Arc2Earth Focusing On Google Earth Builder

Arc2Earth (disclaimer: my company is an Arc2Earth reseller) has focused a lot on extending their integration with the Google cloud infrastructure. This started with Cloud Services, which provided the ability to push data into Google AppEngine and serve it through emulation of the Esri REST API (among other options). This was expanded to include live editing of data hosted on AppEngine. More recently, Arc2Earth added support for Google Fusion Tables.

Late last year, they announced their Arc2Cloud initiative to expose Google’s spatial data services to ArcGIS users. This has seemed to fall of the radar a bit lately but, as we know, there have been changes brewing on the on the Google end of things so some delays from Arc2Earth are understandable.

Yesterday’s newsletter from Arc2Earth confirmed suspicions with the following:

Many of you have also been asking about Arc2Cloud and when it will be available. All we can say is it has changed into something more powerful and we are really excited about where it will lead us. If you want to use Google Fusion Tables or Google Earth Builder from within ArcGIS, this is the product for you. Arc2Cloud is still used to provide online compatibility with ArcGIS but the real benefit is the automatic synchronization of your data.

It runs in the task tray and keeps everything up to date (data, live edits, tiles, published maps etc) without you having to do anything. In fact, I think it’s the culmination of all the different parts of Arc2Earth into a single, automated package. Arc2Earth Sync will be coming this fall as part of Arc2Earth Desktop.

So there you have it, Arc2Earth will be your interface between ArcGIS Desktop and Google Earth Builder. The state of offerings in the “cloud” for geospatial users will be changing a lot over the next year or so. Arc2Earth looks like it will be a nice way to keep your options open.