Latest Contributions by DawnWright

Esri Product Engineers/Data Scientists Shaun Walbridge, Noah Slocum, and Marjean Pobuda led the charge on a new peer-reviewed journal article about the open-source extension from Esri known as the Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM). The paper describes the tools provided with the current release of BTM (v 3.0), highlighting powerful analytical workflows that combine ArcGIS with the Python scientific stack (aka SciPy), and the R statistical programming language (including the R-ArcGIS Bridge). BTM is used by scores of researchers around the world, and has been accessible for some time via ArcGIS Online at http://esriurl.com/btm (nearly 7500 views). ABSTRACT: High resolution remotely sensed bathymetric data is rapidly increasing in volume, but analyzing this data requires a mastery of a complex toolchain of disparate software, including computing derived measurements of the environment. Bathymetric gradients play a fundamental role in energy transport through the seascape. Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) uses bathymetric data to enable simple characterization of benthic biotic communities and geologic types, and produces a collection of key geomorphological variables known to affect marine ecosystems and processes. BTM has received continual improvements since its 2008 release; here we describe the tools and morphometrics BTM can produce, the research context which this enables, and we conclude with an example application using data from a protected reef in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. The paper is open access (#openscience) and part of a special issue on Marine Geomorphometry - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/geosciences/special_issues/marine_geomorphometry - featuring other studies that use GIS, including ArcGIS, as well. ... View more

Esri Product Engineers/Data Scientists Shaun Walbridge, Noah Slocum, and Marjean Pobuda led the charge on a new peer-reviewed journal article about the open-source extension from Esri known as the Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM). The paper describes the tools provided with the current release of BTM (v 3.0), highlighting powerful analytical workflows that combine ArcGIS with the Python scientific stack (aka SciPy), and the R statistical programming language (including the R-ArcGIS Bridge). BTM is used by scores of researchers around the world, and has been accessible for some time via ArcGIS Online at http://esriurl.com/btm (nearly 7500 views). ABSTRACT: High resolution remotely sensed bathymetric data is rapidly increasing in volume, but analyzing this data requires a mastery of a complex toolchain of disparate software, including computing derived measurements of the environment. Bathymetric gradients play a fundamental role in energy transport through the seascape. Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) uses bathymetric data to enable simple characterization of benthic biotic communities and geologic types, and produces a collection of key geomorphological variables known to affect marine ecosystems and processes. BTM has received continual improvements since its 2008 release; here we describe the tools and morphometrics BTM can produce, the research context which this enables, and we conclude with an example application using data from a protected reef in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. The paper is open access (#openscience) and part of a special issue on Marine Geomorphometry - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/geosciences/special_issues/marine_geomorphometry - featuring other studies that use GIS, including ArcGIS, as well. ... View more

The  Learn ArcGIS team is pleased to announce the release of a new Learn lesson featuring Ecological Marine Units data: Predict Seagrass Habitats with Machine Learning Seagrasses are an important ally in combatting global warming—these coastal marine plants sequester vast amounts of carbon dioxide. When compared to terrestrial tropical forests, they can store up to 100 times more CO2 per acre. In addition, seagrasses have a large economic value: they provide shelter for marine life such as invertebrates, fish and sea turtles, making them important for local fishing economies. The roots help anchor sediment to the seafloor, decreasing the impact of storms and stopping erosion from affecting coastal homes and businesses. Understanding the habitat of this species is important to drive conservation efforts and map out areas where they disappear due to human interaction. You are a marine ecologist who wants to model suitable locations for seagrass habitats around the world. Though you only have seagrass data for a small region of Florida, luckily seagrasses tend to grow in similar ocean conditions in coastal areas around the world. Using the predictive powers of a machine learning model along with the spatial analysis capabilities of ArcGIS Pro, you’ll find suitable locations for seagrass growth globally. First, you’ll create a training dataset with all the ocean variables that influence seagrass growth. Then, you’ll put the variables into Python and use a random forest prediction model to determine where the ocean conditions support seagrass growth. Finally, you’ll save the prediction results as a feature class and import it into ArcGIS Pro to find where the highest density of growth is likely to occur. Skills: Manipulating and cleaning data, Loading machine learning libraries into ArcGIS Pro, Enriching data to fill missing values, Transferring data between ArcGIS Pro and Python, Performing analysis in Python, Performing prediction using random forests, Using geoprocessing tools for statistical analysis. Thanks to Orhun Aydin‌, Marjean Pobuda‌, Keith VanGraafeiland, and Kathy Cappelli for their excellent work in developing this lesson. ... View more

WARNING: Last Jedi Spoiler Alert! This is a re-posting of a blog piece by Lou Woodley, Community Engagement Specialist for AAAS's Trellis Science and Program Director of AAAS Community Engagement Fellows. I have posted it here because of the many helpful parallels to GeoNet. 5 things The Last Jedi reminds us about community management by Lou Woodley 1. Get to know – and work with – your biggest advocates As any community manager knows, your community is made up of members with different personalities and activity levels. Your job is to create and maintain a space where they can work constructively together towards a common vision. There’s been much criticism of Poe in The Last Jedi – the headstrong hero who’s so passionate about fighting for the rebellion that he’s prepared to be increasingly rash in his actions, whatever the cost. But most facilitators of well-established communities will recognise at least one Poe in their midst – the regular contributor who reliably dives in to every single one of the discussion threads, or who happily tells you and anyone else on the Internet who’ll listen how you’ve ruined everything with your latest product update/marketing campaign/editorial the minute it disappoints him. Poe’s really a super-user out-of-control – someone who cares so much about the community that his actions ultimately become destructive and detrimental to it. While one response to this as a community manager is to regulate and respond after the fact via the enforcement of community guidelines, an alternative response is to attempt to head off the unconstructive behavior in the first place. Getting to know your super-users via check-ins, structured advocacy programs and other channels for regular feedback can help them to feel empowered but with their energy directed towards things of benefit to the overall community. 2. Communicate clearly and often with all of your community stakeholders – not just in times of crisis One of the most desperate moments in The Last Jedi is towards the end when the rebels are hiding out in their formerly abandoned base, waiting to hear of any offers of help from outside allies – and not a single one comes. A big danger for those running hosted communities is getting so engrossed in the day-to-day work with community members that they neglect to keep other stakeholders up-to-date about the community plans and progress. Just because your senior management or funder is not yet regularly active in the community, don’t forget to keep them updated about how things are going with their investment. Maybe that requires educating them about community lifecycle models and what to expect over the coming months – rather than defensively attempting to justify why communities take time to flourish. Start that dialogue before you hit a crisis when you need money for a software upgrade or when community members are giving difficult feedback that needs a meaningful response. Likewise, while you may be in the habit of celebrating your community members and their activities within your community, don’t forget to let the outside world know about the great work your community is doing too. This can be a source of new community members, as well as building reputation for your community within its niche, maintaining it as the place to be. Depending on the community and your wider audience you might do this through a blog, periodic press releases and news stories, industry commentaries or social media. 3. Don’t get distracted by your origin stories – leadership should evolve Origin stories are an important part of community culture – they create a shared narrative for the community, helping to initiate new members into what the community is for and reinforcing a sense of belonging for existing members. They can essentially be shorthand for some of your community values. But they can also become the target of embellishments and/or be deployed in service of an individual’s personal goals – resulting in the creation of cult hero figures within the community and a growing sense of disenfranchisement among members. This is one of the themes The Last Jedi tackles in multiple places – from unpicking the heroic reputation of Luke Skywalker in Jedi history (and how that contrasts to his tortured reality following failure to successfully mentor Kylo Ren) to Rey exploring whether she really needs a “royal lineage” to be worthy of contributing as a Jedi. Related to this, the initial founders and/or leaders of a community should never assume that they’re going to stay in that role forever. A healthy community thinks about succession early, and makes way for new inputs and new leadership to arise. The Last Jedi is a pivotal point in the history of the resistance because it sees the old leadership and hero figures – Luke, Leah (and to some extent the daredevil behaviour of characters such as Poe), moving aside or being pushed aside, to make way for a necessary rebirth. 4. Use your powers with kindness – and examine your motivations regularly One of the most striking scenes in the Last Jedi is Kylo Ren ordering the slaughter of Luke Skywalker by directing all of the Empire’s firepower onto the lone figure standing unarmed in front of the rebel base. Looking increasingly maniacal, Ren is over-run by his hatred to destroy the person he sees as his greatest enemy, prompting even his colleague, Hux, to declare “Enough!” We’ve all seen a variant of this online – discussions that rapidly escalate without any kindness where polarization of beliefs seemingly justifies inhumane behaviour. As community managers we have the ability to create spaces where we can influence the social norms in a variety of ways – from modeling good behaviour and rewarding constructive contributions to punishing bad behaviour by implementing the consequences of our community guidelines. It’s important at every stage to examine our own motivations to ensure that we’re behaving fairly and proportionately in our responses. The related lesson in The Last Jedi is that breaking the community guidelines doesn’t always have to result in outright expulsion from the community (although of course, in some situations that is necessary). Sometimes deploying kindness and seeking cautious forgiveness and reintegration is an appropriate response to mistakes – something that has to be decided based on the circumstances and individuals involved. For initially disobeying orders during a mission, Poe is demoted. But desperate and dissatisfied with new leader Holdo’s seeming lack of action, Poe then leads an outright mutiny. And yet, tellingly, the response of a recovered Leah and Holdo is to restrain and restrict Poe, without outright banishing him, knowing that he still brings something to the resistance. It’s going to be very interesting to see how his role as “difficult community member” evolves in the next Star Wars installment! 5. You don’t get to define the community’s vision alone – it gets co-created by community members One of the ways we define a community is a group of people with a shared vision and thus shared sense of belonging. The key word here is shared. It’s not up to the community manager or their organisation or even a funder to define the ultimate vision for a community – it’s something that has to be evolved as a process between members of the community, including the community manager. What this also allows is for members to step up or step back as their circumstances require, making for a fluid set of interactions. Different people have the capacity and desire to step up at different times – and different community members will be at different stages of commitment to the community and with slightly different interests. Can you create a space that’s flexible enough to accommodate that? This is illustrated in The Last Jedi through the continual relighting and sharing of the beacon of hope throughout the film. Faced with impending failure, Finn loses all hope and attempts to flee in an escape pod – yet later in the film he’s the one championing the fight from the rebel base. Rey persists in persuading Luke to teach her about the Force, while at the same time confused and questioning its role in her life. Even fearless Leah loses hope at the lack of response to her call for help, then the crystal foxes point out a possible exit route. No single character is responsible for the survival of the resistance – Poe doesn’t save them all in an act of heroic violence, Holdo’s plan for escape partially fails, Rey doesn’t dissuade Kylo from his plan, Leah doesn’t draw in any external allies, Luke doesn’t physically defeat Ren in a grand showdown… It’s their collective inputs and how they play off one another that ultimately move them towards a chance of survival – the incremental tick, tick, tick of progress rather than a single, grand gesture. And to me that’s why the final scene with the boy wearing Rose’s ring with the rebel insignia is really about the role of community in the continuation of the rebellion and all it stands for – whatever its next iteration. Yes, the child is playing with a figure of Luke, but Luke’s role as a returned hero is just the visible face of a much bigger story that any community manager knows – your community is what it is because of the contributions of everyone in it. ... View more

WARNING: Last Jedi Spoiler Alert! This is a re-posting of a blog piece by Lou Woodley, Community Engagement Specialist for AAAS's Trellis Science and Program Director of AAAS Community Engagement Fellows. I have posted it here because of the many helpful parallels to GeoNet. 5 things The Last Jedi reminds us about community management by Lou Woodley 1. Get to know – and work with – your biggest advocates As any community manager knows, your community is made up of members with different personalities and activity levels. Your job is to create and maintain a space where they can work constructively together towards a common vision. There’s been much criticism of Poe in The Last Jedi – the headstrong hero who’s so passionate about fighting for the rebellion that he’s prepared to be increasingly rash in his actions, whatever the cost. But most facilitators of well-established communities will recognise at least one Poe in their midst – the regular contributor who reliably dives in to every single one of the discussion threads, or who happily tells you and anyone else on the Internet who’ll listen how you’ve ruined everything with your latest product update/marketing campaign/editorial the minute it disappoints him. Poe’s really a super-user out-of-control – someone who cares so much about the community that his actions ultimately become destructive and detrimental to it. While one response to this as a community manager is to regulate and respond after the fact via the enforcement of community guidelines, an alternative response is to attempt to head off the unconstructive behavior in the first place. Getting to know your super-users via check-ins, structured advocacy programs and other channels for regular feedback can help them to feel empowered but with their energy directed towards things of benefit to the overall community. 2. Communicate clearly and often with all of your community stakeholders – not just in times of crisis One of the most desperate moments in The Last Jedi is towards the end when the rebels are hiding out in their formerly abandoned base, waiting to hear of any offers of help from outside allies – and not a single one comes. A big danger for those running hosted communities is getting so engrossed in the day-to-day work with community members that they neglect to keep other stakeholders up-to-date about the community plans and progress. Just because your senior management or funder is not yet regularly active in the community, don’t forget to keep them updated about how things are going with their investment. Maybe that requires educating them about community lifecycle models and what to expect over the coming months – rather than defensively attempting to justify why communities take time to flourish. Start that dialogue before you hit a crisis when you need money for a software upgrade or when community members are giving difficult feedback that needs a meaningful response. Likewise, while you may be in the habit of celebrating your community members and their activities within your community, don’t forget to let the outside world know about the great work your community is doing too. This can be a source of new community members, as well as building reputation for your community within its niche, maintaining it as the place to be. Depending on the community and your wider audience you might do this through a blog, periodic press releases and news stories, industry commentaries or social media. 3. Don’t get distracted by your origin stories – leadership should evolve Origin stories are an important part of community culture – they create a shared narrative for the community, helping to initiate new members into what the community is for and reinforcing a sense of belonging for existing members. They can essentially be shorthand for some of your community values. But they can also become the target of embellishments and/or be deployed in service of an individual’s personal goals – resulting in the creation of cult hero figures within the community and a growing sense of disenfranchisement among members. This is one of the themes The Last Jedi tackles in multiple places – from unpicking the heroic reputation of Luke Skywalker in Jedi history (and how that contrasts to his tortured reality following failure to successfully mentor Kylo Ren) to Rey exploring whether she really needs a “royal lineage” to be worthy of contributing as a Jedi. Related to this, the initial founders and/or leaders of a community should never assume that they’re going to stay in that role forever. A healthy community thinks about succession early, and makes way for new inputs and new leadership to arise. The Last Jedi is a pivotal point in the history of the resistance because it sees the old leadership and hero figures – Luke, Leah (and to some extent the daredevil behaviour of characters such as Poe), moving aside or being pushed aside, to make way for a necessary rebirth. 4. Use your powers with kindness – and examine your motivations regularly One of the most striking scenes in the Last Jedi is Kylo Ren ordering the slaughter of Luke Skywalker by directing all of the Empire’s firepower onto the lone figure standing unarmed in front of the rebel base. Looking increasingly maniacal, Ren is over-run by his hatred to destroy the person he sees as his greatest enemy, prompting even his colleague, Hux, to declare “Enough!” We’ve all seen a variant of this online – discussions that rapidly escalate without any kindness where polarization of beliefs seemingly justifies inhumane behaviour. As community managers we have the ability to create spaces where we can influence the social norms in a variety of ways – from modeling good behaviour and rewarding constructive contributions to punishing bad behaviour by implementing the consequences of our community guidelines. It’s important at every stage to examine our own motivations to ensure that we’re behaving fairly and proportionately in our responses. The related lesson in The Last Jedi is that breaking the community guidelines doesn’t always have to result in outright expulsion from the community (although of course, in some situations that is necessary). Sometimes deploying kindness and seeking cautious forgiveness and reintegration is an appropriate response to mistakes – something that has to be decided based on the circumstances and individuals involved. For initially disobeying orders during a mission, Poe is demoted. But desperate and dissatisfied with new leader Holdo’s seeming lack of action, Poe then leads an outright mutiny. And yet, tellingly, the response of a recovered Leah and Holdo is to restrain and restrict Poe, without outright banishing him, knowing that he still brings something to the resistance. It’s going to be very interesting to see how his role as “difficult community member” evolves in the next Star Wars installment! 5. You don’t get to define the community’s vision alone – it gets co-created by community members One of the ways we define a community is a group of people with a shared vision and thus shared sense of belonging. The key word here is shared. It’s not up to the community manager or their organisation or even a funder to define the ultimate vision for a community – it’s something that has to be evolved as a process between members of the community, including the community manager. What this also allows is for members to step up or step back as their circumstances require, making for a fluid set of interactions. Different people have the capacity and desire to step up at different times – and different community members will be at different stages of commitment to the community and with slightly different interests. Can you create a space that’s flexible enough to accommodate that? This is illustrated in The Last Jedi through the continual relighting and sharing of the beacon of hope throughout the film. Faced with impending failure, Finn loses all hope and attempts to flee in an escape pod – yet later in the film he’s the one championing the fight from the rebel base. Rey persists in persuading Luke to teach her about the Force, while at the same time confused and questioning its role in her life. Even fearless Leah loses hope at the lack of response to her call for help, then the crystal foxes point out a possible exit route. No single character is responsible for the survival of the resistance – Poe doesn’t save them all in an act of heroic violence, Holdo’s plan for escape partially fails, Rey doesn’t dissuade Kylo from his plan, Leah doesn’t draw in any external allies, Luke doesn’t physically defeat Ren in a grand showdown… It’s their collective inputs and how they play off one another that ultimately move them towards a chance of survival – the incremental tick, tick, tick of progress rather than a single, grand gesture. And to me that’s why the final scene with the boy wearing Rose’s ring with the rebel insignia is really about the role of community in the continuation of the rebellion and all it stands for – whatever its next iteration. Yes, the child is playing with a figure of Luke, but Luke’s role as a returned hero is just the visible face of a much bigger story that any community manager knows – your community is what it is because of the contributions of everyone in it. ... View more

Just uploaded, a video from the 2017 Esri Ocean GIS Forum on the next phase of the Ecological Marine Units project. See a demo by Esri's Sean Breyer about the incorporation of higher-resolution data to create more '"ocalized" EMUs in smaller, regional areas of interest. Also Roger Sayre of the USGS reports on the 2-day scoping meeting that took place prior to the Ocean GIS Forum to initiate the new Ecological Cosatal Units project. Localized Ecological Marine Units + new Ecological Coastal Units - YouTube  The specifics on the new workflow will become part of the Ecological Marine Units main web site in January 2018. ... View more

In addition to supporting the science community, we seek to do good science at Esri ourselves, as it underpins much of what we stand for as an organization. This is helping us to evolve ArcGIS into a comprehensive geospatial platform FOR science; a platform that supports research project management and collaboration, spatial analysis, visualization, open data, and communication of science, and all at multiple scales (i.e., from individual researcher to lab workgroup, to multi-department, multi-university, university-to-agency collaboration, to citizen engagement). This an exciting time at Esri as things are moving so quickly that it is hard to keep up with all the many pathways of our science initiative.   For instance, DID YOU KNOW, that you could run ArcGIS for free on a supercomputer? Indeed, if you want run something really big (e.g., vector-based geoanalytics, raster analytics, geoevent processing), there IS now a place where you can do this at no cost, and you can run as many ArcGIS processes as you want for free. The place is XSEDE (eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment), the NSF-funded collection of research supercomputer centers in the US. Their hardware includes supercomputers running special OS and middleware, as well as large windows clusters for cloud configuration, including JetStream, which has over 15,000 cores and 80Tb of RAM. Esri and XSEDE have recently collaborated to set up ArcGIS Enterprise with big data extensions within a Jupyter sandbox where XSEDE users can easily play and get started. For those wanting to run more specific or larger projects, they will also be able to configure and manage their own cluster. For more information about this opportunity, contact Eric Shook at the University of Minnesota, eshook@umn.edu  Professor Shook is GIS domain lead for XSEDE and can help you better understand XSEDE qualification requirements and how to apply for an allocation. See also this Overview of Esri Cloud and Big Data Spatial Analytics Offerings Available to XSEDE. DID YOU KNOW that ArcGIS now supports planetary science? We now provide support the Planetary Data System Version 3 Format and the ISIS Data Cube format.  We also support the coordinate systems for all planets, known named satellites, and dwarf planets in our solar system. This includes the Mars 2000 Sphere, which is critical for the Mars Rovers. Both ArcGIS Desktop and Server tier tools work for these other bodies, just as they do for Earth.       This March we upgraded our Javascript 3.x API so that the measure widget in the Portal/ArcGIS  map viewer respects the correct planetary coordinate system and planetary body size. That team continues to evolve this for the 4.x API for 3D as well. Our Runtime Core Geometry Engines do not support Planetary Coordinate Systems yet, but we are working toward enhancing them in 2018 to do so. In addition, in next week’s Runtime Update 2, the Local Server will be based off of the 10.5.1 code base and support analysis on the Local Server and Map Packages in all Planetary, Satellite, and Dwarf Planet Coordinate Systems.   There is now a publicly-shared Planetary Sciences Group with example web maps and story maps within the new Sciences Portal on ArcGIS . See also To Infinity and Beyond: ArcGIS Now Supports Extraterrestrial Mapping. DID YOU KNOW that Esri is getting better all the time at fully supporting data in 3D, including LiDAR data? This includes our improved support for vertical aerial LiDAR curtain data in KML.  We are also working toward supporting multidimensional data in vertical curtain form, aka L2 or 3d fence or Swath. See our 3D fences tool in action in this video and this story map, with a full write up and examples in this ArcUser article, and with code that is also available on ArcGIS Code Sharing. In fact, DID YOU KNOW that there IS such a site as ArcGIS Code Sharing now?!  DID YOU KNOW that Esri has a new initiative in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning? We now have "GeoAI" resources and demos on GitHub, and a recent blog post on possible machine learning implementations in ArcGIS. See also The Science of Where Seagrasses Grow: ArcGIS and Machine Learning. DID YOU KNOW about Esri's new partnership with Microsoft in the realm of Artificial Intelligence and about the Esri technology now within Microsoft's Data Science Virtual Machine (i.e., ArcGIS Pro and the R-ArcGIS Bridge)? DID YOU KNOW that you can apply for cloud computing grants under this initiative? The next deadline is fast approaching at 15 December, but will be additional grant cycles in 2018. This is part of Microsoft's exciting new AI for Earth Initiative which may become "a game-changer for our planet." DID YOU ALSO KNOW about the Research AI for Earth European Union Oceans Award?  Submit by 15 February 2018. DID YOU KNOW about the Image Analyst Extension for ArcGIS Pro 2.1 Beta1 Release? The Image Analyst Extension is now available in ArcGIS Pro 2.1 Beta1. This is a controlled Beta which is not part of the ArcGIS Pro 2.1 Early Adopter Program. However, it can be accessed through a separate Early Adopter Program focused on the Image Analyst extension. Try it out, review the resources and provide feedback for the functional areas of interest to you within the extension, including stereo and image space visualization, mensuration, feature extraction/interpretation and image classification. Please direct any questions or concerns to Vinay Viswambharan vinayv@esri.com. DID YOU KNOW about these  imagery resources? Imagery Workflows - Best practices for managing, analyzing, and using imagery Python raster functions on GitHub Web AppBuilder Developer Addition, WABIS for imagery Table of Remote Sensing Sensors DID YOU FURTHER KNOW that: the ArcGIS API for Python is easy to learn and extremely useful for scientists, including data scientists? One of the features that makes this API so powerful is its integration with the Jupyter Notebook. our Hydrology Toolset in ArcGIS Pro has been parallelized in Raster Analytics at ArcGIS 10.6? the R-ArcGIS Bridge now has raster support in beta? Esri released our first beta Docker containerization support with this summer’s 10.5.1 release of ArcGIS Enterprise and that we’re continuing to look at containers moving forward? See CloudFormation templates to deploy ArcGIS Enterprise on Amazon Web Services and/or AWS CloudFormation and ArcGIS—ArcGIS Enterprise on AWS | ArcGIS Enterprise. Esri recently added support for the SMAP (10.5.0), GPM (10.5.1), GOES-R (10.6, both ABI and GLM sensors, and ASTER L1T (10.6) platforms over the last year in an effort to better support our remote sensing users? Here are some instructions from the National Snow and Ice Data Center on working with SMAP data in ArcGIS. the Esri LandSat Explorer app’s code was open-sourced this week? This is one of our many #imagery items on that GitHub site for code sharing. Esri has detailed our philosophy of and commitment to "Open" at our Esri’s Open Vision site? Many are familiar  with the closed, limited-interoperability ESRI products of the past, but we are ever moving forward. DID YOU KNOW that as a company, we are currently leveraging and contributing to over 200 open-source projects, while delivering over 350 open-source projects of our own? Esri software provides direct read, import, and export for over 300 formats, including over 200 image formats and sensors. Esri supports over 100 geospatial standards (including those from ISO TC 211 and OGC), and provides open access to scores of APIs and SDKs. IT'S GOOD TO BE IN-THE-KNOW!    Thanks to Tripp Corbett, Steve Kopp, and Peter Eredics for providing much of the information for this post. ... View more