.

 

Windows 7 less known commands

I am using Windows 7 for about 3 or 4 months now and I finally got some time to go over Tips and Tricks sites and explore a bit. Majority of the tips I have found were not new, especially if you were using Vista.

Anyway here are some keyboard shortcuts I did find very useful.

• Start + Shift + Left Arrow and Start + Shift + Right Arrow toggle between monitors
• Start + Home - minimizes all inactive windows. Repeat to restore them.
• Start + 1, Start + 2... - Launch 1st icon on Taskbar. This works for first 5 icons
• Start + T to activate icons on your Taksbar

These are just some of the shortcuts. It is easy to find out other ones.

Windows 7 has some brand new tools. One of the really interesting tools is the PSR.EXE or Problem Steps Recorder. This is very valuable tool if you are involved in any kind of technical/IT/application support. How often do you ask a customer "What did you do exactly to get this error?" and get an answer like "Just clicked the OK button." And we know they did more than that. PSR records all actions including menu options. Upon finishing recording of actions a ZIP file is created and it can be easily e-mailed. The zip file contains a web page with screenshots . Here is an example page I recorded earlier. Note that it captures both screens.

 

Of course your clients have to run Windows 7 first because it does not runs on Vista (I have tried)...

There are other commands I have found and description what they do:

• forfiles.exe
• getmac.exe
• isoburn.exe
• tasklist.exe
• taskkill.exe
• typeperf.exe

 

FORFILES.EXE

FORFILES [/P pathname] [/M searchmask] [/S] [/C command] [/D [+ | -] {dd/MM/yyyy | dd}]

Selects a file (or set of files) and executes a command on that file. This is helpful for batch jobs. Full description is available on command prompt by using forfiles.exe /? and here is one of the examples

FORFILES /M *.txt /C "cmd /c if @isdir==FALSE notepad.exe @file"

The command above will search for *.txt files in current directory and open them in notepad. @file variable is available in forfiles utility. If you like writing batch files you will like this one.

 

GETMAC.EXE

Very simple command to display mac address of network adapters. It may be an alternative to using ipconfig command.

C:\Windows\System32>getmac
Physical Address    Transport Name
=================== ==========================================================
00-16-D4-9B-B2-31   \Device\Tcpip_{750873C4-D970-4336-BA43-5010390F969E}
00-14-A5-F4-B5-48   Media disconnected

 

ISOBURN.EXE

Finally Windows have a tool to burn an ISO image to a disk. It simply needs drive letter and path to ISO image file.

 

QUSER.EXE

Show information about users logged on the system. Example:

C:\>QUSER
USERNAME              SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
>john                  console             1  Active      none   12/11/2009 7:33 p.m.

If you want to see processes and/or to kill a process on command prompt then TASKLIST and TASKKILL are the tools for you. Names should be explanatory - list current processes/tasks and second one to kill it.

 

TYPEPERF.EXE

I like this tool. Instead using Task Manager now you can show chosen performance counters on command prompt, file or SQL database. There are several options you can specify and here are some samples:

typeperf "\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time"
typeperf -cf counters.txt -si 5 -sc 50 -f TSV -o domain2.tsv
typeperf -qx PhysicalDisk -o counters.txt

 

That is all for now but if I find something else interesting I'll let you know.

Layer package patch for ArcGIS 9.3.1

New patch was released yesterday to addresses issues with downloading secure content from ArcGIS Online when using ArcGIS Desktop. If you are not using ArcGIS Online this is not a critical patch but ESRI is recommending download at earliest convenience.

File to download is gis931-DLL-patch.msp and it is only 1 MB.

Students develop 3D computer interface

A group of students at Northeastern University has developed a prototype of 3D computer interface. This gave them 1st place at Senior Capstone competition for 2009. This is still a prototype but operation of it looks similar to what Tom Cruise was doing in the Minority Report.



But for this interface you don’t need the gloves to manipulate and interact with applications.
The prototype is working fine but it is a bit bulky. That does not diminish its functionality and applications.
Here is the video of test drive (4:40 long).


3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo.


Once big companies get on hold of this I’m sure it will become small and fine tuned so we all can have the Minority Report experience.

ArcGIS 9.3.1 new features - Part 1

Latest version of ArcGIS is in shipping and end users can expect it some time in June. This version has quite a few new features. I will show some of them and what impact they may have on usual workflow.


Optimized map service
This new feature allows users to prepare, analyze and publish a map document as new type – optimized map service. This also includes a new format for the service MSD (Map Service Definition). In example below I have a file geodatabase with New Zealand Topographic database with large number of feature classes. New toolbar, Map Service toolbar contains all functionality required for analysis and publishing of optimized map service.



First step is Analyze of the map. Functionality of this command is similar to the one in Geodatabase Toolset extension but with more functions and options. In the case of my test MXD Analyze has shown the following:



Problems are categorized as Messages, Warnings and Errors. There is a reasonable description for each of these. If a row is highlighted and context menu is invoked a set of options is available.


This is very handy option even if you are not going to publish the document as service. This will definitely be a tool for identifying bottlenecks in a map. To see how map performs use Preview option on the toolbar.



In the menu bar of the preview you’ll see the draw time for map with current settings.
After map is fixed it is saved as MSD.



Now we are onto last step – publishing a service. Publishing has few steps.

Step 1.


Step 2.


Step 3.


There is an optional set of setting for the service labelled as “Set display options”.



After this you will have a new optimized map service on your ArcGIS server.
In the next post I’ll describe packaged layers. Till then have fun tuning your MXDs.

Are gaming cards good enough for workstations?

Being member of support group at work every now and then I get a question like “Can I use gaming card for GIS? This one is really powerful, my ArcGlobe should fly on this thing!”
In more general sense this is a question of gaming vs workstation graphics cards. To answer this question Tom’s Hardware did a benchmark between nvidia GTX 260 and Quadro FX 4800.
Quadro FX 4800


XFX GTX 260


Tom’s  Hardware benchmark is quite comprehensive and in first part they are comparing Quadro 4800 card against other Quadro and ATI FireGL set of cards.
Results are bit of the mix, but FX 4800 is very close to the top in almost every benchmark.
Finally on page 10 of the benchmark results of test for GTX 260 are listed against FX4800. The number are quite impressive, some of test were a whole magnitude larger for FX 4800.

Test from Viewperf 10	GTX 260	FX 4800
3dS Max 04	11.53	46.23
catia-02	15.22	57.95
ensigth-02	18.34	54.47
maya-02	35.71	221.71
proe-04	14.72	60.59
sw-01	12.94	128.71
tcvis-01	4.77	39.36
ugnx-01	5.89	33.72

In their conclusion they sum it up quite nicely:

A Quadro FX 4800 moves up to 10 times faster when running workstation applications than the GeForce GTX 280. This leads swiftly to a clear and inescapable conclusion: there's no good reason to use a GeForce graphics card for workstation applications. It just doesn't pay.

The problem is that this test does not includes GIS applications, namely ArcGIS.  I would love to see a application testing graphics performance in ArcGIS and ArcGlobe. One of major problems might be the fact that most GIS processing (speaking of graphics only) is 2D not 3D. In that regard I believe the gaming cards are doing a fine job. Again, we need a test tool to prove this.
For 3D performance in GIS i tried using Fraps. Fraps can show current frame rate on the screen or 3D window. In ArcGLobe it was constant 25 fps (if memory serves me well).
If any ArcObjects developers are reading this I would love to test your ArcGlobe benchmark tool… If you are working on one please e-mail me on ZergOne@gmail.com.

BumpTop desktop released

While ago, in 2007 I wrote a short post about BumTop desktop with the video show how intuitive and entertaining it can be. Now BumTop has released it as a product. BumpTop comes as Free and Pro version. Pro version costs USD$29 and offers four extra features compared to Free version.
The best way to get familiar with the features is to watch the video.

Features
Main feature is definitely a 3D representation of desktop and fully physics engine. All elements on the desktop can be manipulated, moved, piled up and tossed around.
Another great feature is support for multitouch screens. If you are not sure what this means have a read over here.
Gestures are used to manipulate icons/files in certain ways. To assist you with gestures there is a Pie Menu available.
Piles – stack your documents and files into piles. They can be grouped by type so all MP3 files in one corner and PDFs in another.
Sticky note – just like sticky note that you can pin onto desktop or on the wall.
Search as you type – ability to search for any item on your desktop
Toss files –  files can be tossed to a printer, USB drive, recycle bin or e-mail.
Icon size – files used more frequently are bigger in size and heavier.
Facebook and Twitter – share your pictures with friends by simply tossing images to Facebook or Twitter widgets.

BumpTop comes with 3 themes installed Blue (Vista like), Next and Classic. If that is not to your liking then go to Customize.org and download one or more themes. At the moment there are 65 available for download.


Free and Pro version differences are listed here but here they are in compact form.

Feature	Free	Pro
Sticky Note	Max 2	Unlimited
Toss files to USB		Yes
Autogrow of files		Yes
Flip through piles		Yes
Thumbnails	Watermark	Yes
Customer support	Limited	Premium

In terms of hardware requirements they are on the lower side of scale.

• A 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, with latest service packs
• A Pentium 4/Celeron 1.8GHz or Athlon XP/Sempron 2200+ or desktop/mobile equivalent
• Minimum 1GB system memory
• 15 MB available hard disk space
• Intel 915 integrated graphics or Nvidia GeForce 6200 or ATI X300 or better with updated drivers
• OpenGL 2.0 driver support required (may require additional drivers available at bumptop.com/drivers)
• Internet connection required for activation

So go and download it from download page (only 12.1 MB) and give it a spin, or toss or pile them up.
Just a thought for the end. If you are anything like me (for PC desktop that is) then it may be arguable if you need BumTop. Why? Because I have only 5 (five) icons on my desktop: shortcut to the user files, network, my computer, one remote desktop connection, recycle bin and Fallout 3. That’s it.
Here it is how it looks as BumTop.

On the other hand, if BumpTop supports some sort of tags or can use a file description of some sort I may reconsider putting files on desktop grouped by current work. I’ll let you know after testing.

ESRI Developer Summit 2009

DevSummit started today at Palm Springs. This is conference for GIS developers but even if you are not one you can get a lot of interesting news, insights and product announcements.
My colleague Jithen is attending DevSummit and to get more details read his post on Mandown. Here are some details of upcoming release of ArcGIS 9.3.1 and ArcGIS 9.4.

ArcGIS Server has been improved to allow for faster mapping. Some of the other big changes include:

1. NEW ADF licensing. You are now allowed to deploy the ADF how you want without any restrictions.
2. NEW editing capabilities will be available in ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 Standard Edition.
3. NEW analytics extensions will be available in ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 Advanced Edition.

Faster mapping will provide for faster dynamic maps along with higher quality outputs and optimization tools built into ArcMap to help analyse errors and problems before they are published to ArcGIS Server.

There are some details about desktop part of ArcGIS in 9.4 but don’t expect that yet. ArcGIS 9.3.1 should be released around May this year. For New Zealand customers we should expect it around July.

ArcMap will sport a similar feel to Microsoft Visual Studio. Dockable windows and improved toolbars. New built in searching capabilities. One search for finding data on your system to finding geoprocessing models. ArcCatalog will be built into ArcMap and made available via a dockable window. Drag and drop will be supported as well. A whole new reporting engine has been written and will be included within ArcMap. Python will be integrated within ArcMap. A new Python window will be available directly from ArcMap which will allow you to run and debug Python scripts directly. Python scripts will also run asynchronously so you can continue working while your script is running in the background.

Another highlight of the conference so far is ArcGIS Explorer 900 (AGX).  Bernie Szukalski gave presentation of new features for new release. Details are posted on ArcGIS Explorer blog including plenty of screenshots.
 
One of the new features is revamped UI – ribbon style. I don’t know if you like ribbon in Office 2007 but here is what we’ll get in AGX 900.

More news to follow from DevSummit…

ArcSDE 9.2 SP 6 update released

ESRI has released another update for ArcSDE. This time it is for ArcSDE 9.2 SP 6. The original service pack was released in July last year.

 

There is relatively small number of generic/common issues resolved in this update.

 

 

ArcSDE administration fixes:

• NIM010594 - Spatial views created by a non-owner using the sdetable -o create_view command are not displayed in ArcGIS if the columns specified using the -c option are qualified with the table name. For example, mytable.myfield.
• NIM013815 - The sdegroup command fails with ORA-00957: duplicate column name error. This is new at 9.2 SP4.
• NIM033768 - The -r option does not work with the ArcSDE shp2sde -o init command utility. This option does work in previous versions of ArcSDE.
• NIM035432 - The sdegdbrepair tool may hang if the number of errors found for a specific FeatureClass exceeds the currently defined buffer.

Full issues page contains full list of issuess addressed and  main patch page has download links.

ArcSDE 9.3 SP 1 update released

ESRI has released a Service Pack 1 update for ArcSDE 9.3. This service pack addresses a number of generic ArcSDE administration issues as well as database specific ones.

This is a full list of generic administration issues resolved:

• NIM008464 - ArcSDE C SDK client application crashes when making API function call, SE_connection_get_instance_users(), to list connected users.
• NIM036561 - ArcSDE for Oracle: memory leaks encountered when reconciling versions or performing a large number of update operations.
• NIM038152 - Unix only: The sdemon command crashes the ArcSDE service when trying to kill all active connections.
• NIM038013 - For every client request to the geodatabase, a query to detect the time_last_modified is executed against the sde.lineages_modified table impacting performance. (Please see technical article 35462 for more details.)
• NIM033557 - The sdedbtune command fails to accept an empty string for any of the parameter values.
• NIM036997 - Spatial Type for Oracle: Registration fails for tables with an ST_Geometry attribute and an SRID set to 0. (Please see technical article 35028 for a suggested workaround.)
• NIM035924 - Japanese character does not show up on AIX machine when running sdelayer -o describe command.
• NIM037200 - In specific cases where a feature has been updated many times and the D TABLE entry for SDE_STATE_ID=0 is missing, the problem will not be detected or fixed by sdegdbrepair.
• NIM036998 - Upgrading geodatabases on database servers fails if the user is connected to the geodatabase when upgrading. (Please see technical article 35184 for more details.)
• NIM035444 - Need to identify corruption on states that are not pointed to by a version.
• NIM035432 - The sdegdbrepair tool may hang if the number of errors found for a specific FeatureClass exceeds the currently defined buffer.
• NIM037688 - When creating a PostGIS feature class in ArcCatalog, the xy offset is correctly created in respect to the spatial reference. When creating a PostGIS layer with command line and registering the feature class with sdelayer -o register, the xy offset is not calucated, preventing the feature class from being correctly displayed in ArcCatalog. The fix allows for a PostGIS layer to be displayed in ArcCatalog by calculating the xy offset regardless of how the feature class is created.
• NIM037241 - The sdegdbrepair command does not recognize ORACLE11G as a database type when using -o diagnose_tables option.
• NIM033768 - The '-r' option does not work for the ArcSDE 'shp2sde -o init' command utility. The option works fine in previous versions of ArcSDE.

The important one from this list would be the last one. A lot of people are still loading/importing data from shapefiles and actually may have incorporated that functionality (rejects) into the workflow.

Non-database specific fixes:

• NIM031030 - When using a Definition Query longer than 4095 characters against a 9.0 ArcSDE Server, the data fails to draw and the following error is returned: "One or more layers failed to draw."
• NIM034862 - When executing the ArcSDE CAPI SE_shape_find_along() function a memory leak occurs, and if executed a very large amount of times it may cause an out of memory (-13) error.
• NIM038061 - Projection engine libraries on Linux will now be created using gcc rather than g++. Using g++ adds an unnecessary dependency on the libstdc++.so library.
• NIM038273 - British National Grid (BNG) scale factor was changed between versions 9.2 SP5 and 9.3. Although the change does not affect data values, mixing the two coordinate system versions will cause data to be reprojected. This fix will cause the two versions to be treated as equal.
• NIM008494 - When revoking select privileges on a versioned feature class, the select privileges are not revoked from the versioned table's adds and deletes tables. (Please see technical article 35464 for more details.)
• NIM037942 - Improved the error message displayed in Desktop when trying to make a direct connection without the appropriate drivers installed.
• NIM035810 - Mosaic tool is very slow when trying to mosaic to large SDE raster dataset that has a pyramid.
• NIM037698 - When building address locators with reference feature classes in SDC format, the content of the RD.Lox1.Restrict expression, specified in the address locator style, should not be ignored.
• NIM035803 - Creating a local or client locator from SDE reference data with an optional field set to fails with the error message: “Column not found:”_SurrogateTable_.Table1_PreDir””.
• NIM036857 - Creating address locators fails in ArcSDE if numeric fields in the SDE reference feature class contain null values.

There is a nuber of database specific fixes and most of them are for Oracle. Smaller nuber of issues is fixed for PostgreSQL (4) and SQL Server (7). For full details check the support page and for download check the main patch page.

ESRI Developer Summit 2009

This year ESRI Developer Summit will be held from 23rd -26th March in Palm Springs. If you are new to ESRI developers community here is what this is all about.

The Developer Summit is dedicated to GIS, mapping, and spatial developers. This event exists to give you access to the help you need and the ideas you crave, from detailed technical presentations led by ESRI's development team to one-on-one meetings with ESRI staff representing all areas of the ArcGIS platform. Join your fellow developers and learn how to build and deploy better solutions in your job.

As with all ESRI conferences I have attended in past this will be a great opportunity to get face to face with ESRI developers and other fellow developers from all over the world.

Site does not have too many details about technical sessions but you will be exposed to ArcGIS 9.3.1. features and see a glimpse at 9.4 as presented by it's developers.

Keynote speaker at the Summit will be David Chappell from Chappel & Associates. Here is a brief about David.

Chappell has given the keynote address at events worldwide including the Software Development West Conference and several Microsoft-oriented events including Tech-Ed. His seminars have been attended by thousands of developers, architects, and decision makers. Chappell’s books grace the shelves of developers across the globe and have been used in courses at MIT, ETH Zurich, and other institutions—he’s also series editor for Addison-Wesley’s award-winning Independent Technology Guides and a regular columnist for several publications.


In his consulting practice, Chappell has helped clients including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Stanford University, and Target Corporation adopt new technologies, market new products, train their sales staff, and create business plans. His comments have appeared in The New York Times, CNN.com, and many other publications.

No doubt this will be another great event!

Free LIDAR viewer

It is always nice to get something useful for free. Sometimes it is data, sometimes it is an application. QCoherenet is well known for its product LP360. At least if you are working with LIDAR data. They made a free viewer for LIDAR or LAS files.

Here is what LP Viewer does:

LP Viewer is a free standalone viewer (Windows OS) that provides unlimited file loading/access, on-the-fly tinning and contouring, our custom viewing toggles built specifically for LiDAR, importing ASCII, 2D, 3D, and profile visualization. As with all of our products, an entire city, county, or consortium's full LiDAR dataset can be loaded into LP Viewer.

There is a little catch. Viewer is part of the LP360 product evaluation. Evaluation period is 30 days and after that you have LP Viewer to keep and use. After all, this is not a bad thing - you get to use full product for a month and still have free viewer (and not just a viewer).

Full details about the Viewer are available here and evaluation version can be downloaded after registration on this page.

OpenCL 1.0 specification released

I wrote a few posts about CUDA and utilizing power of the graphic cards for other types of calculations mainly for physics calculations. Nvidia is one of the major contributors for OpenCL (Open Computing Language) but not the only one. Working group includes Apple, AMD, ARM, Broadcom, IBM, Ericsson, Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Activision, Blizzard and others. Obviously both hardware and software companies are interested in development of OpenCL.
Khronos group has released 1.0 specification on it’s site as PDF file and header files. PDF is a big 302 pages document and will be required reading for all keen developers.
What is OpenCL? From their definition it is:

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is the first open, royalty-free standard for general-purpose parallel programming of heterogeneous systems. OpenCL provides a uniform programming environment for software developers to write efficient, portable code for high-performance compute servers, desktop computer systems and handheld devices using a diverse mix of multi-core CPUs, GPUs, Cell-type architectures and other parallel processors such as DSPs.

OpenCL is created with several goals in mind. These include having open, royalty free standard for heterogeneous parallel computing, cross vendor software portability, creating foundation layer for parallel computing ecosystem.

Anatomy of OpenCL


Language Specification

• C-based cross-platform programming interlace
• Subset of ISO C99 with language extensions - familiar to developers
• Well-defined numerical accuracy - IEEE 754 rounding behavior with defined maximum error 
• Online or offline compilation and build of compute kernel executables 
  Includes a rich set of built-in functions
  

Platform Layer API

• A hardware abstraction layer over diverse computational resources
• Query, select and initialize compute devices
• Create compute contexts and command-queues
  

Runtime API

• Execute compute kernels
• Manage scheduling, compute, and memory resources

Memory model


What is next? Khronos will release conformance tests to ensure high quality implementations. This of course means we have wait to get first applications built on 1.0 specification of OpenCL. OpenGL is proven technology and implemented in thousands of applications. OpenCL has great potential since it is designed to integrate with OpenGL and other 3D APIs.
Time will tell how good it is.

Python 3.0 released

New release v 3.0 of Python was released on two days ago on 3rd of December. There are some significant changes in this release as stated on the top of the page:

Python 3.0 (a.k.a. "Python 3000" or "Py3k") is a new version of the language that is incompatible with the 2.x line of releases. The language is mostly the same, but many details, especially how built-in objects like dictionaries and strings work, have changed considerably, and a lot of deprecated features have finally been removed. Also, the standard library has been reorganized in a few prominent places.

 

Some of the big changes are

• print is now a function
• long is renamed to int
• expression 1/2 will return a float
• text and binary data are used instead of Unicode strings
• changes in syntax for function argument and return value annotations

 

Of course there is a more on What’s new page. This may make things more interesting for ESRI. ArcGIS is using Python as one of languages supported for geoprocessing. This will not be a problem from installation point of view because ESRI provides installer for it but from support and migration of existing models. I don’t expect ESRI to make a utility (but that would be nice) that would convert Python 2.X to 3.0 scripts. Most likely they will include some documentation like on what’s new page on Python.org or they will write up a smaller more focused document.

Anyway it is good to see these changes and hopefully that won’t cause too much trouble for GIS script developers.

ArcGIS 9.3 SP 1 released and other updates

ESRI has released Service Pack 1 for ArcGIS 9.3 earlier this month. Service pack is available for download from ESRI’s support site download section. The service pack was announced earlier (see posts ArcGIS 9.3 SP1 fixes, Part 1 and ArcGIS 9.3 SP1 fixes, Part 2)  and more fixes are added to the list.

 

Even if you are not too interested in bug fixes you should consider downloading and installing it because it also introduces new functionality. New features are listed separately in a PDF document. The feature list includes:

• Export to CAD is now ArcView license tool
• Support for WFS 1.0 (1.1 is already supported at 9.3)
• Improved visibility of scale bar for web applications
• Support for Windows Mobile Smartphone’s
• Full support for editing data in PostGres SQL
• Progress indicator for map and globe caching

 

 

Unfortunately, there was a one part of code that was not included in SP 1. That is Topology validation patch and it is available as separate download.

 

ESRI has released Service Pack 1 for all other 9.3 products. So now SP1 is available for:

• Military Overlay Editor (MOLE)
• ArcGIS Business Analyst (requires login)
• Production Line Tool Set (PLTS) and Solutions

 

I would recommend you download these and check the new features list.

SketchUp 7 released

Google has released a new version of SketchUp today. This is version 7 and it was in development for about two years.

 

Here are most important new features:

 

• crossing lines break automatically
• scaling without stretching
• new interact tool
• search 3D Warehouse from component browser
• download models locally
• create and save custom templates
• new user interface

 

Professional version (one you have to pay for) has some additional features:

• Create Dynamic Component (smart scaling, etc)
• Custom attributes – metadata
• Report generation
• Layout 2 features
• larger models and paper size support
• long live measurements
• curves, editable paths
• move, rotate and scale without changing tools
• export to images
• explode models
• Style Builder
• create custom sketchy styles
• multiple mediums available (marker, pencil, crayon, etc)

 

For download and some videos check out the SketchUp page.

 

Here are some videos from YouTube…

 

What’s new

 

Intersecting lines

 

 

Dynamic components

 

 

There is plenty more videos on YouTube but these are for version 7 specifically.

Have fun creating models and share them on 3D Warehouse!

 

P.S. if you feel like you are up to a challenge then head to Google SketchUp 3D Challenge and get busy.

ArcGIS 9.3 SP1 fixes, Part 2

Here is a second part of list of fixes planned for SP1. Again, this is my pick from a very long list. These are fixes and new features for ArcSDE, Image Server and ArcIMS.

 

Image Server

• NIM012408 - Cannot add GRID (non-elevation) dataset.
• NIM035966 - Cannot add raster from file geodatabase.
• NIM036476 - Need improved documentation on SAN storage setup for ArcGIS Image Server--especially user account permissions.
• NIM037443 - The JPEG world file is not read for a JPEG file if the extension is *.jpgw.
• NIM037449 - Generating a histogram for a large dataset increases memory usage and eventually hangs.
• NIM037628 - Defining a port, other than 3982, is not used for the Server.
• NIM038015 - Add "ArcSDE Raster Dataset" to raster types list
• NIM038017 - JPEG 2000 JPX files are not added correctly.
• NIM038042 - Some JPEG 2000 headers cannot be read because the affine transformation is incorrectly translated (if read from the world file), and the rotation may not be taken into account.
• NIM038081 - The pyramids of an ArcSDE raster dataset are not read.

 

 ArcSDE

• NIM005384 - Memory Leak in ST_Intersection - EXTPROC.EXE grows indefinitely while processing.
• NIM033768 - The '-r' option does not work for the ArcSDE 'shp2sde -o init' command utility. The option works fine in previous versions of ArcSDE.
• NIM033557 - There has to be something contained within the Double Quotes for a sde dbtune parameter.
• NIM035236 - When sdeimport into STGEOMETRY is allowed to build the spatial index by default, the creation of the spatial index takes significantly longer than SDELOB.
• NIM035335 - Unable to create multi-version views.
• NIM035810 - The Mosaic tool is very slow when trying to mosaic to a large SDE raster dataset that has a pyramid.
• NIM036561 - ArcSDE for Oracle: memory leaks encountered when reconciling versions or performing a large number of update operations.
• NIM037121 - Spatial Type for Oracle: Attempting to rename a table can fail with an underlying DBMS error.
• NIM037727 - SQL Server 2008: New Geometry & Geography layers sometimes get inconsistent values in gsize column(s) of sde_layers table. The grids should always be -6,0,0 but some have other values, depending on the method used to create them.
• NIM037943 - SQL Server 2008: In some cases enabling archiving on a Feature Class loaded with the Geometry keyword causes a "Violation of check constraint" error.
• NIM038061 - Build projection engine libraries on Linux with gcc rather than g++. Using g++ adds an unnecessary dependency on the libstdc++.so library.
• NIM038152 - The sdemon command crashes ArcSDE service when trying to kill all active connections with Unix only.
• NIM038198 - Spatial Type for Oracle: Unable to register a table with an st_geometry attribute containing more than one spatial index grid level.

 

 ArcIMS

• NIM031617 - Identify tool on a WMS service within the Portal Map Viewer returns an invalid xml.
• NIM034688 - Searching with 2 or more disjunctive works against the CSW Connector generates an exception.
• NIM034773 - IMS ignores search order defined in the AXL request for the cloned layer.
• NIM035168 - Links to preview graphics in ESRI-ISO metadata records do not appear in the Dublin Core records.
• NIM035367 - GETFEATURES fails if Featureclass has a Subtype defined.

 

This list is very likely to get bigger before release of the patch in November. New updates will be posted on ESRI support site as usual.

ArcGIS 9.3 SP1 fixes, Part 1

In previous post I mentioned that there is a huge list of fixes and changes for service pack 1.

Here are my picks of fixes and improvement scheduled for this SP.

In second part I'll choose ArcSDE, Image Server and ArcIMS fixes.

 

ArcGIS Desktop

• NIM006247 - Saving shape file edits more than eight times in ArcMap leads to slower and slower performance.
• NIM008317 - Inserted Excel spreadsheets, as an object in maps, display as black boxes when exported to PDF (xls and xlxs) on Office 2007 machines. EMF is fine.
• NIM008646 - If the Geographic Transformation is not set when data from a personal geodatabase or SDE is initially added to ArcMap, setting the transformation at a later time through Data Frame Properties > Coordinate System tab > Transformations will not transform the data.
• NIM012443 - The IDW interpolation tool in Spatial Analyst ignores the maximum distance settings in search radius settings.
• NIM033727 - Converting symbology to representation with the 'Features in current extent' option chosen does not complete properly.
• NIM034181 - Calculate Field tool causes application (ArcMap, ArcCatalog) to hang when working with large datasets and sequential calculations.
• NIM034907 - A crash will occur if the Contour tool is used on a large, pre-93 file geodatabase.
• NIM035106 - Application failure when using the SHAPE" field in the Select By Attributes command."
• NIM035125 - New features created in checkout are not synchronized after adding globalid to parent replica.
• NIM035317 - When you have a subtype defined for a field that is of type Short – the subtype description is not displayed in Get Unique Values lists found on dialogs\windows where the SQL Query Builder is used.
• NIM035692 - Add support for third-party tiled Internet services into ArcGlobe.
• NIM035876 - Using classified renderer on a large raster dataset will receive unexpected error message in ArcGIS 9.3 final.
• NIM035931 - Connections to ArcSDE SQL Server Express geodatabases from ArcMap are not being closed successfully when a new map document is started without restarting ArcMap. This can cause SQL Server Express database detach operations to fail.
• NIM036057 - Repeated conversions of labels to annotation with append mode can result in duplicate label classes being created when they shouldnot be created.
• NIM036446 - Representation rules with identical internal identifiers can lead to data corruption.
• NIM036799 - Performance of the Dissolve tool is poor when the data contains a lot of features that are not candidates to be dissolved.
• NIM036816 - Contour tool fails with error 999999 and creates and empty feature class when output is written to a geodatabase.
• NIM036971 - Exporting attributes to PDF results in incorrect values for fields using a number format.
• NIM037274 - ArcSDE (for SQL Server Express) connections are not being released when a map document is closed but ArcMap remains open.
• NIM037410 - Exporting attributes to PDF is not preserving alias names for fields.
• NIM037580 - Crash due to lack of memory while building a spatial index for a complex polygon.
• NIM037689 - Maplex street labeling is much slower than at ArcGIS 9.2 for some cases.
• NIM037819 - When a model is invalid, then repaired and saved, the red X on the model does not go away.
• NIM037888 - Exporting attributes to PDF drops the value of a field called NAME when layer is using unique value renderer.
• NIM037960 - When setting transparencies in ArcGlobe, features in the background are displayed in the foreground.
• NIM038064 - Crash from Style Manager caused by representation rules with custom geometric effects when opening representation Rules style gallery.
• NIM038087 - When there is a drop down window in the SQL expression control, the expression typed into the control will be lost when the query builder dialog is launched.
• NIM038157 - Update Data Interop to include all available Transformers in FME2008.
• NIM038158 - Update FME engine to current FME2008 build 5208 or higher.
• NIM038159 - Update Data Interop to include all available Formats in FME2008.

 

 ArcGIS Server

• NIM013509 - ArcGIS Server ImageService WMS SVG output is not available.
• NIM033991 - WMS identify shows original field names instead of alias.
• NIM035825 - Unable to write to Blob field on mobile device.
• NIM036507 - Publishing an image service (using publish wizard) does not write some properties to the config file.
• NIM037827 - ArcGIS server at 9.3 supports WFS 1.1. Most 3rd party (non ESRI) WFS clients currently support WFS 1.0. ArcGIS Server 9.3 Service Pack 1 now supports the WFS 1.0 to assist with interoperability. The WFS 1.0 support is read only and does not support transactions.

 

 .Net Manager

• NIM035620 - The HTML editor in the Layer Format editor does not work in Firefox 3.
• NIM035634 - For web application settings, a previously entered IP address for host always displays a warning message.
• NIM036583 - Remove hard-coded e-mail address from Login and PasswordRecovery pages.

PLTS 9.3 Nautical Solution Patch 1 released

ESRI has released a patch for it's high end cartography extension, Production Line Tool Set. In particular this patch is for Nautical Solution.

This is a list of fixes for this patch:

• 26065 S-57 to Geodatabase—Depth units not set correctly during import
• 29459 Documentation—Need to add maintenance information regarding log files and sql express
• 30765 Populate—Receiving message about failure inside topology engine
• 30879 Populate—Receiving "Object Reference not set" error
  33838 Product Refresher—Receiving error after SpatialAttributeL features have been inserted
• 33922 Documentation—Need documentation on Advanced Configuration
• 33950 Documentation—Add 180° Grid scenario to charting production procedures
• 34086 Product Refresher removing collection records
• 34241 ClosingLinesL not listed in product XMLs as a support table
• 34269 No compilation scale message on Start Editing
• 35166 S-57 to Geodatabase - PLTS_COMP_SCALE not being set correctly for PLTS_SpatialAttributeL features
• 35387 Group Selected Soundings—Duplicate NOID values prevented soundings from being grouped
• 35495 GNtM2.xml cluster tolerance needs to be updated
  35582 Nautical Post not executing when called in conflict version
• 35687 Product Refresher removing Linear Depth Area features
• 35744 S-57 Metadata—Populate is incorrectly storing ISDT and UADT values, which opens a blank Metadata form during export

 

Full details are available here including the download location.

ArcGIS 9.3 SP 1 announcement

ESRI Support site as announced Service Pack 1 for ArcGIS 9.3 It is not available yet and planned release is in November. Full list of current fixes is available here. Mind you, this list will be updated as required.

If you are concerned with increase in number of fixes I would say that is actually a good sign. One of new features in ArcGIS 9.3 is crash reporting feature. It is very much like the one in Microsoft Office. The reports generated from this tool are examined and provide an insight into problem areas.

Hopefully, next time when you are asked would you like to send the crash/error report say "Yes" and you will help ESRI to make better product.

In a few days time I'll compile a list of my favourite bug fixes for this service pack. Stay tuned.