I’ve been beta testing A2E publisher for the past week and I have to say I’m in love with it. The ability to take ANY ArcMap view or layout and publish it to Google Maps, Virtual Earth (3D Included), OpenLayers and of course KML. Just publish and A2E creates a webpage to send to users. They can choose if they want Google Maps, Google Earth, Virtual Earth or even Open Layers.
One of the problems with just sending KML is not everyone can use or has Google Earth as an option. While it is true you can use Google Maps to view KML, it still needs some work. A2E Publisher allows you options (you don’t have to offer all the choices if you don’t wish) so that you can be pretty sure people can view the maps. I think I’ll find myself using PDF and ArcGIS Publisher much less when this gets out of beta, that is for sure. Check Brian Flood’s blog for some screenshots and more information about A2E Publisher.
8 Comments
Useful tool. Just imagine if it could export as GML or WMS/WFS.
hi tom
WFS and GML would be possible, you could export and then publish them so they were easily accessible to everyone. another thing that gets published (optionally) is RSS feeds for each map that make it easier to locate them in the future.
WMS would need intermediary server software to translate the requested bounding box, choose an appropriate level and then seam together the tiles into a single response image. possible for sure but not something we would work on right now. it would also be nice if this software followed the OSGEO tile spec so that it could translate and return from any tile layer.
cheers brian
I wanted to play around with this feature, too, but the trial download of Arc2Earth available on the website seems to be lacking those features. Are you in possession of a private beta release or something, James? If so — dagnabbit.
Yea, its a closed beta right now.
I’m sure Brian could be bribed though
James:
The power of EZ publishing to the web is the time/hassle/technical know-how hurdles are so low that if you can set up an .mxd file you can set up a web map portal–no programming necessary.
I want to see sites now that are project and even meeting-related. E.g. on the muni web page I want to see the next zoning meeting and a link to a slippy map with all of the parcels at issue ready for my clicking.
For instance, I’m using the beta to publish a series of maps for a meeting next week for a non-profit for whom I did some spatial analysis. Do they have the money to pay me to build a web portal? No. Does whipping something up in JavaScript pro bono appeal? Not during ski season. But now I have a push-button way to get their content on the web with no fuss, little effort and still come out smelling like the good-guy-consultant.
Fragrantly Yours,
Brian
James – Was your testing done with ArcGIS 9.1 or 9.2? Are there any known problems with using 9.2?
I’m useing 9.2 and have not seen any issues. I’m sure Brian has found some, but I’ve been lucky not to deal with them.
@Jim
for Publisher, the only issue we’ve seen so far is trying to convert some symbols to antialias versions (not the default but its nice). other then that, it seems to be woking pretty well for 9.2
cheers brian