ArcGIS Explorer 2500 discussion

[MarkBockenhauer]

Questions and comments in regards to ArcGIS Explorer 2012 beta and the ArcGIS Explorer 2500 release.

thanks,
ArcGIS Explorer Team

[DustinDunnill]

Anyone else been noticing erratic behavior with only the Bing Basemaps in AGX 2500?  All other basemaps work fine.  The Bing Basemaps seem to work fine when I first open AGX but if it sits for a while, then I try to scroll around the streaming is really bad, and sometimes takes minutes to complete in one spot. very strange.  Then when I change to a basemap other than Bing and they all work fine even after sitting for a while.  1750 did not have this issue and I did check another staff computer running 1750 on the same network with no issues.  This tells me it's probably not a Bing/internet side issue and is probably on my side.  I've cleard the E3 cash several times to see if it was a hiccup but has not remedied the problem.

Anyone else having this issue?  Or have a fix?

Thanks.

[MikeRudden]

Hi,
I've just installed 2500 - looks good! Given the previous discussions I was surprised to see that Bing maps basemaps are still available and work. I have never obtained a key from Microsoft as far as I know. What's the deal?
Thanks
Mike

[DustinDunnill]

Just an update from my post on 2/28. 

Could not figure out why the bing basemaps were not working well.  So I've since completely uninstalled 2500 and went back to 1750 and the issue is gone.  Bing maps base maps now load and perform normally.  Not sure what the issue was but I'm ok with using 1750.  I would have liked to use the portability (launch and run from usb drive) of 2500 but did not want to have a basemap issue in a presentation, etc. 

Would be nice to know if this is a known issue or maybe it is just my situation.

For the installs:
I completely uninstalled AGX and all expansion packs, erased all content in %temp%\E3, then restarted, then ran ccleaner to clean file system and registry, Restarted pc again, Then installed the AGX version of choice.

I figure this is a pretty clean way of doing it.  Anyone have any comments on this?

Thanks.

[LaneHartman]

Anybody having issues with the ArcGIS Online Connection hanging up when you open the Explorer? It works fine when I'm in ArcMap.  Here's the Windows error message I get:

[INDENT]Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
  Application Name: ArcGISConnectionBin.exe
  Application Version: 10.1.2.3252
  Application Timestamp: 511165ea
  Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
  Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.17725
  Fault Module Timestamp: 4ec49b8f
  Exception Code: c000071f
  Exception Offset: 0009a3b9
  OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID: 1033
  Additional Information 1: a7aa
  Additional Information 2: a7aa91f17ea749d42a4de3b390fa5b3d
  Additional Information 3: a7aa
  Additional Information 4: a7aa91f17ea749d42a4de3b390fa5b3d

Read our privacy statement online:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
  C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt
[/INDENT]

[JohnNowlin]

The Route tool in AGX 2500 has a bug.

When you add three or more stops to a route the first and second stops are labeled correctly in the directions, but the third and subsequent stops are labeled with the second stop label.

This makes the directions inacurate and confusing.

It would be interesting to know if anyone else has this same issue.

Best Regards,

John Nowlin

[AllenPoyner]

When I click on the Layer Tab and try to add data ( Delorme Basemap, World labels, etc...) it opens Excel.

[ManojGarg]

Nathan,

Yes, we do listen to users and customers.  In a future version of ArcGIS Explorer (post 2012) their likely will be changes to the available symbols and the user experience for working with them.  We have thousands of enhancement requests and software ideas in our database; often the requested enhancement is the most important issue for the person that submitted it. We are well aware that when we do not address an issue, the person that submitted it will be disappointed, and we do not take this lightly. Our users' needs are important to us too! We have the challenge of prioritizing all of these requests against one another and defining a project to address the requests in a reasonable time frame.  We also have to look at the ArcGIS Explorer Desktop product and weigh whether the requested functionality is a good fit.   This is particularly true of functionality that exists in other Esri software products.  ArcGIS Explorer Desktop is not a copy of ArcMap or ArcGlobe.  ArcGIS Explorer is meant to be complimentary software for visualizing content created by ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap, ArcGlobe, ArcScene) and ArcGIS Server.  It's primary role is to allow those who do not have ArcGIS Desktop to work with and view the content created by those who do have ArcGIS Desktop.  ArcGIS Explorer Desktops availability and price point (free download) lowers the bar for accessing / viewing ArcGIS content.

ArcGIS Explorer does have capabilities for viewing "raw data"... shapefiles, geodatabase, rasters, text files, but admittedly there is not a strong cartographic toolset for defining how this data should be displayed (ex. symbolize by attribute). At this time ArcGIS Explorer map authoring is focused on assembling content that has already been cartographically rendered (ArcGIS layers, Services, Web Maps).   As ArcGIS Explorer evolves the functionality and user experience in this area could change.

Your enhancement requests are important to us and will be considered as we continue to enhance existing software and create new software products.
We do have requests for specific symbols and symbolsets in our user requests database.

Thanks,
Mark

Hi Mark,

My client is one of the biggest customer of ESRI. Recently we are planning to use ArcGIS explorer for large offline user base and one the main obstacle is symbology. No doubt that ArcGIS explorer is not a replacement for ArcMAp but still for general users who just refer the map with small annotation its very rich what they need in day to day work. But because of the symbology and really small small things like turn on/off label, not easy to zoom in /out(by window), its richness is not realised by users. Symbology is too complicated and does not give professional map look.

Something ESRI should consider. I am hoing that if you open a poll these sort of things will get higest number of vote and then may be easier for your team to prioritise.

Thanks

[BrianKowalski]

We are planning to upgrade our organization from AGX 1700 to AGX 2500.
Scoping out the path we see a few problem areas.

We have in the neighborhood of 3000 users.
So we plan to support the coexistence of 1700 and 2500 for at least a quarter.

It should not be a problem for users that only log into one workstation but there are a large number of users that leverage multiple shared workstations. These workstations will not be able to be updated the same time and since we have Roaming Profiles I believe it could compound the problems as 1700 and 2500 will be accessing and updating the same files (not at the same time of course but they will nevertheless be using the same files)

These files reside in the users [Profile]\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\ArcGIS Explorer folder (which gets copied local when the user logs in) and the Documents folder which in our case usually resides on a server in a path like

\\[Server]\Users\[Specific User]\Home\ArcGIS Explorer where Home is the users Documents folder.


We had multiple problems when migrating from 900 to 1700 where outdated files were located mostly in the Documents folder.
At that time we asked the ESRI AGX Development Team if it would be possible to have a configurable location for the files AGX saves to the Documents\ArcGIS Explorer.

Questions:

1) Is this folder configurable thru the Configuration File (ncfg) in AGX 2500?
2) If not, are 1700 files compatible with 2500 files - basemaps, mymaps, etc?

3) Are files located in the [Profile]\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\ArcGIS Explorer folder compatible between 1700 and 2500?

4) We will be upgrading our Server from ArcGIS Server 10 to ArcGIS Server 10.1 - Will this be a problem with a coexisting 1700 and 2500 scenario as described?

5) Can the location where AGX 2500 saves files in the User Profile be configured for AGX 2500? Seems like this could solve most of our problems if we can just tell AGX 2500 to use a different location for both of these folders.

Thanks much!

[JoeFlannery]

Brian:

Regarding Question #4:
If you will be using "secure" services on your new Server 10.1, look at this forum post.
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/86242-Consuming-Secure-Services-from-10.1-Server

[MarkBockenhauer]

We are planning to upgrade our organization from AGX 1700 to AGX 2500.
Scoping out the path we see a few problem areas.

We have in the neighborhood of 3000 users.
So we plan to support the coexistence of 1700 and 2500 for at least a quarter.  .....

Brian,

There is one pain point, and that is the local cache files.  Things won't work out well when 1700 and 2500 cache files are mixed in the same folder.  1700 won't like the cache files from 2500.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ESRI\Explorer2500\Settings]
"E3CachePath"="C:\\Users\\markb\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\E3\\"
"Cache Path"="C:\\Users\\markb\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\E3\\"

The cache location can be changed in the registry for 1700 or 2500 in current user.  Once this is done running 1700 and 2500 on the same machine will work.  In this picture you can see that I am running both side by side.  Remember that you can copy 2500 on the computer and run it without installing it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25259[/ATTACH]

Using the same default map.

Mark