Had a visit to the Cadcorp site here in England a month or so ago…not much love for the ESRI folks. To their credit, they didn’t talk ESRI down so much as talk themselves up in comparison.

Are you saying that other companies make GIS products? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

I use what is given to me or which is allowed.

KoS

Nice to see ArcGIS implementing something that’s been in Manifold quite a while. I’d hope there’s an option not to have separate layers too.

ESRI does offer export to PDF in 9.2 which doesn’t combine the various layers into one. It keeps all the layers separate. Which allows someone in the exported pdf file turn-on and off the various layers of interest.

Take a look at the new “What’s new in ArcGIS 9.2 March 2007″ pdf on page 134. They give a brief explaintion.

So, kinda, a canned GIS viewer.

Note, I haven’t had the opportunity to use the function yet. Still waiting on them to install 9.2, but they have been running to problems given all the crap the USDA maked people jump through getting software approved and tested.

KoS

I knew this would eventually come up, but for $295 you can have Manifold and the ability to link to VE as your background layer. And, you have the full topological tools that Manifold offers. In addition, you can have the IMS package for that price too.

Sorry to trumpet Manifold again, but honestly, for things like this, it just keeps cropping up

For my home county, GE is still using several year old images. Why would I pay for that privilege? I can get nearly as good quality from WW for free.

Have you tried the World Wind KMLImporter?

http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/KMLImporter

Doesn’t fully support polygons or buildings yet, but most correctly formatted KMLs/KMZs should work (Though knowing the luck of things, polygons are what you need).

You are right James, I can also create KML for vector and images in my humble little GIS program

I still can’t use GE as a viewer commercially for the KML unless I cough up the $400/user.

So if my clients don’t want to pay for GE Pro, then I should look elsewhere for my KML viewer? I’m beginning to get that feeling.

@Chris C.

You don’t need GE to author KML so technically you can create KML for free.

http://www.allpointsblog.com/archives/2714-Following-EULAs.html
http://bullsworld.blogspot.com/2007/04/so-what-is-googles-policy-for-enforcing.html

Sofar they only seems to enforce their ToS a very few times.. and only when they get called on it.

I participated in a usability study at Google last week for GE and the “login in” issue was the first test – also addressed Ryan Morgans “Hint”. So, they’re thinking about it…I think. I also made it clear a floating license would solve some workplace issues as well. Hope it gets through…hope they’ll invite me back so I can really tell them what’s on my mind.

I can make a PDF with the various free PDF makers, I use PrimoPDF, and can generate PDFs using Manifold. I don’t think that’s a good comparison.

VE is nothing to compare for end user functionality. WW and AGE do not have enough high-resolution data off-the-shelf.

We also have no problem paying $495 for Google SketchUp when the consumer has it for free.

In business you get what you pay for.