No 2015 Top 10?

[DEWright_CA]

Sad to see no highlight of the Top-10 new things for the year. Anything that can be elaborated on?

[SteveCole]

That's because there really isn't much new this year. ​ESRI's focus is on web mapping and getting more people to accept and use their web based tools and technologies (use ArcGIS Online and spend money on credits).

The Road Ahead workshop for desktop was 65-70 minutes about ArcGIS Pro (Rulers and guides are coming! 2003 is pretty excited) and 5-10 minutes about Arcmap. From my perspective, ESRI's product family is very fragmented with most products experiencing functional overlap. If ESRI knows that they're trying to accomplish, I don't think they're doing a great job at communicating what that is.

But, in summary: ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, ArcEarth, 3D, Webapp Builder, AppStudio for ArcGIS, Portal, Premium Content and Analysis. Random tidbit- if you have a Home Use license, it will now include all products, not just desktop.

[DEWright_CA]

Those are very good points. Things are still very 'Cloudy' in the ESRI world. Either you need to push to it, depend on it, or pay to host in it.

[SteveCole]

One more random observation.​

I think this was my 18th UC and one take away for me is that this whole push from desktop to web and apps has created an environment where most people can no longer design and produce a good paper map. There were many bad maps in the gallery.

I'm officially old. Now get off my lawn.

[RichardDaniels]

The quality of most of the maps and posters was actually pretty sad most had font sizes that were to small for a poster and many used black backgrounds (imagine all the ink that was used).

I should have had one in the gallery this year because I would have been guaranteed a spot in the Map Book :-).

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP · Accepted solution]

My  top take always (or what I was most excited about) are:

1. ​ArcPro will be able to be set to a concurrent use licensing scheme...vs. just named users.  ..follow-up on this is that "how" this will be implemented is still in development, but probably will be implemented in a similar way to how desktop concurrent licenses are implemented now, and probably not until at least q1 2016 (my guess whenever 10.4 is released). Clarification at the closing section was you would have to choose between named-user or concurrent....and they mentioned the benefit of named-user is ability to access the license so any where (vs. having to be able to access the license manager).
2. "R" will be integrated better within the Arc products. This is good news for those that use the power of R for scientific analysis.  Clarification at the closing....it will not be included itch the install, but R is a free, readily available package already available ...it will however have a better integration. I think this is also expected in 10.4.    Edit:  for those that used Hawth's Tools and the follow up GME | SpatialEcology.Com   I am interested to see how this may improve the process.
3. Home-use annually subscription will include "all software".  What exactly "all software" means was not specified, but I think the possibilities are exciting.  Of course, the home use is just that...not to be used for profit or commercial use.  ArcGIS for Home Use Program | ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced for Personal Use     I'm pretty excited about that, and it's a great way to expand knowledge of software that you wouldn't otherwise have access to.
4. edit#2. -   Ability to read in native KML

Those are my personal  "wow's"  from the plenary this year.  As Steve mentioned, Pro, web, and apps where the hot topics of the conference.

[TomSellsted]

I would also add that the new "Vector" tiles are going to be really great and going to be a real game changer for basemaps.  According to one session I attended on the topic, vector tiles use protocol buffers (a Google binary format) to store the tiles.  This changes terabytes of imagery into about 13 gigabytes of vector data.  They can be restyled on the fly, so you can switch basemaps without downloading additional data.  When you rotate the map, the labels stay oriented so you can read them, which is not possible with a cached image basemap.  The labels and vectors are crisply displayed at any scale or resolution too.

Regards,

Tom

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

Ahh, yes.  I forgot about the vector tiles...

[SteveLynch]

The R bridge for Esri is available for ArcGIS 10.3.1 or ArcGIS Pro 1.1

Welcome to the R - ArcGIS Community

[DEWright_CA]

Both; check the links and you will see the appropriate links.