James Fee GIS Blog

John Hanke and Jack Dangermond on the evolution of the GeoWeb.

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A thread has developed on the OSGeo email list (out of an “open source career” post in fact) asking how one can perform the same tasks using open source software as they do with ESRI.
Paul Ramsey as usual writes a spot on response to the question:
My general synopsis: for server-side, for scriptability, for automation, for [...]

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I’m sure most ESRI customers received the following email from ESRI regarding the Oracle 10.2.0.4 patch and ArcSDE:
If you are a user of the ArcGIS Server 9.2 ST_GEOMETRY data type with Oracle, we would like to make you aware of the following issue:
The recently released Oracle patch version 10.2.0.4 may make unexpected changes to the [...]

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Dave Smith has been blogging about the issues with ST_Geometry on Oracle 10g.
Recently two ESRI customers have reported problems to ESRI Technical Support after upgrading to Oracle 10.2.0.4. The Oracle upgrade appears to be deleting some schema elements we require for the spatial type (ST_GEOMETRY). Uninstalling the upgrade to restore the prior version of Oracle [...]

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Of course most everyone knows that OGR supports reading ArcSDE features, but writing wasn’t available. Well Hobu has the great news that he is looking for testers of OGR write for ArcSDE. This is great news for anyone who has ArcSDE and wants to use it with the many software applications/servers that user [...]

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For those of you who didn’t get to see Build 600 in person at the Business Partner or Developer Summit this March, the ArcGIS Explorer team has posted a screenshot with the new “ribbon” interface. It does look really nice and the usability is much improved.

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Dave Bouwman has written up a follow-up to his question at the Dev Summit closing session about ESRI overselling ArcGIS Server.
One issue I seem to run into a lot is the gap between client expectations of ArcGIS Server, and the reality. Although I did bring this up at the closing session of the Developer Summit, [...]

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The biggest excuse I hear time and time again for not using open source geospatial tools is that they are too confusing to use. Take GDAL/OGR for example, the webpage probably scares off most users because of the lack of examples of how to use both toolsets. But the tools themselves are so [...]

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The ArcGIS Explorer Blog just announced that AGX build 440 is available:
The ArcGIS Explorer Team is pleased to announce that today, at approximately 1:58 p.m. PST, the newest version of ArcGIS Explorer - Explorer 440 - was released.
If the ESRI servers are your home servers, you’ll be notified that there is a new version available [...]

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PostgreSQL is about to get really integrated into ArcGIS workflows in 2008. First off we have ArcGIS Server Enterprise (ArcSDE) which will support PostgreSQL (ESRI and PostGIS data types) and now we have zigGIS 2.0 which will support PostGIS/PostgreSQL without the need for the traditional “ArcSDE” connection.
First and foremost, the zigGIS codebase will remain [...]

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Announced earlier this month and talked about for at least a year (I think they mentioned this at the 2007 Dev Summit), ESRI is moving away from socket licensing to using the number of cores on the server.
Through November 30, 2007, ESRI licensed server software based primarily on the number of physical sockets on the [...]

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Rob Elkins says that there will be some complimentary pre-conference seminars at the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit next year. I have to say this is probably a good idea as many of the folks I talked to at the Dev Summit last year were well over their heads as many of the sessions are [...]

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Brian Flood has a detailed post describing some of the new features of the latest Arc2Earth beta where it can embed Virtual Earth’s 3D globe in ArcMap. Now Arc2Earth has benefits beyond just creating web mapping from ArcGIS, but creating layouts that include 3D views (check out this screen shot to see what this [...]

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I just got this tidbit of information from a friend who talked to Ed Katibah (lead Program Manager for SQL Spatial).
Spatial datatype, methods and indexes will be supported equally on all SQL Server editions (Express, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise) at no extra charge. That means anyone who wants to use the SQL Server 2008 [...]

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I get a ton of emails asking me exactly how ESRI’s geodatabase replication works. It is pretty slick to be honest so I think everyone who has SDE should probably learn more about it. ESRI has posted a podcast titled “Geodatabase Replication: Working with Replication that explains in more detail what geodatabase replication [...]

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This is clear to me:
FeatureServer + ArcSDE Data Store = Holy Grail
Being able to store data in ArcSDE, but still access it freely across any and all platforms. ArcGIS clients can hit ArcSDE and everyone else can enjoy data served by FeatureServer. But deep down this is even bigger than FeatureServer because really [...]

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There has been some discussion on my blog about the ArcGIS Online Data Appliance. Most ESRI users already know what is on the thing because they have had access to the ArcGIS Online Beta.
The ArcGIS Appliance provides terabytes of pre-rendered U.S. nationwide and worldwide data that you can host on your own secure server. [...]

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I’m “stuck” in Waikiki this week at our Honolulu office helping them get back on track with their GIS after our GIS coordinator resigned to join her husband in the peace corps on Tonga. The new GIS person is really excited about GIS and that is always nice to be around. Sometimes even [...]

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