More ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 News

July 2nd, 2008 · 20 Comments · GIS

It looks like ESRI finally put the 9.3 help publicly and you no longer need a password to access it (HT Jithen & Mapperz).

Welcome to ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.3

The ESRI Resource Center is available as well. Unlike the disorganized ArcGIS Support pages, these are focused on the ESRI product you are working with. I’m really happy to see these resource pages, but I’m curious where they fit within the whole ESRI Support and ESRI EDN sites. I suspect that I won’t be using EDN as much as I’ll be using these new resource pages. At any rate the look great and are easy to use; a welcome change from the Support and EDN pages.

UPDATE: It looks like the resource center is still blocked for those who were not in the beta. Someone at ESRI forgot to flip the switch…

There is also a “What’s New in ArcGIS 9.3″ Podcast. The direct link to the podcast is here. Why they make it so hard to get to these podcasts are beyond me. Shouldn’t they be available on the resource pages?

Lastly, while I’m getting ready to deploy ~~ArcSDE~~ ArcGIS Server Enterprise with SQL Server 2008, many are very interested in what PostgreSQL brings to the ArcGIS stable at 9.3. Bill Dollins has been working on a couple blog posts about Using ArcSDE 9.3 with PostgreSQL. Just seeing ArcMap push to PostgreSQL and then using uDIG to view the data is powerful. Says Bill:

…depending on how you implement it, ArcSDE for PostgreSQL can provide interoperability between ArcGIS and an open-source stack. uDig can be leveraged in a pinch to edit data loaded into ArcSDE using the PostGIS geometry type, allowing you to expand to meet demand.

I think many organizations will look long and hard at migrating their SQL Server or Oracle implementations to Postgres.

ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 with all that great Swedish quirkiness

(Photo by dmurray)

Tags: 9.3·arceditor·arcgis·ArcGIS Desktop·ArcGIS Engine·arcgis image server·ArcGIS Server·arcinfo·ArcObjects·ArcSDE·arcview·ESRI

20 responses so far ↓

1 Chris M // Jul 2, 2008 at 10:05 am

Just got my DVDs today, nice new packaging. I got a chance to check out the Resource Center earlier as part of the release candidate program and was fairly impressed. I like how they have created individual centers for each product, it seems much more organized then their other web resources.
I also like the idea of being able to access data right from these resource centers as well. Doubt I will use this much for work projects due scale issues but will be fun for personal or proof of concept projects.
2 David // Jul 2, 2008 at 10:45 am

My wife has a Saab 93, and I like the implied comparison.

From my experience, you pay a premium, the depreciation curve is steep, the hardware is expensive, and you need a relationship with a good mechanic…
3 Mapperz // Jul 2, 2008 at 10:54 am

Great to see the ArcGIS 9.3 Help up and running for all users now.

One thing I have noticed is the ‘Geoprocessing Center’ promised is either late coming or still out of date…(anyone know anymore?)
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/2007/06/esri-users-questions-answered.html

The best updated function so far is the Near Command (ArcInfo Only)
Supporting Input points,lines, polygons and multipoint.
(a long time request)
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?id=1273&pid=1268&topicname=Near_(Analysis)

old version only supported points as an input
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?id=1111&pid=1107&topicname=Near_(Analysis)

Mapperz
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/
4 Aditya // Jul 2, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Did you hear anything shape2SQL2008 import tool in ArcGIS 9.3 ?

http://adityaiiii.blogspot.com
5 pierre.k // Jul 2, 2008 at 3:29 pm

What I find really painful is that you can’t still perform a left outer join across 2+ tables using QueryDefs in a consistent way… On Oracle, one has to use the deprecated (+) syntax, on MSSQL, the deprecated =* syntax (which is to be dropped completely in future versions), and it’s impossible at all on Access & File Geodatabase.
When, oh when??!
6 jxn // Jul 2, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Their list of new features for the ADF web app seems pretty weak - a print task, and interacting with maptips thru search results, which was my entry in the dev challenge…

http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15403

SDE with SQL 08 will be awesome tho!
7 GeoCrackr // Jul 2, 2008 at 6:42 pm

After listening to that podcast I would posit the obverse of your question — why would anyone try hard to get them? I was nearly laughing out loud at how stilted and awkward that whole scripted “interview” was.

I tried accessing the ESRI Resource Center and they’re still requiring an RC1 pass code.
8 James Fee // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:03 pm

Yea, someone else let me know about that. I’ll update the post.
9 ChrisW // Jul 3, 2008 at 1:24 am

@Pierre:
“On Oracle, one has to use the deprecated (+) syntax…”

I don’t have an Oracle instance available right now so I can’t check this, but I think you can use ANSI SQL for a left outer join in Oracle:

SELECT country_name, city
FROM countries LEFT JOIN locations
USING (country_id);

I stole this example from an old Oracle 9i book, because I’m still using “(+)” myself - it took me long enough to learn where to put the damned plus sign, I’m not giving it up until I have to…
10 pierre_k // Jul 3, 2008 at 6:43 am

@ChrisW

You surely can use this syntax on Oracle, but unfortunately not using IQueryDef against SDE server (running on Oracle)..
11 ChrisW // Jul 3, 2008 at 7:06 am

Sorry to hear that, Pierre.

That’s why I have a profound distrust of middleware when talking to a database - you often end up relying on somebody else’s idea of the easiest (=lowest common denominator) way to implementing the DB functionality, instead of being able to adapt your code to the specific DB platform as necessary.

Don’t suppose there’s any way to intercept the SDE query and re-format it on its way to the DB? Or put your own interface in front of it to switch outer join syntax depending on the target DB? How about defining a view within the DB to encapsulate your outer join, then run your SDE query against the view instead?

This SDE stuff is all witchery to me, as you can probably tell…!
12 pierre_k // Jul 3, 2008 at 9:11 am

@ChrisW
Yes, we are using views in the underlying database to solve this issue, but that does of course imply additional maintenance and deployment burden, not to mention cases when it comes down to changes in the data model.. uuuuh! Pain in the ***, this thing.
13 dan // Jul 3, 2008 at 10:48 am

Anyone need 30 boxes of ESRI Data & Maps 9.3?
14 Brian Johnson // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Anyone want to try v9.2 SR6 instead?

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=downloads.patchesServicePacks.viewPatch&PID=17&MetaID=1406
15 bon // Jul 3, 2008 at 2:27 pm

hi - I prolly inadvertantly posted to the other thread and just found dan’s post about the 30 boxes. Did Data & Maps change in the 9.3 release? Specifically the StreetMap; geocoding is SO much faster in 9.3

TIA! bon ^_^
16 bon // Jul 3, 2008 at 7:44 pm

Sooo, after getting so excited by the new pop box with the pretty colors that told me the admatch I did last week in 9.2 that took 2.5 HOURS was only going to take 11 minutes, I left work with my laptop still going at 1 hour and counting…after all these years I still fall for the stoopid time estimates, doh!
17 Laine // Jul 4, 2008 at 8:45 am

I might be being a bit thick here…how do you get a local copy of the JSAPI?

I like the samples and everything works fine when using our own REST mapservices…but I don’t want to use an external link for the JSAPI (and can’t as the deploy environment is behind a corperate firewall).

So what about a local copy of the JSAPI?
18 MarkB // Jul 5, 2008 at 8:47 am

Version 9.2 SR6 after 9.3 release, this appears pretty unusual to me. Have they done this in recent times (can’t recall)? How should I interpret this, as upstanding customer support or we’ve got some real problems here (no surprise)? Maybe both, which would be a big improvement still. Helps with that left in the lurch feeling some get. I assume these are just general fixes ported back. Looks like my laptop/desktop will be diverging for a little while.

Any idea when the EDN documentation library will open for 9.3? Does/will the resource center contain developer docs?
19 JW // Jul 8, 2008 at 6:26 am

considering that 9.2 SP5 clients can connect to 9.3 servers I get the impression that ESRI is more interested in getting the new server functionality out there than pushing people to upgrade their desktop stack. After looking at the new server stuff I can say it is well worth it. The performance increases with AGS alone are worth dumping 9.2 and going to 9.3. The client is much more polished.
20 Jason Stewart // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:55 pm

http://resources.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/ is up for me now - without an Release Candidate (RC) login. Yea! at last.