ESRI has been talking about this for months (and haphazardly blogged about on the ArcGIS Online blog last week), but they’ve now got a post up on their ArcGIS Server Blog outlining the changes coming to ESRI’s ArcGIS Online web services. (Side note, wouldn’t be nice if ESRI sort of planned their blog posts better for a common message?)
Since the release of ArcGIS Online three years ago, the 2D services have used the WGS 1984 geographic coordinate system and a 512 x 512 pixel tile size. Google and Bing, in contrast, use a modified Mercator projection and a 256 x 256 tile size. The scale sets used by both tiling schemes are similar, but not equivalent.
Make sure you read the whole ArcGIS Server blog post to understand what you have to do and when. From the ArcGIS Online blog:
The existing services in the ArcGIS Online tiling scheme will remain available for at least six months and, depending on demand, may remain available longer. Although the services will remain available, the content in these services will no longer be updated.
5 Comments
Ouch, I feel old…saw KC and his band shakin’ it on a Brooklyn rooftop in the summer of ‘76. Now THAT was a party. Sigh.
Oh, right – maps.
I think it’s an interesting move. Modified Mercator and 256×256 tiles are strikingly similar to the world according to Google.
Will this make it any easier for folks to step off Google services and shake it with Jack and the SoCal Band? Keep it Comin’, Love.
James: what SRS are you keeping your source data in, and if different than web mercator, are you keeping a seperate copy of your data? if not what method are you using for building the cache?
When working in web mercator for web apps I reprojected into that projection to speed things up. While AGS can reproject on the fly pretty darn well, it does add up over time.
So yes, I would keep a second copy of the data.
Now I’m really worried about those women skiing to the south pole. Once they pass 85 deg south, no telling what might happen.
Antarctica is shrinking fast enough without cartographers making the situation worse.
the most brilliant comment i’ve seen on this blog!