Latest Contributions by TamaraGrant1

by Bern Szukalski The World Imagery basemap is regularly updated. When updates are made, the older imagery is replaced and is no longer visible. In most cases, the latest imagery is always preferred, but there may be reasons to use older vintage imagery. For example, there may be undesirable color variations, previous versions may align better with your GIS data, or there may be unwanted shadows or clouds. In these cases, you may want to access a previous vintage of the World Imagery basemap or layers. Another reason is that you may want to go back in time to view change that has occurred as the result of development, fires, or other events.   What is Wayback Imagery? Wayback Imagery is a digital archive of the World Imagery basemap that enables you to access 80 versions of World Imagery captured over the past 5 years. The different vintages of imagery are published as tile layers that you can add to your maps, or can use as basemaps. Note that this archive is based on the date that it was published in the World Imagery basemap, not on the date the imagery was actually acquired, which may be older. Here are two easy ways that you can leverage the Wayback imagery archives.   Browse the digital archive The entire Wayback archive can be found in the Wayback Imagery group. Each record in the archive represents World Imagery as it existed on the date new imagery was published. Wayback currently supports all updated versions of World Imagery dating back to February 20, 2014. Using the archive you can view the imagery as it existed on the publish date each is represented in an ArcGIS Online item. Select the version you want, and use it as a basemap, or use it with other layers in your web map. Here’s how: Step 1 – Choose the vintage you want Browse the layers in the group to find the vintage you want. In this case, we’ve selected World Imagery (Wayback 2014-02-20). The title indicates the imagery in this layer was published on February 20, 2014. Step 2 – Open the item details and add to your map Click the title to open the item details, then click the thumbnail to add the layer to your map. Step 3 – (Optional) Set the layer as your basemap If you want to use the layer as a basemap, click More options (…) and Move to Basemap. After moving the layer to the basemap, you can remove other basemap layers.   Wayback app The Wayback app delivers a way to browse previous versions of imagery using a timeline and list. Versions that resulted in local changes are presented based on location and scale. You can preview changes by hovering or selecting individual layers.  Choose one or more Wayback layers to place them in a queue, when finished you can add them to a new ArcGIS online web map. Step 1 – Open the Wayback app You can find the Wayback app in the Wayback Imagery group mentioned above. Or, search ArcGIS Online for the Wayback app. Favorite the app or share it into one of your groups for easy access. Step 2 – Zoom to your area of interest One the app is opened, use Search to zoom to your area of interest. Step 3 – Examine the available imagery Pan and zoom in or out to the desired location and level of detail, the results shown in the app are based on location and scale. The layer list shows all vintages, those with local changes are highlighted in white. In the upper left a timeline is visible, with dates with local changes highlighted. Check the box to see only the updates with local changes. Step 4 – Select the vintage layer(s) you want to add to your map Hover over the layers to see a preview on the map. Add layers to the queue by clicking the Add icon. Step 5 – Add layers to your web map. Layers you have selected are queued in the app, click Open these updates in a new web map to add the layers you’ve chosen. In summary Using either of these two methods (we recommend the Wayback app) you can choose the imagery for your basemap.  Or, add layers of different dates to move forwards or backwards in time to see change. As other vintages become available, they will be added to the Wayback archive, and will be searchable using the Wayback app.     For more information For more information see the following: Wayback – 81 Flavors of World Imagery World Imagery Wayback App Wayback Imagery group ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World ... View more

by ArcGIS Content Team In photography, selective focus is a technique in which the subject of the image is made clear, while the remainder of the image is out of focus. This technique is used to draw the eye of the viewer to the part of the photograph the photographer wishes to be observed.   Selective focus in photography can be used to bring attention to a subject - Photo by Ian Dooley on Unsplash When creating maps, it is often important to use similar techniques to guide a user’s attention to the focus area of a map, while making the contextual information more “out of focus”. One way this type of visual hierarchy can be achieved in mapmaking is by isolating and enclosing the area of interest using a buffer or vignette and masking or darkening the background. A good example of the need for some ‘selective focus‘ came about recently as the Africa GeoPortal was about to be launched. The web maps initially display at small scale. To help focus on the continent of Africa, we quickly created a buffered mask in ArcGIS Pro, produced and uploaded a vector tile package, then published it as a tile layer. Finally, the buffered mask was added to many of the Africa Living Atlas web maps. In addition to creating some ‘selective focus’, we also get the added benefit of establishing a sense of cohesiveness between the various maps. The repeated use of the buffered mask reinforces the sense that we are looking at an atlas and the subject of the atlas is Africa. The method for creating the mask is straightforward and can be used to highlight any area of interest in your web maps or projects. Here are the steps: Create a new ArcGIS Pro project. Create or add a feature class of your area of interest (AOI). Use the Multiple Ring Buffer tool to buffer a distance around your AOI. You need to establish the distance and number of rings. For an AOI the size of the continent of Africa, a buffer distance extending 250 kilometers beyond the coastline was chosen and each ring of the buffer was determined to be 5 kilometers (resulting in 50 rings). A smaller AOI would require a smaller ring size/number of rings and a smaller overall buffer distance. Ensure that Outside Polygons Only is checked on so that the resulting feature class includes only the ringed buffer, not the AOI. Once the distance is established and the Multiple Ring Buffer tool completes, the AOI is buffered again using the Buffer tool. The distance should be the same as the final distance from the multiple ring buffer. Side Type is set to full to include the AOI with the buffer. The resulting feature class will be used solely as the erase feature for step  Using the buffered feature class from the previous step, run the Erase tool. The buffered feature class should be the erase feature, while the input feature should be a simple polygonal feature class that covers the world. If you need a feature class that covers the global extent of the ArcGIS Online basemaps, you can access it here. The newly erased feature class and the Multiple Ring Buffered AOI feature class can now be symbolized. Give the erased feature class a single symbol RGB value of 0,0,0 (Hex #000000) with a 20% transparency. Change the buffered feature class’ Symbology to Unique Values and add all values. Highlight all values, format to remove outlines’ and change the color scheme type to ‘Continuous’ black with varying levels of transparency 99% – 20%. To use the buffered mask on lighter basemap styles, you can use the same scheme, then change the colors to white. Alternatively, you can download the continuous black color scheme style (STYLX) created for the Africa GeoPortal. To add it to your ArcGIS Pro project,  click the Inserttab on the ribbon, then select Add Style from the Add drop-down menu. Once the symbology is established, create a group layer of the two feature classes. On the Metadata pane within the Map Properties, provide a title, tags, summary and a description for your map. Remove any extraneous content from the project. Run the Create Vector Tile Index tool. Run the Create Vector Tile Package tool. Run the Share Package tool. Log into your ArcGIS account. The vector tile package is an item in your Content. Publish the vector tile layer by clicking  Publish on the vector tile package item page. Open the tile layer in a new map. The tile layer appears above the basemap. Select your basemap, add any additional thematic data above or in between the mask and basemap, and Save as a web map. This post was written by Cindy Prostak, the cartographer responsible for creating vector basemap designs such as Nova, Colored Pencil, and more. ... View more

by Robert Waterman A lot has happened with World Imagery since UC 2017. With UC 2018 now upon us, let’s take a moment to reflect on the past year and highlight some of the most recent updates. Breadth of Coverage These days, wide area coverage in World Imagery is synonymous with DigitalGlobe EarthWatch Vivid imagery. With Vivid updates this past year totaling nearly 85 million square kilometers, we are bringing expanded coverage and more frequent updates to more communities and markets around the globe. Most recently, we completed our second update of the Continental US in the past six months. January 2018 was our initial release of Vivid in the US, bringing a much needed improvement on the currency of the US imagery. The June update came with improvements on the overall visual quality of the imagery, including significant reductions in cloud cover. Depth of Coverage With a focus on urbanized areas, along with an annual refresh cycle, DigitalGlobe EarthWatch Metro imagery continues to bring great value, in both detail and currency, to cities and metropolitan areas around the globe. Over the past year, more than 800 cities have been updated with the latest available 30-50 centimeter Metro imagery. Offering some of the most detailed imagery that our World Imagery basemap has to offer, our Community Maps Program continues to expand. Ranging from campuses and cities, to entire provinces, counties, and states, Community Maps Imagery has accounted for nearly one million square kilometers of imagery updates.  Thirty percent of this coverage is at a spatial resolution of 15 cm or better, and 95% of it at 30 cm or better. Special thanks to our international distributors and Community Maps contributors in North America, Europe, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Thank you for your continued efforts and outstanding contributions to the World Imagery basemap. Coverage Overview and Highlights Overview of World Imagery Updates from UC 2017 to UC 2018. Vivid, Metro, and Community for Australia and New Zealand In Case You Didn’t Know If you ever find that a recent imagery update does not meet your needs, and you prefer the previous imagery, then World Imagery (Wayback) may be just what you need.  Wayback is the latest addition to our family of World Imagery offerings, which also includes Clarity and Firefly, in addition to our default World Imagery basemap. ... View more

by Deane Kensok Brief Background OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an open, collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. OSM is built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, buildings, restaurants, and much more. Many ArcGIS users are active contributors to OSM, using popular OSM editors or the ArcGIS Editor for OSM to share their data. Many ArcGIS users are also active consumers of OSM, using the map in their web maps and apps or the data for their mapping and analysis. For many years, Esri has included OpenStreetMap as one of the default basemaps in ArcGIS, which has been quite popular. The basemap references a raster tile service hosted by the OSM Foundation that is updated frequently as contributors make edits to OSM. Over the past couple years, Esri has introduced basemap options using vector tile layers, which offer several advantages such as the ability to customize the map. Until now, there has not been an option to access all of OpenStreetMap as a vector basemap in ArcGIS Online. What’s New This summer, Esri is introducing a new OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap. The map will be built using OSM data exclusively. It will be hosted by Esri and updated frequently over time. Best of all, it will be freely available to all ArcGIS Users. In fact, it will be freely available to any user or developer that would like to use an OSM vector basemap in their map or app! This week, we are sharing an initial version of the OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap, which you can explore through this web mapping app. The map is now available in beta release, meaning it’s available for you to use and test in your maps and apps but you shouldn’t use the map or related items in a production application yet. What’s Next Over the next couple months, we’ll update the vector basemap regularly with the latest OSM data. We’ll also continue to refine our use of the OSM cartography to improve the map display and performance. Lastly, we’ll make some updates to our apps to take full advantage of the new OSM vector basemap, such as enabling proper display of attribution and style customization. Once we wrap up this beta release (planned for the September update to ArcGIS Online), we’ll integrate the new OSM map into our gallery of vector basemaps so it’s accessible to all ArcGIS apps that use them. We encourage you to explore the new OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap that is available as new items (app, map, layer) in this ArcGIS Online group. Feel free to share your feedback or questions in the comments on these items and we will reply.  Join us this week at one or more of the Living Atlas workshops at the Esri User Conference to learn more! ... View more

by Dan Pisut As the U.S. broils in the summer heat, it is nice to know that sometimes the weather can be just the way you want it. Well…maps of the weather. Many of the real-time weather resources available in the Living Atlas of the World offer the ability to customize the display of the data. The key is looking for the Change Style icon within the service layer options while also exploring the attributes table for each layer. Don’t see a Change Style option? Sometimes by accessing the REST service page that is linked in the bottom right of each item description page, you will find the REST link to the underlying features for each service. Add that link to your web map and change away! This workflow also applies to ArcGIS Pro: if you cannot access the Symbology options, adding the REST link to the feature service may open up the symbology options. One of the most useful and flexible weather datasets available in the Living Atlas is the Current Wind and Weather Conditionslayer. Open this map and you see plain old wind vectors.  Explore this layer a bit more, however, and you will find a wealth of options. There are actually 11+ variables for each METAR or buoy location, including things like temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and derived variables like wind chill and heat index. Default display for Current Wind and Weather Conditions Heat Mapping of a Different Kind Since it is the middle of the summer, I want the current weather map to focus on hot areas, but also with a nod to wind speed/direction. The following recipe is how I came up with the map below using the Heat Index variable mapped using Counts and Amounts. Color is used to indicate heat index and size indicates wind speed. The layer is duplicated and an arrow symbol is placed on top of the circle layer.  Using the same attribute mapping (besides swapping the circle for an arrow) ensures that the two layers will scale evenly. The arrow is rotated using the Rotate Symbols option, based on the Wind Origin (Degrees) attribute. This step takes some trial and error and a good quality control – there are two arrow options (up and down). Referring to the original map, you will want to use the downward facing arrow in order to make the arrow point in the direction the wind is going. I know…not the meteorological standard, but it makes more sense to me.  Since both the circle and arrow are scaled based on wind speed, the windy areas are slightly differentiated in the map. There are also labels indicating the temperature, humidity, and wind speed that appear when zoomed in by using the Visible Range option. Use the different label offset options so that they stack.  111 degrees Fahrenheit at Ontario International Airport? To quote Robin Williams, “It’s hot. Damn hot!” Click the map to access the web map...but I'm sure the weather has changed. And consider this map a BOGO: in the winter, the heat index attribute can easily be swapped out for wind chill. Classing Up Active Hurricanes There are currently three active cyclones in the Pacific and Atlantic, so we can also have some fun with the Active Hurricanes layer. Having lived through many hurricanes (and evacuations), I like a hurricane forecast map that clearly defines the storm intensity. Additionally, it is nice to know where the storm was, but more important is to know where it is going. To start, I created 5 icon styles using a hurricane symbol and numbers 1-5 in the middle.  You will notice that the attribute table for the layer does not have the Saffir-Simpson scale (tropical depression, tropical storm, Category 1, 2…). Easy fix: On the forecast position layer, map the attribute MAXWIND with Counts and Amounts. Classify the data into seven bins that match the Saffir-Simpson scale. Load the custom hurricane icons to a server. Click the Legend menu and use the custom images for each class. Granted, the Saffir-Simpson scale is not used for typhoons, since it is based on destructive potential in the U.S., but it is still a useful reference. I used the basic shape options for tropical depression and tropical storm, which render more cleanly than an uploaded PNG. Other layers included in the Active Hurricanes dataset are also customized to match the cartographic style, albeit somewhat less prominent. And don’t forget to customize those pop-ups! Click the map to view the Active Hurricanes web map. Sorry if there are no active storms to see. Considering the Basemap While we’re at it, let’s take one of the gridded forecasts from the National Weather Service. I created two versions of the NDFD Precipitation Forecast. Why? To account for different basemaps.  ArcGIS provides dozens of basemap choices, and with the new ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor, the options are endless. I always like to pick the best one that minimizes noise and accentuates the data. Elements such as mountains or land imagery that are not integral to interpreting the data are minimized or excluded. Since we often combine multiple weather variables together, that “best one” will change from map to map. Plus some days I’m more of a light basemap person, some days I like a dark one. Some days I’m even an imagery basemap person, albeit rarely.  A general best practice is to have high intensity data values (e.g., heavy rain) in high luminance color values on a dark basemap and low luminance on a light basemap to provide the greatest contrast. This map uses the blue to yellow color palette from ColorBrewer2.og – my favorite for mapping precipitation. It gives a sense of “wet” while preserving the brightness function. Transparency is adjusted and the palette is inverted based on which map is used – easily done by using the Invert Color Ramp option.  Now I have three similarly styled maps that will update in real-time, making them a great start for a weather dashboard. ... View more

by Chris Andrews During the last three years, we’ve seen explosive growth of interest in 3D GIS.  From scientific analysis to engineering design to agriculture, customers are solving real world problems with location-based, 3D visualization and analysis.  3D is a critical component of this information because it offers the ability to more accurately capture, inspect, and model the real world than has ever been possible before. Esri software development teams have been expanding and striving to provide tools for customers to use 3D in both traditional and new workflows and GIS experiences.  I’ve been glad to see the number of voices talking about the great work we are doing grow as well. You can read blogs about 3D enhancements in ArcGIS Online, the new elevation surface experience in ArcGIS Pro, and 3D updates in ArcGIS Runtime. Our teams publish story maps to show you what’s new in product and tech areas, such as the Scene Viewer. You can also see lots of great content on other social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn. We have dozens of sessions, talks, and ad hoc presentationscovering 3D at the UC this year. So that the highlights don’t get lost in the details, I’ve listed some of the top things to pay attention to here.  These are some of the biggest topics that customers have been asking us about and it’s great to be able to speak with users about so many of these diverse 3D-related efforts.  Some of these items include topics that have been building over the last few years, but there is a ton new to talk about at this year’s UC. What if you don’t see your favorite topic here?  Please stop by the 3D GIS Showcase in the Expo Hall where our experts can help you find what you need now or (even better) can listen to what you will need in the future. BIM and AEC As governments and corporations adopt Building Information Management (BIM) globally to drive more efficiency in the trillions of USD of investment required to propel us sustainably into the 21st century, asset owners and construction and design consultants have realized that location is an essential component of successful BIM projects. Esri has jumped into the BIM market with both feet, educating partners and customers, developing software to support better integration of design and location, and launching an industry changing alliance with Autodesk.  This years’s UC caps about two and a half years of effort to get the BIM story rolling at UC and I couldn’t be happier that we’re where we are. The new Engineering Summit kicks things off today with talks from industry experts from Esri, Autodesk, and customers UC Plenary – Don’t miss a fantastic story that came together because of a collaboration between Autodesk, Esri, and a major AEC joint-customer Autodesk has a large presence at this year’s UC – Please stop by their booth, thank them for helping to sponsor the show, and tell them that you want even more collaboration Look for ArcGIS Pro’s new capability to read Revit files, Autodesk InfraWorks’ new Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS, demos integrating BIM 360 and ArcGIS Online and more Interactive tools For years, every day people have been able to touch things, see shadows, and change them in 3D games.  It’s natural that GIS users should expect to do the same with the 3D data that represents their real world environments. Since the 2017 UC, we’ve seen a rollout of interactive analytical tools across the ArcGIS platform.  These include inter-visibility tools in ArcGIS Pro and Esri CityEngine, 3D measurement tools in the ArcGIS API for JavaScript. Visit the ArcGIS Pro island and the 3D Showcase in the UC Expo hall to see the intervisibility tools at work Nathan Shephard will demo Pro’s new capabilities in a regular UC session Eric Wittner CityEngine session will discuss urban planning-focused capabilities, including interactive tools Find the ArcGIS Earth team in the 3D Showcase and ask for a demo of new interactive tools that we’ll be releasing later this summer Mobile Many of our customers are exploring mobile-first or mobile-only work environments.  While the high end data and analysis authors in many fields will likely stay on desktop computers for years to come, many more software users are transitioning to mobile-format experiences.  That’s as true for 3D GIS experiences as it is for any other part of our user workflow. Checkout  the new capability to use the Scene Viewer and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript 3D capability on mobile devices at the 3D Showcase and in the Developer Showcase Find the ArcGIS Earth team and ask about the alpha release of ArcGIS Earth for Android devices which we are planning to ship in the next few weeks Underground capabilities Two years ago, I was cornered after a talk on 3D by 5 or 6 users who complained that when it came to underground, we had nothing.  We’re trying hard to change that and this year you’ll be able to take a look at: The ability to navigate underground in the Scene Viewer in global scenes and the ability to manipulate the transparency of the ground surface both in the UI and in the API A new experience for manipulating surfaces in ArcGIS Pro The new slice exploratory tool in ArcGIS Pro that enables the ability to inspect complex subsurface data The Utility Network which has been built to accommodate above and below-ground 3D utility information If you can find me, ask me about our R&D with voxels… Urban Planning We are increasing our focus on Urban Planning solutions and we have several initiatives that we’d love to speak with you about to help us guide where we’re going in the future. CityEngine has made tremendous strides to be better oriented as a tool for Urban Designers.  Great work from partners, such as Houseal Levigne Associates and Garsdale Design showcases how far CityEngine has come. The 3D team will be eager to show you some of the upcoming capabilities planned for ArcGIS Urban.  Stop by the 3D Showcase and ask about what we’re planning.   AR, VR and other new visualization capabilities The experience of GIS is fundamentally changing as we are seeing more demand for Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, game engine dynamics, and higher visual quality.  Work from Esri R&D and many of our partners is helping to push real world content from GIS into experiences that allow users to interact with their data in whole new ways.  I expect to see much more on this over the next few years. Ask about the AR capabilties in the ArcGIS Runtime SDKs at the Developer Showcase Meet up with the ArcGIS Urban team and the CityEngine team at the 3D Showcase and ask about how we’re exploring VR for Urban Planning workflows Check out our partners who are already delivering products for AR to our users, such as Argis Solutions and Meemim Inc. Ask the 3D team at the Showcase about the new edge rendering capability in ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, including the great new sketchy edge capability I3S and 3D Content Last year, we were happy to have the Indexed 3D Scene Layer (I3S) specification adopted by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) as a Community Standard.  We’ve seen numerous partners and others in the community start to produce I3S content that is directly usable in ArcGIS products.  We’re also seeing a ton of other 3D content, such as point clouds, IoT, and reality capture data being integrated into GIS for whole new experiences allowing us to explore our world. Check out our many content provider partners who will be here including Vricon, Nearmap, Orbit, and many others.  Ask them how they can help you acquire 3D content for use in your GIS workflows. Visit the 3D Showcase and ask about I3S and how it changes the way 3D is shared and distributed across ArcGIS While you’re at the 3D Showcase, ask about new capability to go directly from formats such as LAZ and zLAS to I3S to allow you to use your point cloud data in new workflows Ask the Living Atlas team about the new AIRBUS contentthat allows us to deliver the highest res 3D ground elevation data set that is available from any GIS vendor today for use in everyday Attend the I3S related talks and ask at the 3D Showcase about the new capability to edit feature-based scene layers   See you at the UC! I hope to see you at the UC this year and I’d love to hear your feedback.  It’s another exciting year for progress in 3D with ArcGIS.   I’d like to thank our customers, including the University of Kentucky, for continuing to provide demo content for us to be able to test, develop, and demo the new capabilities that our users need. ... View more

by Robert Waterman In keeping with the trend of recent years, Esri’s NAIP Image Service has recently been updated to include the NAIP 2017 imagery. This means our NAIP data set includes NAIP annual coverage from 2010 through 2017. For those who don’t know, the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) typically produces 0.6 to 1m resolution multispectral imagery for approximately half of the Continental United States each year. You can reference this NAIP 2017 map to see all of the states flown and produced in 2017 (Hint: zoom in to see the NAIP imagery for each state shown to have coverage). You can discover and access NAIP imagery through the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World in addition to the ArcGIS Online NAIP Imagery group. NAIP 2017 Coverage by State and Resolution The NAIP imagery, collected during the agricultural growing seasons in the continental United States, is made available by the USDA Farm Service Agency. The image layers published by Esri include all NAIP imagery since 2010 and provides access to imagery for each state in 4-bands (RGB and Near Infrared) with the option to display the imagery as Natural Color, Color Infrared, or NDVI showing relative biomass of an area.  Using the image layers, you can also access the different vintages of imagery over time to better understand how conditions have changed.  This NAIP Annual Coverage map shows our availability of NAIP from 2010-2017. The NAIP image layers are available to users with an ArcGIS Organizational subscription at no additional cost. To access the NAIP imagery maps and layers, you’ll need to sign in with an account that is a member of an organizational subscription. ... View more

by Robert Waterman Have you ever wished you had more control over the content in the World Imagerybasemap, to be able to select the imagery to suit your needs? For anyone who answered ‘yes!’, we have some great news for you. Today we are pleased to announce the release of World Imagery (Wayback).   WHAT Wayback imagery is a digital archive of the World Imagery basemap, enabling users to access more than 80 different versions of World Imagery captured over the past 5 years. Each record in the archive represents a version of World Imagery as it existed on the date it was published.   WHY In our ongoing effort to keep it as fresh as possible, the World Imagery basemap is regularly updated with more current imagery. When and where updates occur, the previous imagery is replaced and is no longer visible. For many use cases, the updated imagery is more desirable and typically preferred. Other times, however, the previous imagery may support use cases that the new imagery does not. Whether you need a view with fewer clouds or perhaps imagery that better aligns with your existing GIS layers, Wayback will allow you to lock in the version of World Imagery that best suits your needs. Why not. Wayback is available, it’s accessible, and it is published as performant and scalable basemap tile layers.   WHERE and HOW The World Imagery Wayback app is a great place to start. The app is a dynamic browsing experience where previous World Imagery versions are presented within the map, along a timeline, and as a list. Versions that resulted in local changes are dynamically presented to the user based on location and scale. Preview changes by hovering and/or selecting individual layers.  When ready, one or more Wayback layers can be added to an export queue and pushed to a new ArcGIS Online web map. Browse, preview, select, and create, it’s all there! For those who already have a specific version in mind, the Wayback Imagery group is where you can find an AGOL item for every version. Browse and select by date, done! For those working in Pro, you can search AGOL items via the catalog, or you can set up a WMTS server connection and have the full list of Wayback layers at your fingertips. Check out this blog post for more information. Wayback is the latest addition to our family of World Imagery offerings, which also includes Clarity and Firefly, in addition to our default World Imagery basemap. In closing, a quick shout out to everyone who made this possible, including a few notable mentions:  @Lucian Plesea, @Jim Mason, @Jinnan Zhang.  Nicely done! ... View more

by Robert Waterman Users can browse, search, and load AGOL Wayback layer items from the Catalog in Pro.  However, another option available to users is to directly connect via WMTS.  Here is a quick guide to setting that server connection. Follow these steps: Open a new or existing project in Pro. From the main tab options, go to ‘Insert’ -> ‘Connections’ and then select ‘New WMTS Server’ In the ‘Add WMTS Server Connection’ dialog, enter the following server URL and click OK. https://wayback.maptiles.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer/WMTS/1.0.0/WMTSCapabilities.xml In your Catalog view, click on ‘Servers’ and you should see the Wayback server listed. Double click on the Wayback server twice to open and view the full list of available layers. Right click on a layer and choose whether you would like to add that layer to a new or existing map. The selected version of World Imagery is now loaded and ready for use. Additional layers can be added to the same map as needed. Save your project to save the server connection and the full list should always be available for selecting and loading additional Wayback layers. That’s it! ... View more

by Shane Matthews Through the Community Program organizations contribute their local geographic content which is published and freely-hosted by Esri. Everything from basemap layers such as parks and trees, to imagery and stream gauge data can be contributed. Detailed large-scale basemap layers and high-resolution imagery shared to the Living Atlas are what set Basemaps in ArcGIS apart from other mapping APIs. This is especially apparent when comparing some of the many college and university campuses. When our users contribute their data to the Living Atlas, basemaps are transformed into a valuable foundation that empowers them to accomplish more, as seen in the comparison of Penn State University’s campus below. Bing Maps - Includes only roads and landuse. No value-added large-scale features for context. ArcGIS Online - Highly-detailed map layer data that includes sports fields, pavement markings and parking lots, building footprints and more. Latest Release This month 51 communities have shared new and updated map layers in support of Esri’s expanding suite of high-performance basemaps and imagery services. Map layers include aerial photography, boundaries, buildings, owner parcels, parks, points of interest, trees, and similar large-scale features that enhance our foundational information sets for the world to use. Let’s tour our newest communities with these interactive Story Maps below. Basemap Release June 2018 World Imagery Release June 2018 How does my organization contribute? It’s easy! The Community Maps Program works with authoritative GIS data contributions to build the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World consisting of reference and thematic maps covering a wide variety of topics. Community Maps members participate by contributing data in one or more of the following categories. Community Maps Program Categories You can begin contributing by registering here! Related Basemap Blogs The recent update to Esri Vector Basemaps brings a handful of new features to the maps as well as a new style added to our collection. Read More > ... View more

by Andrew Green The recent update to Esri Vector Basemaps brings a handful of new features to the maps as well as a new style added to our collection. We launched basemap localization across six languages, added new map labels and features to the vector tile set, and released a new style named ‘Charted Territory’. For information and lists of data updates, including contributions made through the Community Maps Program, view these blogs. Localization This update marks the first set of six languages mapped across eight gallery basemap styles. Additional languages will be rolled out in the coming months. The maps display translated labels for many feature classes. Localization of the vector maps also includes the ability to customize disputed boundaries and display alternate feature names. With the Esri Vector Basemaps, these edits can be applied to the json and updated in your own copy of the map styles. For DisputeID filter values as well as other guidance to specifications of the vector basemaps, refer to this reference PDF document. The image below shows a sampling of map styles in the different languages.  This list has links off each language name that goes to a group of web maps for the different styles:  Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Keep checking the Esri Blogs for notification of new languages added to the collection of localized basemaps. New map features and labels There are three new features in the Esri Vector Basemap tile set used to display all the vector map styles. We’ve added Landform Labels (think ‘Rocky Mountains’). By default, the landform labels appear in two gallery map styles:  Topographic and Terrain with Labels, and several other creative map styles including the newly released ‘Charted Territory’ (see below for details). This new map style also includes the other two new features added to the vector tile set: grids and graticules and the colored country polygons (colormap). For additional information and other guidance on the vector basemap specifications, refer to this reference PDF document. Charted Territory (new map style) Charted Territory is our new creative map style from cartographer Cindy Prostak (see also Colored Pencil, Mid-Century, Modern Antique, Newspaper, and Nova). This Charted Territory basemap style has its design influenced by the classic global political atlas plate and pull-down scholastic wall maps found in many classrooms. The color coded country polygons (8 colors in the colormap) are present at the smaller scales and fade to a neutral background color as you zoom in.  The images above show multiple scales and the appearance of the features at those scales, including the landform labels, grid lines and graticules like the Arctic Circle (seen in the images above), Tropics, Equator, International Date Line and Prime Meridian. For a complete collection of the Esri Vector Basemap styles, refer to the Vector Basemap group on ArcGIS Online. Customizing Your Own Vector Basemap While Esri provides a number of different basemap styles, it may just be that there’s a specific customization you’re looking to make to have that perfect map style to use in your maps and apps. This can be as simple as applying your organization’s official colors or you might want turn off a feature class or two to simplify a map style. Or if you’re up for the challenge, you can restyle just about every feature and label attribute. The newly announcedArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor (beta) is just the tool you’ll want to use to accomplish all of these customizations. For more inspiration of different basemaps, visit this showcase of some custom styles we have created. ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor Whether you are a developer, designer, or a GIS professional, this tool gives you a fast and easy way to create a custom basemap style that matches your brand and the type of app that you are building. Click here to use the ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor. ... View more

by Deane Kensok Over the past several years, ArcGIS Online has become a very rich collection of geospatial content, with millions of items published by thousands of different organizations around the world. Many of these organizations, such as national mapping agencies and local governments, provide access to the most authoritative content for their communities, and are making their content publicly available through ArcGIS Online for everyone to use. As users of ArcGIS Online creating content, most of us are looking for the most reliable and authoritative content to use in our maps and apps. This might include basemaps, imagery, boundaries, demographics, weather, traffic, parcels, buildings, or many other types of content. So, how can you find the most reliable and authoritative content in ArcGIS Online? ArcGIS Online Content One source that many of us turn to first is the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, which is built-in to ArcGIS Online and now accessible to all users creating content through the Living Atlas tab on the Content page. The Living Atlas includes content that is curated by Esri, which may be published by Esri, our business partners, or ArcGIS users. The Living Atlas now includes about seven thousand items of various types that have been contributed. This is a great place to start but it only scratches the surface of all the content (several million items and growing!) that have been publicly shared in ArcGIS Online. If you don’t find what you need in the Living Atlas, you may next search all of ArcGIS Online. This often uncovers lots of relevant content that is available to you, but it may be challenging to determine which is the best one to use. Who is the owner of the content, is it well maintained, is it the correct version to use in my map or app? What most of us are hoping to find is the best available content from the organization responsible for publishing that content, which you can trust to be well maintained over time. This might be a custom vector basemap from Esri, the latest imagery from a national mapping agency, the legal parcel boundaries from a local government, or the most current statistical data from an NGO. While this content might be available in ArcGIS Online, it can often be difficult to distinguish in the search results. Public Authoritative Content With the June release of ArcGIS Online, we have begun to make this type of ‘authoritative’ content easier to identify and find. Organizations publishing this type of content, such as Esri (including our international distributors) and government agencies, are now able to mark the best available content that they are sharing with everyone as ‘Authoritative’ and it will appear as authoritative from that organization. Users that are looking for this type of content can now filter their search results to just show content that is authoritative. Sharing Public Authoritative Content If you are part of an organization sharing public content that you would like to mark as authoritative from your organization, it is simple to get started but there are a few things you need to do. Below are the steps: Publish your content in ArcGIS Online, follow our best practices for sharing, and share the item with everyone. If you are the administrator for your organization (or have privileges to update all content in your org), mark the appropriate items as “Authoritative” in the item settings. Or ask your admin to do that for you! (Check out this article on Improving Content Quality for some suggestions on authoritative content workflows.) Once you have some authoritative content ready to share, ask your admin to ensure that (a) the organization allows anonymous access and (b) the organization has a great home page for anonymous visitors and (c) the organization name configured in the settings is correct. Once that is confirmed, the admin can then request that the organization identity be verified by Esri.  Go to Settings > General > Organization Verification. Once Esri has verified the organization identity, any of the content that is shared with everyone and marked as authoritative will appear as authoritative from your organization. That is, the item will have an “Authoritative” badge and it will display the organization name as the owner of the item, such as in the examples shown above. Added bonus: the item will also be boosted a little when already relevant in search results. Finding Public Authoritative Content If you are a user of ArcGIS Online looking to discover and use authoritative content from other organizations, there are a couple ways you can start to do that now: Search: whenever you search for content, you will see some filter options appear next to the search results (e.g. item type, date modified, etc.). You can use the status filter “Authoritative” to see only this content. If you choose to expand the search beyond your organization (i.e. de-select ‘Search only in …’ your org) and set that status filter, then you will see any public authoritative content that is relevant to your search. Browse Living Atlas: if you are browsing or searching items in the Living Atlas tab on the Content page, you will see some other filter options appear next to the search results (e.g. categories, regions, etc.). You can now use the status filter “Authoritative” to see only this type of content in the Living Atlas. This will include Living Atlas content from Esri and other organizations that have already marked their public content as authoritative and been verified. We’re Just Getting Started The ability to mark content as authoritative was added in the December 2017 release, and the ability to mark public content as authoritative is new with the June 2018 release. It will take some time for large numbers of public authoritative content to appear in ArcGIS Online. That said, there are already a few dozen organizations enabled to share authoritative content with everyone and over 3,500 public authoritative items! Our hope and expectation is that we will see a significant increase in the quantity of high-quality, authoritative content that is being shared and distinguished in ArcGIS Online over the next several months. This will be good for everyone, helping data publishers by raising awareness and usage of their most useful and authoritative content and helping users by making it easier to confidently find the best available content to use.  We look forward to seeing your authoritative content shared publicly in ArcGIS Online soon! ... View more

by Lucy Guerra The June release covers a lot of ground for demographic updates including the annual update of U.S. demographic data. Esri’s Demographic Data Development team has incorporated the latest sources to provide 2018 estimates and 2023 projections of topics including population by age, sex, and race, as well as income and home value. In addition, employment by industry/occupation, education, marital status, daytime population, and Esri’s Tapestry Segmentation database have all been updated to reflect these recent estimates. Read more about the 2018/2023 U.S. Demographic updates. The June release also includes updates to over 30 countries in Europe and other regions of the world. Read on to learn more about the demographic data in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, or see the other improvements. Or you can jump ahead to learn how these updates affect you. Western Europe Updates Andorra (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017. Austria (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. New area level: Zaehlsprengel (Statistical Areas). New Attributes: Households by Type: One-person household. Couple with dependent child(ren). Couple with no dependent child(ren). Lone parent household with dependent child(ren). Two- or more family households. Multi person household (no family). Cyprus (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Faroe Islands (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017. Finland (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Changed Attributes: Population 15 years and over by Education: Upper secondary (ISCED 3/4) renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Upper secondary education. Population 15 years and over by Education: Lwst. level tert. (ISCED 5) renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Post-secondary non-tertiary education. Population 15 years and over by Education: Lower level tert. (ISCED 6) renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Short-cycle tertiary education. Population 15 years and over by Education: Higher level tert. (ISCED 7) renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Bachelor’s or equivalent level. Population 15 years and over by Education: Doctorate level (ISCED 😎 renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Master’s or equivalent level. New Attributes: Population 15 years and over by Education: Doctoral or equivalent level. Greece (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Iceland (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Ireland (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. New area level: Small Areas. Changed Attributes: Households by Type: Husband and Wife Households renamed to Households by Type: Married couple households. Households by Type: Husband, Wife and Children Households renamed to Households by Type: Married couple with children households. Households by Type: Cohabiting Couple and Children Households renamed to Households by Type: Cohabiting couple with children households. Households by Type: Father and Children Households renamed to Households by Type: One parent family (father) with children households. Households by Type: Mother and Children Households renamed to Households by Type: One parent family (mother) with children households. Households by Type: Couple, Children and Others Households renamed to Households by Type: Couple with children and others households. Households by Type: Father, Children and Others Households renamed to Households by Type: One parent family (father) with children and others households. Households by Type: Mother, Children and Others renamed to Households by Type: One parent family (mother) with children and others households. Population 15 years and over by Education: No Formal Education renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Education has not ceased. Population 15 years and over by Education: Primary Education renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: No formal Education. Population 15 years and over by Education: Lower Secondary renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Primary Education. Population 15 years and over by Education: Upper Secondary renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Lower Secondary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Technical or Vocational qualification renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Upper Secondary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Advanced Certificate/Completed Apprenticeship renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Technical or Vocational qualification. Population 15 years and over by Education: Higher Certificate renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Advanced Certificate/Completed Apprenticeship. Population 15 years and over by Education: Ordinary Bachelor Degree or National Diploma renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Higher Certificate. Population 15 years and over by Education: Honours Bachelor Degree, Professional Qualification or both renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Ordinary Bachelor Degree or National Diploma. Population 15 years and over by Education: Postgraduate Diploma or Degree renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Honours Bachelor Degree, Professional Qualification or both. Population 15 years and over by Education: Doctorate (Ph.D) or higher renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Postgraduate diploma or degree. Population 15 years and over by Education: Not Stated renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: Doctorate (Ph.D) or higher. New Attributes: Population 15 years and over by Education: Not stated. Liechtenstein (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Luxembourg (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Malta (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Changed Attributes: Population 15 years and over by Education: No schooling renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: no schooling. Population 15 years and over by Education: Pre-primary/Special school for persons with a disability/Primary level renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: primary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Secondary level renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: lower secondary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Post-secondary level renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: upper secondary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Non-tertiary level renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: post-secondary non-tertiary. Population 15 years and over by Education: Tertiary level renamed to Population 15 years and over by Education: tertiary. Monaco (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017. Portugal (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Eastern Europe Updates Albania (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Belarus (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Bosnia and Herzegovina (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Bulgaria (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Croatia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. New Attributes: Households in 1st (lowest) Income Quintile, below 52,343 Croatian Kuna. Households in 2nd Income Quintile, from 52,343 to below 88,393 Croatian Kuna. Households in 3rd Income Quintile, from 88,393 to below 128,436 Croatian Kuna. Households in 4th Income Quintile, from 128,436 to below 188,822 Croatian Kuna. Households in 5th Income Quintile, 188,822 Croatian Kuna and above. Czech Republic (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Changed Attributes: Population 15 years and over by Education: without education – overall renamed to Population by Education: no formal education (ISCED 0). Population 15 years and over by Education: primary school and unfinished primary school- overall renamed to Population by Education: primary not completed. Population 15 years and over by Education: skilled and secondary technical without A level – overall renamed to Population by Education: primary and lower secondary education (ISCED 1, 2). Population 15 years and over by Education: secondary school with A level – overall renamed to Population by Education: secondary general with graduation. Population 15 years and over by Education: extension study – overall renamed to Population by Education: secondary technical with graduation. Population 15 years and over by Education: higher vocational education – overall renamed to Population by Education: post-secondary education non-tertiary (ISCED 4). Population 15 years and over by Education: university education – bachelor degree – overall renamed to Population by Education: post-secondary professional education (ISCED 5B). Population 15 years and over by Education: university education – master degree – overall renamed to Population by Education: Bachelor (ISCED 5A). Population 15 years and over by Education: not identified – overall renamed to Population by Education: Master (ISCED 5A). New Attributes: Population by Education: Doctoral Population by Education: secondary, incl. vocational education (ISCED 3C). Population by Education: undefined (younger than 15 years). Population by Education: unknown. Hungary (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Kosovo (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017. Latvia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Lithuania (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Macedonia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Moldova (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Montenegro (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Romania (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Serbia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. New area level: Naselija (Settlement). Slovakia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Slovenia (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. New Attributes: Marital Status: single. Marital Status: married. Marital Status: divorced. Marital Status: widowed. Households in 1st (lowest) Income Quintile, below 11,920 Euro. Households in 2nd Income Quintile, from 11,920 to below 18,711 Euro. Households in 3rd Income Quintile, from 18,711 to below 25,915 Euro. Households in 4th Income Quintile, from 25,915 to below 36,478 Euro. Households in 5th Income Quintile, 36,478 Euro and above. Ukraine (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Turkey (MB Research) All attributes have been updated from 2015 to 2017 with the exception of Unemployed Persons from 2014 to 2016. Changed Attributes: Population 6 years and over by Education: Literate but no school completed renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: literate without any diploma. Population 6 years and over by Education: Junior high school or vocational school at the same level renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: junior or vocational high school. Population 6 years and over by Education: High school or vocational school at the same level renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: high and vocational high school. Population 6 years and over by Education: Higher education renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: universities and other higher educational institutions. Population 6 years and over by Education: Master renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: master’s degree (including 5 or 6 years faculties). Population 6 years and over by Education: Doctorate renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: doctoral degree. Population 6 years and over by Education: Literacy status unknown renamed to Population 6 years and over by Education: unknown. Other Improvements Europe: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Poland (MB Research) Settlement Points are an estimate of likelihood of settlement at low levels and are used in the aggregation of demographic data to apportion and summarize data. The Settlement Points have been updated with this release. Users may see changes in returned results even though the demographic data itself has not been updated. Algeria (MB Research) Boundaries have been corrected to include missing unpopulated islands. Egypt (MB Research) Boundaries have been corrected to include missing unpopulated islands. Namibia (MB Research) Geography names have been corrected on names with special characters. Japan (Esri Japan) Average Savings per Household has been updated to display data in yen instead of units of 10,000 yen. How will these updates affect me? For the Ready-to-Use Living Atlas Maps User within ArcGIS Online Demographic layers and maps for 32 countries are updated. For the Business Analyst and Community Analyst User Business Analyst and Community Analyst users can access the updated data through reports, infographics, and maps. The complete attribute list for each country is accessible through the data browser contained in the application. For the Data Enrichment user in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Maps for Office The June 2018 update provides access to the datasets shown above. For a detailed explanation of new or deleted attributes in datasets, see the relevant sections above. For the Developer using the REST endpoints of the GeoEnrichment Service The underlying datasets of the REST endpoints of the GeoEnrichment Service were updated in June 2018. Some of the changes to the REST endpoints included in this release are: Changes to the layer IDs of the administrative/statistical boundaries. Changes to the layer names of the administrative/statistical boundaries. Changes to attributes/analysis variables including additions and deletions. Because of updates to the underlying data, users of the GeoEnrichment Service may need to update these items in the query parameters of REST requests to the service from their apps. To view the updated REST endpoints, you will need to access the GeoEnrichment Service with a developer or organizational account, using a token request. ... View more