Highlights from the 19th ESRI User Conference
ArcIms 3.0
To many people at the conference,
particulary those hooked on web applications and web mapping, the release
of ArcIMS 3.0 is even more exciting then the release of ArcInfo 8. ArcIMS
3.0 is being billed as the next generation Internet Mapping and distributed
technology. Jack Dangermond sees this as an opportunity to open up new
ways of cooperation and a means of leveraging the vast amount of existing
data contained in GIS databases worldwide.
There are some good reasons for you
to consider putting your maps and app's on the web. Perhaps the most
important is that GIS is going mainstream. Would you rather lead the pack
or follow the leaders? Here are some interesting numbers for you to ponder:
There are currently over 1 million
ArcExplorer users
There are currently over half a million
ArcView users
More than 50,000 students have completed
ESRI "virtual" training
So what's cool about ArcIMS 3.0?
Direct data streaming allows users
to integrate local data with data sets served on the internet. We saw a
slick example of this where local data, EPA data, and demographic data
sets (all on different remote servers) were integrated into one IMS session.
You will be able to set up and publish
your webpage with easy to use out of the box templates and wizards. I met
a guy who built a simple application and served it on his website without
knowing anything about intricate IMS procedures and customizing tools -
he simply used a wizard and published the application when finished.
ArcIMS enables you to administer,
manage, and publish your website with ArcIMS tools.
Quick performance is provided by new
clients in both html and JAVA versions. The underlying principle here is
that operations are handled locally rather than by a round trip to the
server.
Dynamic editing or annotation of maps
is facilitated by markup and mapnotes functions
Clients can be easily customized using
VBScript or JavaScript
Scalable functionality is promised
to enable compatibility with other technologies such as ASP and Cold Fusion
apps.
ArcIMS will be supported on Windows
NT and UNIX platforms.
Look for a final release later
this year
More info is available from http://www.esri.com/arcims/
