ArcGIS Runtime SDK for WPF VS ArcGis Explorer

[FrancoisGilbert]

Hello, I would like to see a comparison sheet between ArcGis Runtime and ArcGis Explorer Desktop products.

The difference that I have seen so far is that ArcGis Explorer does not support mpk files and the time slider seems to only read kml files. In the future, if ArcGis Explorer will support mpk files with temporal data, this would kill around 95% of the ArcGis runtime business. Is there any plan that ArcGis Explore desktop will support mpk files.


Regards
François Gilbert

[MichaelBranscomb]

Hi,

The ArcGIS Runtime products are very different from ArcGIS Explorer, which is really why we have not produced a comparison sheet. The ArcGIS Runtime products are developer SDKs. Taking the "ArcGIS Runtime SDK for WPF" as an example (you posted in the WPF forum), it's a developer SDK which enables you to build your own custom WPF desktop applications for deploying on the Windows platform with embedded mapping and spatial functionality.

ArcGIS Explorer by contrast is a fully functional desktop application for consuming and "exploring" geographic content yet it still provides a developer SDK allowing you to tailor the functionality to you own needs. However, you're always working within the application framework of ArcGIS Explorer. That's really the main difference to understand. In theory, you could use the ArcGIS Runtime SDK for WPF to build a product like ArcGIS Explorer, although there are some features we're still need to iplement such as 3D and better support for KML.

If you're looking for an application framework which you can extend, we've recently released the new Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS. This application works primarily with online services via WebMaps - for more information please see http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/operations-dashboard/index.html#//02m70000000q000000. In the recent 10.1.1 release of the ArcGIS Runtime SDK for WPF we have included an API for building custom widgets for your Operation Dashboards.


Cheers

Mike

[FrancoisGilbert]

Mike,

Conceptually, I understand well the difference between building a windows WPF application with the ArcGis Runtime component and customising an ArcGis Explorer with add-ins. However, the end result for the user is similar.

I have chosen ArcGis Runtime because I am building a WPF user control that will be used as a dll component that can be reused in other projects and that interact with other user control (chart and table) that are spedific to hydrology. Our chart and grid are more advanced that the one available in ESRI widgets. These 3 components are part of a decision support system. Basically, I am wrapping ArcGis Runtime and build a dll component. I am not making an executable.

Having said that, there are very few peoples that have the skills to build software component and they will probably chose the ArcGis Explorer customisation which requires less effort. The most important question to me was: Is there any plan to support "mpk" with temporal data for ArcGis Explorer. If this is the case, I wonder if I would be better stop working on my software component and use ArcGis Explorer instead because I am afraid everybody will follow the free ArcGis Explorer solution instead of ArcGis runtime. That would make ArcGis runtime solution obsolete.

François

[MichaelBranscomb]

Hi,

It still seems to be two different audiences to me - one, a developer audience which could embed your components into their own custom line-of-business applications, and the other, an end-user/beginner-developer audience which could use your controls within an Add-In they have developed for ArcGIS Explorer as part of their organizational roll out out of lightweight GIS? The decision probably depends on which of those you think the majority of your audience are.


Cheers

Mike

[FrancoisGilbert]

Mike,

Thanks for the answer. That is exactly what I have answered to the development team. Althought, I hope that the free ArcGis Explorer solution will not make too much shade to the WPF one which I think is the best approach when developping within a 30 developper organisation.

Regards
François