James Fee GIS Blog

A reader forwarded me this article from Federal Computer Week about the Navy looking at only accepting “systems based on open technologies and standards”. Vice Adm. Mark Edwards, deputy chief of naval operations for communications, broke the news March 5 to a Navy IT Day audience in Vienna, Va., sponsored by AFCEA International. “The days [...]

Blog reader Mike emailed this link to me and said that he thought it was well written. I agree, I think if you’ve been having difficulty understanding how map tiles work, this is a great primer to grasping the concepts. Map tiles are critical to getting performance on your web mapping applications and if you [...]

ESRI’s ArcGIS Server RESTful API docs are now available on the web. Now I really want the ArcGIS Server 9.3 Beta to ship tomorrow. HT: ROK Technologies ESRI Developer Blog Update: Looks like this wasn’t supposed to be out in the public as ESRI pulled it down for some reason.

ESRI has posted an example of the Javascript API on their blog: Today, we just want to talk a bit about the new ArcGIS JavaScript and REST APIs. We built this new JavaScript API because many of you have asked for a simple way to share your GIS data and tools over the internet. Here [...]

I don’t like the term “ESRI Shop”. Both open source developers and ESRI developers use it as an excuse one way or another. Just because you are running ArcMap or ArcGIS Server, doesn’t mean that you can’t explore open source GIS software and in fact you might be surprised how it makes your ESRI ArcGIS [...]

OK here is the other part of the ArcGIS Server 9.3 release that most of us will be interested in; the Javascript API. Jeremy Bartley and Jayant Sai talk a little about the Javascript API in their podcast. Much like the RESTful API Podcast, there isn’t much meat here, but at least you can get [...]

Dave Bouwman has cleaned up his AGS Virtual Earth Tile Server and has posted the code. HttpHandler (.ashx)that responds to Tile requests from Virtual Earth Supports multiple layers/map services through the same handler ArcGIS Server Tile Provider uses the AGS SOAP API (fast!) Projects the data – can be used with any ArcGIS Server map [...]

I’m sure this is just a coincidence, but ESRI actually posted a discussion of the REST API for ArcGIS Server. In addition they hit on the three Javascript APIs that they will also release with the REST API; ESRI Javascript API using Dojo, Extender Javascript Library for Google Maps and Extender Javascript Library for Virtual [...]

So we all hate at least parts of the WebADF but complaining about it won’t do anything. Dave says it is time for us to do something about it. I agree, bitching about software is therapeutic, but it doesn’t help any of us get our work done. Dave, Doron and Matt have all blogged about [...]

So how the heck are you guys doing it? Google Maps and Virtual Earth have so much distortion up there (or down there as the case may be) that mapping is very difficult. Plus what happens when they navigate off the edge of the map? Anyway the closest thing I’ve found with decent polar projections [...]

The ArcGIS Explorer team has released the update to build 440 that addresses some of the issues that cropped up: Fixes problems on startup that have occurred with certain graphics cards and drivers. Fixes symbol display issues that have occurred with certain graphics cards and drivers. Resolves a problem with vector lines flickering when the [...]

Doron Yaacoby writes that he’s absolutely frustrated with ESRI’s Web ADF. As I’ve said before, this is one horrific development platform. I’ve started to seriously think about coding a replacement that will work against ArcObjects (at least something that will satisfy my team’s needs), but it would take a lot of time which we currently [...]

I just love the Technical Article title: “Problem: ArcMap crashes periodically every half hour“

I think most of those who have been involved with ArcGIS Server, the Developer Summit is really were we get detailed discussions. The podcast talks about what the session will be which is pretty much what Art has been saying for the past few years. More Microsoft AJAX, .NET and other MS web technology. You [...]

It appears that there are now rooms available at the Hilton for the $185 rate. If you missed out earlier and now want to stay closer to the Dev Summit take advantage of this opportunity. Quite a few of us are staying at Hotel Zoso just down the street from the convention center (and closer [...]

ESRI is about to release an update to ArcGIS Explorer. Build 450 will add no new features, but will resolve a number of graphics card related issues that we inadvertently picked up at 440 (via ArcGlobe apparently). There has been some discussion in the ESRI forums about this issue: This problem was introduced by OpenGL [...]

Dave Bouwman just wrote up his findings on bringing ArcGIS Server web service (using the WMS service and SOAP API) into Virtual Earth. Another great example of using a hosted web service with your existing GIS projects. I’m pretty sure the ESRI Developer Summit will be full of folks wanting to know about using Virtual [...]

If you are lucky enough to be running ArcGIS 9.x, you’ll be able to use the latest extension for ArcGIS Desktop ArcCow from ArcScripts from here. The source code is included so if I were you I’d port the thing to to the ArcGIS Server Task Framework and enjoy the $15,000 grand prize. Bored? Try [...]

Three people today have told me that the conference rate at Hilton Hotel is sold out (rooms are available, but they run about $300/night) and the Wyndam hotel is essentially sold out (only single nights are available) for both the Business Partner Conference and the Developer Summit. So if you want to attend either, you [...]

I’m frankly astounded at that prize. Last year had some nice ones, but this is quite a step up from a GPS unit or an Xbox 360. Better get coding because it will take more than a Flickr task to get that money. First Place – $15,000 Second Place – $7,500 Third Place – $5,000 [...]