WMS Services in ArcGIS Explorer

June 20th, 2006 · 16 Comments · ArcGIS Explorer, ESRI, GIS

Someone has been bugging me about WMS services in ArcGIS Explorer and how well the are working. Well in the latest beta they work wonderful. I’m very impressed with how well they are working. Specifically they asked about the Microsoft Terraserver WMS service and I figured a screen capture might work best to show how its working. (click image for larger view)

Tags:

16 responses so far ↓

1 the legend // Jun 20, 2006 at 2:52 pm

any details on support for WMS legends in ArcGIS Explorer?
2 James Fee // Jun 20, 2006 at 3:36 pm

I don’t have a WMS service with a legend set up. Do you have one I can test?
3 Mike // Jun 20, 2006 at 4:21 pm

Hey James, has ESRI set you free to blog about beta software? Just curious.
4 James Fee // Jun 20, 2006 at 4:24 pm

Well I’m not posting about anything that ESRI hasn’t already released into the wild.
5 av8tor // Jun 20, 2006 at 5:38 pm

Man that is sweet…
6 Erin // Jun 20, 2006 at 5:39 pm

How does it do adding other data? I know I’ve read it has support for KML/KMZ, shapefiles, geodatabases, ArcIMS/ArcGIS Server and MS Excel.

I wish I had access to it.
7 David Davis // Jun 20, 2006 at 5:40 pm

So AGX does a great job of handling the WMS service? That is great news from my perspective I’ll tell you that. Wish I heard more of this from ESRI.
8 TomServo // Jun 20, 2006 at 5:41 pm

The 3D globe works the same at Google Earth but I can add my own datasets? How do I get on this beta?
9 James Fee // Jun 20, 2006 at 5:59 pm

The beta is closed right now. I’m sure ESRI is really trying to get it out ASAP. I don’t know much more beyond what was said at Where 2.0 and other places by Jack Dangermond.
10 Mangocrate // Jun 20, 2006 at 7:10 pm

Rumor has it that AEX *won’t* be supporting shapefiles(!).

I think you will have to push shapefiles into kml, then AEX can read it…?
11 James Fee // Jun 20, 2006 at 7:42 pm

Shapefile support is on the list. I know some betas have dropped shapefile support from time to time.
12 AlbertW // Jun 20, 2006 at 8:38 pm

what else can it do? I see mention of a developer kit being .NET. When will people have public access to this?
13 Gretch // Jun 20, 2006 at 8:40 pm

Do you have any KML/KMZ examples you can post?
14 AlbertW // Jun 20, 2006 at 10:21 pm

How does it save maps? I assume by default it doesn’t use KML. Is this save file XML? Can we modify create it on our own?
15 James Fee // Jun 20, 2006 at 10:25 pm

Albert, AGX saves out “NMF” files which are XML files describing the saved view. I can’t go into the structure of them as the beta is still closed and I don’t think ESRI has ever documented them before.

Anyway since this is a beta, I’m sure the structure will change.

As for creating them on your own I’m sure it is possible since they are just XML documents, but I’m not sure why you’d want to as a KML will probably do a better job and be more portable. Time will tell what plans ESRI has for these NMF files beyond just a save format.

The analogy right now I’d use is sure you could create an ArcView 3.x apr file on your own, but why would you want to?
16 Tom Kralidis // Jun 27, 2006 at 10:29 am

As far as saving maps, it would be really nice if ESRI would support the OGC:WMC specification, which allows for interoperable ‘bookmarks’.