Latest Contributions by Andy-Green

Introducing… a handful of new vector basemap styles! This collection includes new approaches to our styles. And updates to a flagship style. We updated data sources for our Places content. Those are additions to our collection of Esri Vector Basemaps. We made new map styles, with a familiar look, based on the OpenStreetMap vector tile set that Esri publishes. Most of these new items are available at the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. You’ll see a new term used in a couple of the style descriptions below: multisource basemap. The main point with this kind of maps is, they reference two or more vector tile sets within a single JSON style layer. For the best visual experience, use the current versions of the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer (not Classic), Pro, and Runtime. Note:  All web maps and tile layers featured in this blog are in Beta status.  The URL/links and Item IDs are not expected to change when the new map styles come out of Beta, but there may be changes and improvements leading up to their full release. They are currently not included in the default vector basemap gallery, but any or all of them can be added to your own custom gallery. Outdoor Map Topographic (with Contours and Hillshade) World Contours World Hillshade Enhanced Contrast Enhanced Contrast Dark OpenStreetMap (Esri Navigation style) Open StreetMap (Esri Navigation style Dark Mode) ------ Outdoor Map This multisource vector map style brings a rich cartographic design to its emphasis of the natural world. One of the first thing you’ll notice about the Outdoor Map is that at small-to-mid-scales we present a new biome layer in our vector basemaps. As you zoom in, the vector hillshade catches your attention. This new hillshade layer offers a vector basemap solution. Approaching larger scales, ~1:144K/LOD12, vector contours start appearing in the map. This is our new contour layer that continues the story of a full vector solution. Currently, maps such as Topographic or Streets (with Relief)… don’t include contours, and are built from two separate layers within the web map: a bottom layer of raster hillshade and a top layer of the vector style. We’ve eliminated needing two separate layers (including one raster) and replaced it with the use of only one vector tile layer. All content in the Outdoor map style is from vector tile sets. A quick look at a snippet of JSON code shows the three vector tile sets being referenced from the single layer.   We look forward to seeing the application of this basemap by our users. We encourage feedback through the Esri Community Living Atlas pages. The Outdoor Map style is from Cindy Prostak, the same Esri cartographer responsible for eye-catching styles such as Nova, Charted Territory, Modern Antique, Colored Pencil, and OSM Blueprint, just to name a few. ------ Topographic (with Contours and Hillshade) Similar in content to the Outdoor Map above, but quite different and more subdued in its cartographic styling. This map takes our standard Topographic vector basemap and adds the two new vector components:  contours and hillshade. We are now adding this content to our vector Topographic basemap, similar to what is in the now-deprecated raster map. All the same features and base cartographic design you’ve come to appreciate in our vector basemaps are found in this incarnation. Plus we’re providing the additional contours and hillshade as vector sources. Just as a reminder, use the new Map Viewer (not classic), or newer versions of Pro or Runtime to fully experience the multisource vector basemaps. Share your thoughts in the Esri Community Living Atlas pages. Also, we’re not completely sold on the title of this style, but it’s descriptive enough to set it apart from the current vector Topo map in the basemap gallery that doesn’t include all the content of this one. ------ World Contours and World Hillshade These two separate supporting vector tile sets can also be used independently of those two styles detailed above. Please note the World Hillshade layer is currently only global coverage to ~1:72K/LOD 13 with additional detail to the largest scales over North America. This is another reason for the beta status for this layer. We will expand more detailed relief at larger scales over our next several releases. Contours are global coverage. Both of these are provided as tile layers:  World Contours and World Hillshade and can either be added to your map as a layer above or below your existing layer(s), or if you tackle some JSON editing, you can combine to create your own multisource basemap. Those who want to go on that adventure of combining vector tile sets might find this video, from Esri’s Tommy Fauvell, helpful. ------ Enhanced Contrast and Enhanced Contrast Dark These new styles were part of prototype layers recently created by Andy Skinner. He worked at making a set of basemaps have an accessible display for our users. These maps were built along the guidelines for WCAG / Section 508. One design feature of an accessible basemap is higher contrast ratios between background and foreground objects. For more detail, see this recent blog by Andy, Working with Enhanced Contrast basemaps to improve accessibility. ------ New data source in Places Rounding out this announcement on Esri Vector Basemaps, this style group is built to emphasize the collection of data points we’re calling “Places”.  There are two Places styles in this group:  Streets (Places) and Imagery Hybrid (Places). Why include this in a basemap update blog? One main reason. We updated our global data source for Places outside the USA and Canada. Inside the USA and Canada, SafeGraph is our Places data provider. For the rest of the world, the Places data is provided by Foursquare. These points of interest will enhance existing, and new, styles when fully integrated into our portfolio of basemaps. Stay tuned for developing details about our Places mapping initiative. ------ OpenStreetMap Vector Basemaps, new styles: Navigation and Navigation Dark Mode These two new maps were designed to enhance our collection of styles featuring our vector basemap data from the OpenStreetMap Daylight Distribution. The cartography has a familiar look and feel, primarily because we’ve borrowed much of the design from our existing Esri Vector Basemap Navigation style (and for Dark Mode, too). These styles highlight the transportation network and provide clean styling of features including amenity points at the larger map scales. The two OSM map styles complement one another allowing you to develop maps and apps that can toggle between the day and night (a.k.a. Dark) styles.  ------   ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor (VTSE) As with all our vector basemaps, we present the data – either in Esri Vector Basemaps or OpenStreetMap Basemaps – for the widest audience. There may be instances where you’d like to tweak just a little, or radically redesign the style for your own purpose. We have the tool for you. Using the ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor (or VTSE), with a few clicks of the mouse you can customize any of our styles, or even style your own tile set you’ve built through ArcGIS Pro. You can find more details on map styling with the Editor at this link. ------ Feedback As you use the basemaps, you may run across some feature on the map that needs to be updated. Whether that’s missing or incorrect content, we’d like to hear from you. Our Feedback maps, for Vector Basemaps, Imagery, and Geocoding, are interactive maps where you can mark up the map in the area in question and provide the resolution. Edits are reviewed and applied, usually seen in the next one to two updates depending on where we’re at in the update cycle when you submit your fix request. Community Maps If there’s more than just a fix or two to the basemaps, and you could potentially be a data steward and share larger amounts of authoritative data to improve the map, consider contributing through the Esri Community Maps Program. ------ User Conference | ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World showcase We are back in-person, in San Diego, at the 2022 Esri User Conference. If you are attending and want to share your basemap use or your own customization, stop over at the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World showcase area.  We are staffed and ready to engage with you. We’re located in the main convention center hall, near Demo Theaters 4 and 5.  We hope to see you there.     ... View more

As we recently announced, the OpenStreetMap vector basemaps on ArcGIS Online will be updated to use OSM Daylight distribution data content. Another blog we posted details the impact to users of OSM basemap styles. Here in this post, we will provide details on the impact to ArcGIS Enterprise users who are using these services via Living Atlas. The changes to the map styles applies to both the Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (WMA) and WGS84/GCS OSM vector basemaps. The change to the underlying source data that requires these new styles was released on Wednesday night, June 16, 2021. ArcGIS Enterprise organizations using these OpenStreetMap layers by referencing them directly from ArcGIS Online are not affected by this update. In this scenario, the styles are referencing the most up to date Online items. Impact to OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap Users in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8, 10.8.1 or 10.9 To take advantage of the enhancements for OpenStreetMap vector basemaps in ArcGIS Enterprise and display OpenStreetMap tile layers correctly, your administrator will need to update the OpenStreetMap Living Atlas items installed on your ArcGIS Enterprise portal. OpenStreetMap tile layer items are included with Living Atlas default content at 10.8, 10.8.1, and 10.9. Use the table below for a complete breakdown of items included at each version. Step 1 There is an item on ArcGIS Online with the updated root.json styles for all the styles listed below. Download and unpack the contents of the zipped directory. Unpacked, the folders are organized by map projection/tiling scheme and by ArcGIS Enterprise version. Folder names for each style are listed by their item ID. Each folder contains a root.json file. This is the file you’ll use to update the different OpenStreetMap Tile Layer styles on your portal. Step 2 Update each OpenStreetMap item in your portal. Navigate to the item details page for each item. Select the “Update” button. Navigate to the correct folder containing the updated root.json file. Match the item ID of your portal item with the item ID of the directory Update each style. You may need to clear your browser cache to see the updates. Tile Layer Title (links here open the item in ArcGIS Online, use as a reference to the map title) ITEM ID (these match the style directory names to update the OSM tile layers in your portal) Web Mercator Aux. Sphere (WMA) OpenStreetMap 3e1a00aeae81496587988075fe529f71 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (with Relief) 0d28c37f80f648238e32efce097450f1   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Dark Gray Canvas Base) cb38f2afc497482a85579dce4c3ff4ed     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Dark Gray Canvas Reference) b49a8db3fe6e4f9f99cb713aee150e8d     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Hybrid Reference style) f240fe360b434afc87dd989bf0c0b825 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Light Gray Canvas Base) 1932e7d4432d45dabc0d4d13109c1f09   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Light Gray Canvas Reference) 29a71939af7a498584f44c4feca7249b   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Street style) f455d84d5aab4d64b1191e0d2eed42b1 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Street with Relief style) 8f9cb35cec274e25b4c5d6add631f1f0   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Blueprint) 80be160f0ca1413d898ad4e90d197278   10.8.1 10.9 GCS/WGS84 Tiling Scheme OpenStreetMap (WGS84) cabd61a6cfc44843b2ccd6969bb88cf0 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (with Relief – WGS84) 7ecc5e5a3ba445de9e118d42833e6dbb   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Dark Gray Canvas Base – WGS84) 5d1479fbdb084edc8a91f44116181a5e     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Dark Gray Canvas Reference – WGS84) 5bf7ce751e4a42e8b218bedc1f94798f     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Hybrid Reference – WGS84) e67de4be72b349fd8f8ca114bac82a8c 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Light Gray Canvas Base – WGS84) 6d9a3c4768bc4090931e9ed3d94fd385     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Light Gray Canvas Reference – WGS84) ea59b79df5a24e4ebad9bb6db828a623     10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Street style – WGS84) 13100ed96b7a4e18b9a7c024c56910aa 10.8 10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Esri Street with Relief style – WGS84) 8eaddf4279684fc09abb2b61f1338be4   10.8.1 10.9 OpenStreetMap (Blueprint – WGS84) 58ca82eb9e1948a49e812fe90454e73e   10.8.1 10.9 Noticeable changes After the source tile set is updated with OSM Daylight content on Wednesday night June 16, 2021, if the OSM tile layers on your portal are not updated, some map features will not display. View the Esri blog post to see examples of what the maps will look like if they are not, as well as are, updated. Customers with questions can contact Esri Technical Support for assistance. ... View more

As we announced last week, the OpenStreetMap vector basemaps on ArcGIS Online will be updated to use OSM Daylight distribution data content. Map styles will also be updated on the OSM tile layers. This change in data source and map style applies to both the Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (WMA) and WGS84/GCS OSM vector maps. This change is scheduled to occur on Wednesday night, June 16, 2021. After these changes occur, there are no impact to users who directly reference: an Esri OpenStreetMap web map in their map or app or an Esri OpenStreetMap vector tile layer in their map or app. Your maps will automatically display updated OSM Daylight content in updated map styles without any impact to you. Impact to OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap Users There will be an impact to users in following scenarios. You’ll need to act if you are using maps in one or more of these examples. After our update, the maps in the following situations will draw, but will be incomplete. Administrative boundaries, parks and forests, and buildings will be missing if no action is taken to update to your maps. Users with a copy of either a vector OSM or OSM Daylight (beta) style in their Content will be affected. This includes users with a direct copy of the map (no style change) or users with a copy with a customized style. Customized styles are created by the Esri Vector Tile Style Editor or by editing your own copy of the tile layer style file. In both examples, the tile layer items are owned by the user in their Content. Users will need to make a new copy of the OSM maps after our update the night of June 16. Customized styles need to be reapplied onto a new copy of the tile layer after this this date. Users of OSM Daylight (Beta) items will be affected. These beta items are entering mature support and no longer getting updates. OSM Daylight (Beta) items will be deprecated and removed from ArcGIS Online. Use one of the OpenStreetMap items as they contain OSM Daylight data and styles after the June 16 update. Living Atlas for Enterprise users will be affected. Customers using these layers via Living Atlas in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8, 10.8.1, and 10.9 will be affected. The root.json style files need to be updated on the OpenStreetMap tile layers after the June 16 date. More details are available for ArcGIS Enterprise users at this blog, along with a set of root.json files to use for updates. Moving forward, OpenStreetMap vector tile layers and web maps will continue to be updated on a regular release cycle using the OSM Daylight distribution data. ... View more

This was originally posted to the Esri blog page by Andy Skinner. Recently, users have asked us about basemaps that are accessible and/or color-blind-safe. In particular they have asked for maps that comply with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, and the US Federal ‘Section 508’ equivalent. This presents a few challenges. A map can be a complex structure that relies on a well-developed hierarchy, and a basemap is an extreme example of that. Imposing a new set of rules on top can be a daunting prospect! What follows is an attempt to get to grips with the graphic aspects and to present you with some alternatives. What are the standards? This is a difficult question, at least in how these standards relate to maps. The graphic requirements tend to concentrate on legibility of text (WCAG-AA standards call for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 between text and background). It suggests that for many of our maps we could meet this requirement simply by changing labels to black, placing a halo behind them to act as the ‘background’, and leaving the rest of the content alone. A map is much more than just its labels though, and we want to improve the accessibility of the map content as well. What is different about a basemap? John Nelson has talked about ‘BASE-maps’ versus ‘base-MAPS’. A BASE-map is a deliberately subdued background map used as an underpinning for your information (think ‘Light/Dark Gray’ or ‘Topographic’). This is challenging if it is an accessible map, where contrast between symbols is important. A ‘base-MAP’ is a stronger reference map (think ‘National Geographic Style’), where your information is added to the overall picture. That makes accessibility easier to build-in. Either way there needs to be some room in the map hierarchy for the user’s information. How can we approach this? We need to find a balance between accessibility and functionality. So, we can use a color-blind-safe palette and increase contrast between map features, to make the map work for a broader audience. This means that the map will use at least some strong colors and tones. We can avoid ‘fussy’ fonts that might be difficult to pick out of the background. And we can increase the size of labels (but carefully – we don’t want to swamp the basemap with words!). Haloes help with the legibility of labels, but they can be destructive to the rest of the map information. Ultimately, we may have to consider cutting some of the content of the map. The Results I have created a map design that tries to walk a line between accessibility, and functionality as a basemap. It is more of ‘base-MAP’, but I’ve tried not to go overboard with it. The Topographic Basemap and the new ‘Accessible’ design Two versions of the map are available: This one is a single layer basemap that sits below your information. This one breaks-out the city and boundary information into a separate reference layer. This is placed over a base layer with the rest of the map content. Here are the details: Some content is removed, mainly at large scales, and some of the remaining categories have been amalgamated. Scale ranges are adjusted, so that some features (for example, road shields) appear later as you zoom in. This simplifies the content at smaller scales. Contrast is increased between those features remaining. Specifically, a strong color is applied to water areas so that they help to define the geography of the map. The palette is designed to be color-blind safe. Some colors may merge, but I have tried to restrict that to features that are otherwise distinctive, or that operate at different scales Color blindness simulations I have chosen Ubuntu as the font to use throughout the map. It has some character to it, but it is clear and legible. All labels are in black or white. Smaller labels are increased in size, but not to the point at which they take over the map. I use capitalization for some features (such as road/street names) to create a contrast with other labels. All labels have haloes, but in most cases, I’ve tried to soften the impact of them by blurring the edges and adding a touch of transparency. Using the basemaps These basemap layers will be available for you to use at the URLs linked above for the foreseeable future. The map content is updated with our regular basemap data updates. I may make periodic changes to these map styles as needed based on your feedback and our experience using the maps. If they prove popular, we’ll consider incorporating them into the core basemap set. We’ll try to give you plenty of warning if we decide to shut these URLs down and replace them. I would appreciate any feedback you care to provide, either via the comments section below, or directly at askinner@esri.com. Thanks!  Andy Skinner Color-blindness suitability was assessed using ‘Color Oracle‘. Color contrast was assessed using contrast-ratio.com. Thanks to Mark Harrower and Emily Meriam for their input. ... View more