Hexagon vs Esri

[WellingtonChristian_Rodrigues_]

Hi everybody

...

[JoeBorgione]

Is your current system not doing what you want it to do?

Pretty much...  (I'm assuming 'you'refers the agency, not me: I'm just the GIS guy in the back....)

[NeilAyres]

Joe, wasn't trying to cast aspersions....

I guess someone "high up" thinks this is a good idea, just wondering why.

[JoeBorgione]

No problem Neil.  This will be my third CAD migration in about 15 years (between two different dispatch centers), so it's not like this is my first rodeo!

[AnnBorowik2]

Joe,
I was the GIS Admin at a PSAP that migrated to I/CAD and the GIS data was all ESRI-based.  No small feat.  I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
~Annie

[JoeBorgione]

Annie- just one:  what's your favorite Hexagon Drinking game?  All seriousness aside, I'm keeping all my ESRI data as is with respect to maintenance workflows.  I understand there is some sort of whiz bang tool Hexagon provides to convert ESRI data (not sure if they will make me mash my feature classes into shapefiles) into whatever format the CAD needs.  Comments?

[AnnBorowik2]

Joe-

I never thought of a Hexagon drinking game! Whatever game you play, just don’t drink the GeoMedia Kool-Aid!

I’m an ESRI advocate through and through, but I’ve never worked anywhere that was too strapped to pony up the funds for ArcMap. Our data was also maintained and stored in ESRI technology; it was a large GIS shop and I was merely one cog in the machine but I certainly wouldn’t have converted if it was up to me. I used FME to ETL the data into a GeoMedia (Access?) warehouse. It was a steep learning curve but I took full advantage of the Intergraph onsite training sessions. Have you been assigned a map lead? I had three different ones, Hexagon lays-off then rehires in short cycles. (What a joy it must be to work there!) My first map lead was a dud but the next two were stellar. They helped me set up a custom workflow. Like I said, I used FME which I could not have survived without. But soon before I left that gig there was an announcement about ESRI and GeoMedia playing together. I would agree with whoever said there was animosity there, I witnessed it. Mostly from Intergraph towards ESRI, but it’s easy to be the bigger person (ESRI) when you have 99.999% of the market share, yes? So, in a nutshell, I recommend using an ETL that spits data out from ESRI format to GeoMedia-I/CAD format. And in a stored procedure or script because you will rerun that sucker a billion times so you want it to be as automated as possible.

Good luck!

Annie

[JoeBorgione]

Here is a youtube vid of what they offer now:

https://67.130.136.10/owa/redir.aspx?C=ohAu4yHtfDyPikoatZLcvAVi_I_ncTr3jnsFSz4gzqKtTJgNq-jTCA..&URL=... 

I'll learn more next week when I sit in a series of phone bridge meetings with Hexagon.

[AdamPadilla]

I worked at a company for many years that used GeoMedia for 2D and 3D feature data creation. About four years ago I took a job with another company doing the same type of feature data creation, only the new company used ESRI  products. I picked up ArcMap pretty quickly and tried to find analogous tools and functionality I would use, for the most part I found the tools I needed. Unfortunately there is some functionality that ArcMap can't do, such as

- no geometry type restrictions a feature class can be point, line or area geometry

- On the fly topology repair, now I have to build elaborate rules and validate on a regular basis

- Attribute based symbology

- Dynamic Geoprocessing results

- Spatial Filter

Having worked in both for feature data creation, I would choose GeoMedia 

[JoeBorgione]

Having worked in both for feature data creation, I would choose GeoMedia...

And you're okay saying that on the ESRI forum...  Alrighty then...

[AdrianWelsh]

Adam,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I find it helpful to see different opinions on other options out there. It would be hard for me to go and try to learn a brand new set of tools and such. Knowing that something besides Esri software is helpful for some groups gives me hope that there is still much room for improvement. I do not doubt that Esri looks at what their software cannot do and will work towards finding a solution for the majority of GIS needs.