James Fee GIS Blog

Jared was kind enough to email me, letting me know that the Libre Map Project is now online. You can search geonames (placenames, geographic features, etc.) and it will return the appropriate DRG to download or you can get a listing of all the DRGs for each state. Great work Jared and thanks [...]

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I’ve been loading a ton of data into SDSFIE and I’ve noticed an issue with the Load Data GUI. Unlike every other “multiple import/load” dialog, the “load data” dialog is totally different.

You have to use a standard windows dialog to add features, not drag and drop from any ArcGIS application (ArcCatalog or ArcMap). [...]

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Lately I’ve noticed most of my posts get comments that are off-topic. Well lets try this… Here is an open thread to post about whatever you wish.

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One of the most disappointing aspects of ArcGlobe (aside from performance) is the default view.
ArcGlobe
This was probably fine back in the late 90’s when GIS professionals just didn’t know any better, but now with Google Earth becoming the standard of digital globes, implementing ArcGlobe becomes difficult given that you don’t get much good data out [...]

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http://www.esri.com/explorer redirects to http://resources.esri.com/arcgisexplorer/. There are now forums available, but it appears only users who are part of the pre-release can login.
update - looks like ESRI removed the redirect, but the new webpage is still up. Screen capture below in case you don’t feel like visiting.

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I get people asking me all the time how ArcGIS Explorer will do against Google Earth or NASA World Wind. For now one can’t speak because it is still in closed beta, but I will address one part that people have been asking me about. The ArcGIS Explorer Community. Right now the [...]

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The Virtual Earth team is taking feature requests for upcoming releases of Virtual Earth. I’d love to see the API extended to give developers access to the polygons, polylines and points now available in collections. A simple way to import or export these points would be superb!

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Want more proof that Python and GIS just seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate?
The new era: QGIS and Python

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David Maguire blogs on why ESRI is part of 52°North.
Although there is a lot of hype associated with the open source software model and many overblown claims, it is clear to me that it can work (e.g. Apache and MySQL) and that there is significant interest in community development in the GIS industry. This is [...]

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With all the new changes in ArcGIS 9.2 I’ve been telling folks to head over to the ESRI training site for some free ArcGIS 9.2 training seminars. I happened to head over there today and was surprised to not see much ArcGIS 9.2 stuff up on the front page. I know there are [...]

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Looks like it is going to be a busy November. We’re going to upgrade the rest of our servers to Windows Server 2003 and at the same time upgrade our last Oracle 8i to 10g. On top of all this we’ve got the ArcGIS 9.2 upgrade to install. Seems like someone will [...]

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I got a trackback from a new blog from an ESRI user who is attempting to migrate over to open source. He/She doesn’t seem to be a Linux pro so this might be a good blog reference for those thinking of making the migration.
Datum Shift

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I was very saddened to read in the comments that Jeff Jackson let us know that Beckett or “Bex” as many ESRI users better know him, passed away a couple days ago. Very sorry to hear that you lost a great friend Jeff.

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I’m heading out for a 4 day weekend vacation. Have a great rest of the week.

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All Howard Butler wanted to do is write a GDAL driver for ArcSDE raster support. He couldn’t afford a production license of ArcSDE, but he took a look at ESRI’s EDN which is supposed to help people like him develop using ESRI Server tools. After looking at the fine print, he’s wondering if [...]

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What happens to the imagery when Google (or Microsoft for that matter) updates their image database? Does Google allow people to access this data or does it disappear off into the digital wastebasket?

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In the past month I’ve had 4 people tell me that they are probably not going to be using ESRI Server (ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, ArcSDE) on their projects unless their clients specifically demand it. I’m not talking about 4 people off the street here, but ESRI MVP types. When asked why they felt [...]

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Remember when I was complaining about cloud coverage over my house? Well the latest update to the Google imagery removes the clouds, but reverts back to an older image. The freeway on this new image is no longer finished. I guess someone thinks that a less relevant image is better than having [...]

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Brian Timoney brings up a great question in the comments to my last post.
James: I’d love a show of hands of folks that never made the switch to 8.x or 9.x because of common everyday tasks that a 3.x workflow still carries out quiet satisfactorily….
I use ArcView 3.2a almost every day myself, though I’ll be [...]

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From an email this morning:
james, love the blog! I have a question that I hope you can answer. I was looking at some of the downloads on ESRI’s ArcScripts site and noticed that they are all listed as having a license of “public domain”. Downloading ET GeoWizards LT, I don’t see any [...]

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