Rports From The Show

On Tuesday morning I took in a session on ArcGIS presented by Rich Turner, ArcGIS Product Manager with ESRI. The goal of the session was to answer the question what is ArcGIS? So… what is it? ArcGIS is ESRI's next-generation software. It's essentially a suite of products that have been built on a new, standard, COM-based architecture. ESRI has spent the last couple of years reinventing the software and has finally come up with a host of products that work together. ArcGIS 8.1 began shipping in April of this year.

The ArcGIS suite is composed of 3 main areas: ArcMap - used to view, query, analyze, essentially everything that was ArcView ArcToolbox - a logical collection of tools and functions ArcCatalog - lets users organize, browse, manage, and query geographic data. The amount of functionality a user has access to depends on the type of ArcGIS license the user has purchased.

Turner explained in detail each of the three ArcGIS desktop products built on the new COM-based architecture (note, what this means is that all of the products have the exact same look and feel since they have all been built using the same objects). All three desktop products share the same core functionality.

ArcGIS desktop products:

ArcView - mapping, analysis, simple editing, geoprocessing

ArcEditor - all the functionality of ArcView plus advanced editing for coverages and geodatabases.

ArcInfo - extended functionality of both the other products as well as advanced geoprocessing.

Interesting to note is the fact that when you purchase and install ArcGIS you actually have all of these products available to you on the computer. Unless you have an ArcInfo license though, you won't be able to access functionality that is made available by that seat.

ESRI has announced a two-phased release schedule for ArcView 8.1. The initial release runs on Windows NT and Windows 2000 (required for all ArcGIS products). A subsequent release will come later this year to support Windows 98 and Me. Also planned for the near future are several International versions with a translated user interface, help, and documentation. Hardwire requirements (recommended) for ArcGIS include:
500 mHz PC
256 mb RAM
True color graphics
Open GL graphics card

Users that plan on upgrading to ArcGIS will have to hone up on their VBA programming skills. Since the Arc product suite is all built on the same COM architecture, they share a common customization language. Users will now be able to customize ArcGIS using a standard programming language such as VB, VBA, C++, Delphi, etc… Using existing Avenue extensions won't be totally straight forward, however, at least some comfort will be realized as VBA uses a similar syntax as Avenue. Lots of things learned in Avenue coding will apply directly to VBA, even though things may have different names. Things that people are likely to miss from Avenue:

- relatively easy to learn
- having direct access to system scripts
- capability to make extensions with native development tools

Things people will gain from the new programming environment:
- more programmatic control
- common development environment
- better debugging and editing tools
- ability to make their own object classes

The thought of not being able to use all those avenue extensions you've collected over the years is likely scary to a number of users. Thad Tilton, Avenue instructor with ESRI offers up the following advice to people making the switch:

- get a basic knowledge of COM
- learn to use the help and help resources
- use samples and reuse code
- build a library

Some suggested VBA programming resources for you:
http://arconline.esri.com/arcobjectsonline/
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_infos.html
http://www.microsoft.com/com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/vblang/

Special events and presentations

Dr. Michael Goodchild was presented with the ESRI Lifetime Achievement Award by Dr. Roger Tomlinson (Tomlinson was the very first recipient of this award). Goodchild, the foremost scholar and author of numerous GIS related books was definitely humbled by receiving this award, however, he was sure to point out that even though he received a "lifetime award" he is far from finished working! Upon receipt of the award he went on to discuss his passion for geography and caving. Something that Goodchild wanted the crowd to know was that he finds the issue of data accuracy to be of the utmost importance.

For those of you that have children and find yourself at home on Saturday evenings (like me) then you've likely seen a show on CBS called "The District". At the opening day session we were given a behind the scenes look at the GIS technology which is showcased every week in the popular show. We had a chance to meet Lynn Thigpen, the actress who plays character Ella Farmer - Director of crime analysis and the show's GIS guru! Lynn, accompanied by John Calkins of ESRI, described how ESRI software is used every week to not only entertain but educate the public. They noted that as the season progressed, so to did the depth of the GIS analysis used in each episode. They told us that as a result of the show's popularity, GIS and the knowledge of GIS has hit the mainstream, educating the public with terms and GIS procedures such as proximity search, corridor analysis, hot spots, and network analysis. BTW, more than 13 million people watch the show every week and quite often, the maps and analysis that you see is derived from real data (for example, one show was concerned with the proliferation of the drug extacy and data from The National Drug Intelligence Center was used and analyzed). At the conclusion of her presentation, Lynn was presented with the "Making A Difference" Award by Jack Dangermond.

Each year a teacher and several students are presented with the K-12 Community Atlas Project Award and this year was no different. This year's recipients were from Stillwater High School in Minnesota. They were presented with the award for their efforts put forward in studying urban sprawl and the resulting loss of green space in their community. As winners they received a digital camera and printer from Atlas Project sponsor Kodak. All three high school students told us that they will be attending University programs in the coming year in order to study Geography.

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