Arc2Earth now supports map tiles from Virtual Earth, Yahoo and Ask

Arc2Earth Now Supports Map Tiles From Virtual Earth, Yahoo and Ask

August 31st, 2006 · 9 Comments · ArcGIS Desktop, ESRI, Extensions, GIS, Google, Google Maps, Microsoft, Virtual Earth

Yep you read that right. The latest Arc2Earth version has a new toolbar called Map Tile Layer which allows you to download into ArcMap Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps and Ask Map tiles. So you can now choose Aerial/Hybrid/Streets for each of these services (NASA World Wind and Terraserver will be added at a later date). I’ve been testing it over the past couple days I’m I’m impressed. You can even cache the tiles locally and use them when you are “off the grid”. I’m looking forward for Google support so when I export my KMLs I can make sure they line up with the Google aerials in Google Earth. I’ve posted some screen shots of the ESRI campus in Redlands below from inside ArcMap.

Microsoft Virtual Earth Streets layer

Microsoft Virtual Earth Aerial layer

Microsoft Virtual Earth Hybrid layer

Tags: Yahoo!·Yahoo! Maps

9 responses so far ↓

1 Bull_UK // Aug 31, 2006 at 1:50 pm

Looks cool, anyone feel like making a yahoo or ASK plug-in for World Wind?
2 Petz // Sep 1, 2006 at 2:08 am

Manifold was first to implement that !
3 James Fee // Sep 1, 2006 at 6:50 am

And for less than $300. Take a look at how much this extension costs. Almost as much as Manifold. WHAT ARE WE THINKING?
4 Paul Petersen // Sep 1, 2006 at 8:04 am

Ha ha. But to be fair ArcView costs $1500, then you can buy the $100 A2E extension on top of that. I actually have both Manifold and ArcGIS. While it’s nice that Manifold can do .kml import/export and download imagery as a core function, A2E does it much better. Manifold 7.x has made some improvements, but I haven’t downloaded it yet, so I can’t say if it’s narrowed the gap.
5 rick // Sep 2, 2006 at 9:15 am

I think its narrowed the gap. I just got 7x, and the import/export features are really cool. But, I’m pretty new to all this stuff so I might not be a good person to evaluate it and speak from authority.

But to be even more fair, on top of the $1,500 if you want to do topological editing with ArcView you will need to upgrade to ArcEditor (another $1,500?), and if you want to work with rasters you will have to buy spatial analyst (another $1,500), and if you want to be able to….

after all the money they’ve made with Arcxxx, why does ESRI insist on unbundling their product and selling off all these different modules? And more importantly, why do we keep on bending over and taking it?

Was ArcGIS just designed wrong from the outset, or does their catalog-toolbox-whatever implementation make sense?
6 Paul Petersen // Sep 2, 2006 at 12:55 pm

Fair enough. Actually, to upgrade to ArcEditor, I think it’s another $4500. I run ArcView 9.1 and Manifold with Spatial and Business tools side-by-side. I’m much more comfortable in the ArcGIS environment, but I’ll bust out Manifold whenever I need a tool that I don’t have with ArcGIS (such as Spatial Anal), or that ArcGIS does poorly. I finally downloaded Manifold 7.x last night, and although it has map export to .kml, it’s still kind of buggy and Arc2Earth is much better. But then again, I never get paid to do .kml export; it’s just something I like to play around with.
7 Jesse // Sep 5, 2006 at 12:14 pm

Umm… How did this turn into a Manifold discussion, AGAIN?
8 James Fee // Sep 5, 2006 at 12:26 pm

Even when it isn’t about manifold, it is about manifold Jesse.
9 Paolo Corti // Sep 8, 2006 at 6:36 am

Is it really so impressive this manifold???
Should I really pick off $$250 from my Portafolio just to give a try?

:-)