arcgis server

ArcGIS Image Services and Leaflet

I’ve become a big fan of Leaflet for putting maps on the web. It gives me most of what I need without much of what I don’t and is fairly easily extended, as shown by the impressive work of Jason Sanford.

A while back, Dave Bouwman blogged about work he and the team at DTS Agile had done extending Leaflet to support ArcGIS Server layers. Given that there are a lot of ArcGIS Servers out there, this is a good thing to have. Thanks to section 4(f) of the Esri Web Services Terms of Use, it’s less useful for use with ArcGIS Online, but that’s probably the topic of another post.

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f=geojson

On November 11, 2011, I gave a lightning talk at the ESRI Dev Meetup in Silver Spring, MD. My talk was titled “If I Were Jack For a Day.” Despite the infinite comedic potential of that title, it was a tongue-in-cheek look at some items on my wish list for the ArcGIS platform.

An increasing portion of my consulting work deals with helping users integrate their established ArcGIS infrastructures with other spatial technologies. So my talk was a semi-selfish look at things that would make my life as a consultant and integrator easier.

Nick Furness will post the slides but they aren’t designed to stand on their own so I thought I’d address them here to provide context. I’ll take them one or two per post in no particular order. With that, first up on the docket:

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So, Which Is It?

Update: I pulled this link out of the comment thread below to emphasize it. It seems to answer this question for now: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/35676-Edit-spatial-data-with-quot-ArcGIS-for-Desktop-10.1-quot-in-non-SDE-RDBMS-systems

Since my previous posts about PgMap and the shuttering of zigGIS, the nature of the planned support for connecting directly to spatial databases from ArcGIS 10.1 has gotten somewhat muddier.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU9lv_WqK6k]

One of the first indications of direct support was this statement from the ESRI UC Q&A.

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GeoServices REST Specification and OGC

So this is what I get for missing the Ignite sessions at WhereCampDC*:

http://twitter.com/#!/spara/status/81369354746331136

*I got to dance with my daughter and help her chase fireflies so I win.

The worst-kept rumor/secret in recent memory is now “out there” so here are my thoughts:

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DynamicLayer Auto-Refresh for ESRI Silverlight API

Despite recent news regarding Silverlight, I expect some of my projects to continue using it for the near term. Others may be taking the same tack, so I thought I’d go ahead and offer this up.

Several of the projects I support have the requirement to periodically refresh specific layers in order to track change or movement. These layers can range from weather to vehicle locations and such. I have typically accomplished this with a timer that refreshes the layer(s) on a specified interval. This can get rather cumbersome if you have different layers that require different refresh intervals.

Working within Silverlight, I have the option of using an existing layer class as a base class and extending it to include an automatic refresh capability. However, some classes, such as the ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer, are sealed and cannot be extended. Luckily, the Expression Blend SDK enables me to get around this by attaching a custom behavior.

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Arc2Earth Supports ArcGIS Server Tile Caches

I just got an e-mail announcement from Arc2Earth (disclaimer: my company is a reseller) regarding some updates to version 3 that have come out since the ESRI UC. One of the updates that catches my attention is:

ArcGIS Server Tile Cache Format – You can now create or manage tile caches that can be used with ArcGIS Server. use Arc2Earth tile management tools (like the Change Detection Level) to dramatically reduce the time it takes to update tile caches

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Browsing WeoGeo Market Using the ESRI Silverlight API

Updated: This demo application now running here. I will update this demo periodically, as time permits, so keep checking back.

At the 2010 ESRI Federal User Conference, WeoGeo announced the availability of a toolbar for interacting with WeoGeo Market and private libraries from within ArcMap. This, combined with Dan Dye’s series of posts showing how to use the WeoGeo REST API with Python got me thinking about how easy it would be to integrate with ESRI’s clients for the ArcGIS Server REST API. All of my clients (it seems) are using the Silverlight API these days so I am spending a lot of time with it and decided to use it as my testbed.

My goal was simple, I wanted to browse the WeoGeo Market for any data sets in the current map extent, be able to select one from a list, and have its preview image display in the proper location on my Silverlight map.

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First Thoughts on ArcGIS 10.0

The announcement that ArcGIS 9.4 is being re-christened as 10.0 leaves me feeling somewhat bemused. I have seen the new version of Desktop and it is nice and will finally update the current Office-97-feeling UI. The list of changes coming in 10.0 (published so far) is impressive but I haven’t seen any discussion of the changes coming to the ArcGIS architecture, which is of greater interest to me as a developer and integrator. Given the past history of ArcGIS, calling this release 10.0, in my mind, implies a significant architectural shift. ArcGIS 8 was a clear departure from the previous releases of ARC/INFO. Indeed, it not only came with a new version but introduced the name “ArcGIS.”

Read moreFirst Thoughts on ArcGIS 10.0