ArcGIS Explorer 480 Released

June 25th, 2008 · 21 Comments · GIS

The ArcGIS Explorer Blog announced that AGX 480 was released last night. I was wondering when build 480 was going to arrive given the May timeframe announced at the DevSummit. You’ll want to check out the “What’s New in ArcGIS Explorer 480” for all the improvements, but I’ll list some of the ones that I think are important:

ArcSDE Support - FINALLY!
GPX File Import - If you want to work with shapefiles and GPS, you don’t have to buy Google Earth Pro anymore
Graticules and Reference Grids (OK, maybe not that important, but I like it)
Raster Background Transparency - Get rid of the black borders on imagery
Web Browser Support - AGX will run inside browser windows
KML improvements - every little bit helps
Increase performance - multi-threaded
GeoRSS Support

How AGX handles point symbols is interesting and I’m anxious to give it a try. We’ve been working on a project in Google Earth for Trip Reduction but we might deploy it on AGX if build 480 is as good as it appears.

Tags: arcgis·ArcGIS Explorer·ESRI·Google·Google Earth

21 responses so far ↓

1 Joseph Wallis // Jun 25, 2008 at 5:54 am

When we get layer file support THEN I’ll really be impressed. ArcSDE support is a nice start though!

Looking at the change log, this build is pretty understated. This is a BIG release in terms of data support.
2 Simon // Jun 25, 2008 at 6:40 am

Looks good.
I have been trying to make our company a bit more aware about AGX - its free to deploy to our clients and majority of them are councils with only a few GIS licenses - this proves an easy to deploy application that takes their native GIS files (most are ESRI shops) along with the GIS data we send them.

A function id like to see is the ability to switch to a 2D mode - as mentioned before, the 3rd dimension often just confuses people that are not that familiar with looking at layers overlaid onto a globe.

Do I need to re-download the SDK kit as well now?
3 Joseph Wallis // Jun 25, 2008 at 7:37 am

I was expecting MUCH better speed hitting ArcSDE directly but this isn’t any better than ArcIMS or AGS. I also noticed that direct connects aren’t working….probably have to configure some path file voodoo instead of it just working.
4 Bruce // Jun 25, 2008 at 7:51 am

Is it just me or are there some stability issues? I can’t run AGX for more than about 30 seconds without a full crash.
5 Matt // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:00 am

I believe it’s PC-specific, but the last two builds of AGE crash and knock my monitor into sleep mode requiring a hard shutdown of the entire system. My PC is less than a year old with all the bells-n-whistles in terms of video cards and RAM. Very odd. Installing it on a 3-yr old laptop to test it there.
6 Chris M // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:01 am

This release resolved a problem I was having with accessing a raster dataset stored in a file geodatabase. It was a welcome surprise to install this new version and have something work right for a change. I would also love to see a 2D option of AGX as it would really make things a lot more simplistic for end users.
7 Peter // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:36 am

i get a crash before full start up as well.
8 James Fee // Jun 25, 2008 at 10:10 am

I’m not having any problems. Guess lucky me, eh?
9 Joseph Wallis // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:08 am

Yes, but are you actually DOING anything with it?
10 Matt // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:36 am

Addendum to my prior post-works fine on my older laptop, although the cache grinds the hard disk a bit. However, I found our SDE connection works quite well and faster than expected. Also loaded up some SID files from the local drive and was very pleased with the load times. Definitely seems to have better optimization in terms of streaming data. If all goes well this may be the first build I’d consider placing on some of my users’ desktops if they require 3D capabilities.
11 Simon // Jun 25, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Ive had speed issues with it, which I dont have with GEarth. Also when adding shapefiles from local drive, it takes awhile to render them when zooming in. Connecting to AF-Server even longer…

Not sure if there are any tweaks u can do other than cache that may speed this up.
12 Roger // Jun 26, 2008 at 6:45 am

I finally had a chance to try 480, but a serious application error after trying it for about five minutes doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Streaming does seem to be improved. I was hoping for a little better performance when I tried connecting to one of our SDE geodatabases, but the performance wasn’t awful. I need to play with it more, but I agree with those who say that this build may finally be the first one that I can consider using for some applications.
13 Joseph Wallis // Jun 26, 2008 at 7:15 am

sad that it renders a KML faster than a shapefile.
14 Rex // Jun 26, 2008 at 8:34 am

We have finally deployed AGX office-wide and it has been received well. Why the heck do you have to do a full uninstall/install instead of just an updated?

SDE works fine for me, however, still no support for relationship classes.
15 Adam // Jun 26, 2008 at 10:28 am

Some of you might know this already but the 2D support is there in build 600. They showed it at the Dev Summit in March.

Adam
16 Simon // Jun 26, 2008 at 10:56 am

@Adam - thats great - any links to some screenshots of 2D in action?

Our GIS team all have fixed ArcGIS desktop licenses but there are also around a dozen floating licenses with around 30 people with ArcGIS installed = often there are issues with people not being able to get a license to use ArcGIS. Using something like ArcGIS Explorer in 2D mode would be great for users that simply need to make basic queries on data.

Be great if there was some kind of mxd–>AGX translator (I know you can serve an mxd into AG-Server and add to AGX, but im talking about a bog standard mxd.
17 James Fee // Jun 26, 2008 at 1:30 pm

While the screen shot isn’t 2D, the AGX Blog has some Build 600 info and at least a screenshot that shows the new ribbon interface:

http://blogs.esri.com/Info/blogs/arcgisexplorerblog/archive/2008/04/02/arcgis-explorer-600-a-sneak-peek.aspx
18 Chris M // Jun 27, 2008 at 6:41 pm

Does anyone have a rough timeline for when build 600 might be available for the masses as I am real interested in an ESRI 2D viewer, especially one that will access my SDE databases and AGS.
19 James Fee // Jun 27, 2008 at 6:46 pm

@Chris M: The only things I’ve heard is Build 600/700 would be out before the end of the year. 480 was supposed to hit by end of May (eh, close enough) and that was announced at the DevSummit. As for a more specific data for 600, I have yet to see/hear anything.
20 Bruce // Jul 1, 2008 at 6:00 pm

FYI
Removing Virtual Earth (Beta) seems to solve the crashes I was having.
21 JW // Jul 8, 2008 at 6:01 am

Just discovered something really stupid and I need a place to rant. AGX doesn’t support Vista x64! What a crock! You can install ArcGIS Desktop on Vista x64, but AGX gives a stupid “your operating system isn’t supported”

Ridiculous.