ESRI and Microsoft Team up for ArcGIS 9.3.1

We knew this was coming and indeed it was possible via other routes but its still quite a notable move with ESRI teaming up with Microsoft to offer Virtual Earth directly within ArcGIS. The full announcement is below:

ESRI Expands Virtual Earth Access in GIS by Teaming with Microsoft

ArcGIS Users to Bring Dynamic Basemaps into Analysis and Service Applications

Redlands, California—March 26, 2009— ESRI announced today a new agreement with Microsoft Corporation that gives ArcGIS users fast access to Microsoft Virtual Earth for their geographic information system (GIS) projects. As part of ArcGIS Online at the ArcGIS 9.3.1 release, ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server users will be able to connect directly to Virtual Earth and quickly start their GIS projects with ready-to-use content.

"Our agreement with Microsoft defines a pattern of sharing geospatial data on the Web that promises to grow the GIS community," says ESRI President Jack Dangermond. "By bringing Virtual Earth into their GIS projects, people will have a greater opportunity to perform spatial analysis based on dynamic data."

ArcGIS users who are current on maintenance and have an Internet connection will have access to Virtual Earth for a variety of up-to-date mapping content.including aerial imagery, roads, and hybrid (aerial with labels) imagery. With a familiar look, imagery access will appear as another data layer in GIS. The imagery will provide excellent background maps on which users can overlay their operational data. This means users will be able to focus more on their business data than on its context.

For example, an electric utility can layer its distribution line data over a Virtual Earth aerial view of a neighborhood to create a map of its lines and customer connections. This Virtual Earth background layer is useful for editing the company's data and can be easily shared online with other company users.

ArcGIS users can build Web applications that support geospatial services through ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Web Software Developer Kits (SDKs) , including APIs for JavaScript, Flex, and Microsoft Silverlight. This enables them to provide their clients with access to Virtual Earth content from their applications.

“ESRI and Microsoft share a long history of building geographic information systems solutions that combine both of our companies’ strengths,” said Chris Sampson, director of Virtual Earth at Microsoft. “By integrating Microsoft Virtual Earth across all ESRI ArcGIS products, we can provide our mutual customers with spatial analysis software that has instant access to comprehensive geographic data that can only be found in a software plus services solution.”

ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 users who are current on maintenance will be offered access to Virtual Earth at no cost. ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 users will have instant access to a built-in 90-day evaluation of Virtual Earth. After the evaluation ends, ArcGIS Server users will be able to purchase an annual subscription that will be based on transactions.

For more information, visit www.esri.com/agolwhatsnew.

Embed Virtual Earth into ESRI's ArcGIS

The excellent Arc2Earth from Brian Flood has always had the ability to display map tiles from Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask.com as a custom layer in your map.

What is new in the current beta release is the ability to directly embed the API from Microsoft and Google into ArcMap - the movie below explains all:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=e9a8d421-7e9c-4544-848f-568a948e4410" target="_new" title="Arc2Earth - Virtual Earth">Video: Arc2Earth - Virtual Earth</a>

As brian states on the Spatial Data Logic Blog, you can drape your own data over the existing globes and then use this as an element on your Page Layout for exporting to either paper or digital copies. The process of draping your current map over the globes happens automatically and on a background thread, so its really intuitive to work with and doesn’t stall the main thread ArcMap uses for most of its own work . As you change your Map contents in the TOC, the changes are reflected on the globes as well.

Find out more via http://www.arc2earth.com/

Digital Pen: Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop - On Site Digitising

Here at digital urban we do have a tendency to track down the latest gadget, all in the name of research of course. As such the Capturx digital pen for ArcGIS has caught our eye. Using the digital pen you can simply print out a map from ArcGIS, draw features on it using the pen and when you sync all your features are geo-referenced and integrated into your digital map.



Capturx for ArcGIS can be used with any ArcGIS Desktop licenses, including ArcView®, ArcEditor™, or ArcInfo®, and is compatible with geodatabase feature classes, such as personal and enterprise ArcSDE®.

Take a look at adapx.com for more info.

We will have more on the digital pen soon as we can get hold of one to try out..