Latest Contributions by danan

With ArcGIS Diagrammer being an unsupported Esri research project, GDB XRay being an unsupported tool to round-trip geodatabase design using Excel, and an uncertain future with Visio support for geodatabase design (not to mention being locked into a specific tool), Esri should reconsider developing a UML Profile of the Geodatabase. I've posted an entry to ideas.esri.com that you can vote on if you agree. For those who don't know, http://ideas.arcgis.com is a newish site where you can propose and vote on new features for Esri products. Seeing lots of good stuff there that I've personally pined for in the Geodatabase and ArcSDE area (one I've championed in the past is getting GDBT to be core--and that seems to be getting traction). Glad to see Esri has provided a quantitative process for listening to and implementing customers' feature wish lists. The "ideas" site is a great improvement over trying to petition your local sales rep, commiserating with colleagues in person or on the forums, and other suboptimal approaches to getting Esri to consider new features. So, regardless of whether you like the UML Profile idea (it may well be a stinker), please participate in the ideas.arcgis.com process. Surely it's not a true democracy (and the customer may not always be right), but I applaud the introduction of a more quantitative, centralized and systematic approach to dispositioning new ideas vs. a qualitative, decentralized, anecdotal one. Here is a link to the UML Profile of the Geodatabase idea: http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=087300000008GyNAAU Here is a link to Geodatabase "idea" requests: http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaList?category=Geodatabase And here is a link to ArcGIS Server "idea" requests: http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaList?c=09a300000004xET&category=ArcGIS+Server Anyway, since the XML Schema of the Geodatabase can exhaustively represent all geodatabase features--and one proof is ArcCatalog being able to import and export XML Workspace Documents--I believe it's possible in principle to develop a UML Profile of the Geodatabase. With a UML Profile of the Geodatabase, you could load that into the UML design tool of your choice and perform modern geodatabase design. Enterprise Architect (EA) from Sparx Systems, incidentally, is an inexpensive (around USD two hundred dollars per license) and seems to be used by Esri's Professional Services division (at least for application design on some consulting engagements): http://community.sparxsystems.com/casestudies/geospatial/esri-location-based-service-delivery You'd have the ability, at least with EA, to trace back GDB features to requirements and Use Cases. It would be immensely helpful to have a way to communicate geodatabase designs to non-GIS folks throughout the Enterprise--people like DBAs, Enterprise Architects, and others wanting to integrate with GIS. Although GIS is maturing and becoming more consonant with Enterprise IT, geodatabase design has a bit of a way to go. I believe a UML Profile could be a good potential direction. Using ArcCatalog is too ad hoc to create and communicate Very Large Geodatabase designs and the other tools out there are incomplete. If it's not a UML Profile of the Geodatabase that improves this condition, that's fine. Just hope it's something that elevates geodatabase design closer to where relational database design is today. Hoping that by having posted an idea to ideas.arcgis.com it will be appropriately dispositioned--e.g. put to rest due to lack of interest from the community or elevated to "under consideration" if enough folks vote for it. Again, UML for Geodatabase Design may not be "the" answer or even "a" viable answer. But I feel its something that ought to reviewed seriously in relation to potential and current options available for geodatabase design; design in a fashion consonant with other modern design and documentation methods for data models and data modeling. Something, whether it be a UML Profile or not, should better satisfy the need to mature the geodatabase design process. I understand Esri has attempted to provide a UML modeling capability with Visio, but that the approach is based on ArcObjects. It may be better to start fresh and create a UML Profile modeled with a view of the geodatabase and its features as things in themselves (non-GIS staff, and even some GIS staff, aren't necessarily going to understand or care about ArcObjects). For reference, here's an older thread on using UML for geodatabase design: http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=985&t=286789 ... View more

In ArcMap, you can zoom to whatever scale you like, you always know what scale you're at, and you can choose from a drop-down of commonly used scales--or define your list of common scales for the drop-down box. AGX has a drop-down of "named" scales that I don't find very useful--something like World, Country, etc. If it's a stretch to display the numeric map scale OOTB or provide a freeform zoom to scale box, then at least provide an option to turn it on. GIS for Everyone should not be synonymous with  GIS for Dummies. I haven't used Google Earth, but does Google hide the map scale and disallow zooming to the scale of one's choice? One might say that people use AGX mostly to consume web services (and these have fixed scales). But AGX also allows one to add local data (shapefiles, gdbs, etc). It's frustrating to be able to do that, yet not have any control over which scale one is at. There is an experimental Add-in for some of this (great start), but it needs to be core OOTB functionality: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/6529-Specify-an-arbitrary-map-scale-to-zoom-to-in-ArcGIS-Explorer-900-and-higher ... View more

It would be terrific to have a UML Profile of the Geodatabase for Geodatabase Design. Then one could use the UML tool of one's choice for Geodatabase Design (Enterprise Architect, etc) and not be locked into using Visio. Diagrammer is great, but it's an unsupported research project; and it can't be used to trace GDB items back to requirements and use cases.   Since the XML Schema of the Geodatabase can exhaustively describe everything in a geodatabase, a UML Profile of the Geodatabase should be possible in principle. Translators / translation code may be an issue. But since ArcCatalog can import and export XML Workspace Documents, I don't see why a UML Profile couldn't be developed that, if used, could generate valid XML Workspace Documents and thus be loaded into ArcCatalog for geodatabase instantiation. We really need something better for geodatabase design than what we presently have.   It may ultimately be up to the user community to develop a UML Profile of the Geodatabase. UML may be a bit too obscure / underadopted by the geodatabase design community for Esri to commit the resources to this. However, I agree with commentators in other places who bemoan the inability to use good CASE tools such as those that exist for relational database design--and the difficulty in communicating geodatabases with the wider community of  non-GIS IT folks like DBAs, Enterprise Architects, etc. A UML Profile of the Geodatabase, along with a way to provide full round-trip design, would go a long way toward integrating GIS into the broader bucket of Enterprise IT and beyond. GIS is growing up. Would love to see geodatabase design mature in step with this trend. ... View more

Thought this made more sense as a stand-alone post. Basic Question: With ArcGIS Explorer 1500, is it possible to extract data from an ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 service? By "extract data", I mean can an AGX 1500 user export data from an AGS 9.3.1 service out to a shapefile or geodatabase? What are the options? And can we expect to see additional data extract options for the next release of AGX? Our users would benefit significantly by an ability to "clip" data from a map service and save it to local disk for other purposes. Futher Detail and Follow-on Questions When choosing Share > Layer Package, there is a grayed-out option labeled "Include ArcSDE geodatabase data". Is this option only enabled when an AGX 1500 user, with the Data Expansion Pack installed, has Direct Connect SDE layers opened? If that's the case, we can ignore this as an extract option because we don't presently allow users to make SDE connections via AGX 1500. Data access should be indirect for our publishing system, e.g. via AGS services only. The only method I know to save data from a map service is to perform a query with the new AGX 1500 Query tool. This creates a Query Layer. When the map document is saved, the *.nmf file then appears to contain the features from the Query Layer. Not sure if it's both geometry and attributes. But this doesn't satisfy what I'm after. ArcGIS Desktop allows data to be saved off to a personal or file geodatabase, if and only if (evidently) an ArcSDE-based geodata service with the same name as a map service is manually created. Once that pair is available, a user can enable the Distributed Geodatabase toolbar and click the Extract Data icon. Is the same, or similar, functionality available in AGX 1500? A geodata service in isolation (out of the box) seems useless in both ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Explorer 1500; e.g. once created, you don't seem able to add a geodata service directly. Perhaps these are only accessible via an API.  To repeat, the only way I was to accomplish any proper data extraction at all in ArcGIS Desktop was to create two services--one map service and one geodatabase service--with the same name, add the map service to ArcMap, and click the Extract Data icon on the Distributed Geodatabase toolbar. I hope Esri will improve the AGS doc set on creating and using geodata services in an out-of-the-box fashion. I've heard one can use a Feature Service to extract data; but Feature Services (are they not?) are only available at ArcGIS Server 10. Can AGX 1500 presently consume Feature Services *and* use them to extract data? Or is this an ability only ArcMap 10 has? ... View more

In the web help, it says layer packages can be opened by ArcMap 9.3.1 clients. I have an ArcMap 9.3.1 client (no service packs) and can't get it to open any AGX 1500 layer packages I've created. ArcMap simply doesn't seem to recognize the *.lpk extension. However, AGX 1500 itself can open the layer packages without issue: http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisexplorer/1500//en/sharing_layer_packages.htm [INDENT]"The layer package can be opened by ArcGIS Desktop versions 9.3.1 and newer, as well as ArcGIS Explorer." [/INDENT] Dragging the layer package onto ArcMap's Table of Contents results in an error ("Could not open the specified document") and *.lpk files are not recognized in ArcMap from the Add Data dialog. What might I be doing wrong, or was this functionality released only for ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 SP1 and/or SP2? Hoping it's user error on my part. Also, what needs to occur to enable users to save data from a map service as part of a layer package? Currently, I get a grayed-out check box for saving ArcSDE data (which our AGS 9.3.1 map services are, in fact, based on). Do I need to install the data expansion pack or is this option simply not allowed for a map service? Do I need to set up a geodata service? ... View more