One of the biggest “errors” one gets when trying to view ArcIMS services in AGX is the dreaded “Unknown spatial reference” when adding them. This occurs because the projection has not been set for the service and logically AGX cannot display them. The 9.2 ArcDoc should explain how to set the projection withe the AXL files, but way back in Feb 2006, Jeremy Bartley wrote a blog post about how many ArcIMS sites had their projection set inside the huge MapDex site.
One of the most disturbing things I have found out from building Mapdex is the lack of proper projection information set for mapservices. It turns out that about 56.5% of mapservices lack a projection or cannot be assumed to be geographic. Only 31.3% of mapservices have a valid projection while 12.2% can be assumed geographic.
Better get cracking all you ArcIMS administrators and update those AXL files. As Jeremy noted back then, there is a great ArcUser article about Georeferencing ArcIMS Services.
5 responses so far ↓
1
Matt
// Nov 29, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Always glad to provide my favorite GIS blog with news fodder!
After adding the ArcIMS services I’m still underwhelmed by the streaming performance even on our intranet-only server. Shapefile performance is lagging a bit as well. In a nutshell, I hoped that AGE’s performance would be similar to that of an optimized ArcIMS site but in a globe interface. Don’t see that materializing just yet. However, we’ve all been told innumerable times that AGE is destined to work with ArcGIS Server sites.
2
Anon
// Nov 29, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Remember that IMS services are inherently 2D, and also don’t have the advantage that 3D ArcGIS Services have with caching. There will be some extra overhead with IMS services since they’ll have to be draped on the globe, and cached locally. Once that happens though, your performance should be excellent.
3
Matt
// Nov 30, 2006 at 6:19 am
I agree with Anon’s comment that ArcIMS is 2D versus the 3D environment in AGX. However, it’s surprising (and unfortunate) that the label and line feature classes from our existing ArcIMS service render extremely blocky and almost illegible in AGX. Local caching still doesn’t seem to speed up the display, although I might not want to speed up sloppy layers!
Back to try some local SID imports…
4
Casey
// Nov 30, 2006 at 7:42 am
Bartley has been harping on the projection idea for awhile. This is coming from a novice, but does anyone know or can any describe/point me to how Open Source is handling “publishing” projections with data? Its easy to describe the problem, but whats the best solution?
Thanks!
Casey
5 ESRI Instructional Podcast on Defining Projection Information for ArcIMS Map Services at James Fee GIS Blog // Dec 10, 2006 at 3:52 pm
[...] I blogged about defining projections of your ArcIMS services and it looks like ESRI has posted an Instructional Series Podcast called “Best Practices: Defining Projection Information for ArcIMS Map Services”. Anyone who manages an ArcIMS implementation and hasn’t set their projections should listen to that podcast as your services will have trouble being consumed by ArcGIS Explorer and ArcMap clients without the projection being set. Direct link to podcast here. [...]
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