Desktop: The Road Ahead
A lot of new technology gets demonstrated at the plenary very briefly. To compensate and complement this, there are a series of 'Road Ahead' sessions. Given the wide arrays of technologies shown, it's not surprising that there are several separate Road Ahead talks. I'm planning to catch the Desktop, Server, Geoprocessing and Geodatabase sessions. I saw the first two today (Unfortunately, the first Geoprocessing Road Ahead is the same time as my paper; it's a good thing there are 2 talks for each session).
The Desktop Road Ahead was the first session of the morning. The continuing theme is that 9.4 is an 'evolution' of the ArcGIS platform, not a major change. At the plenary, it was noted that there had been some debate as to whether to call this release 9.4 or 10 (indicating a significant change). If ArcGIS was still overwhelming a desktop product, the '10' argument would probably have won out; while ArcMap is still recognizably ArcMap, some serious changes have happened in the UI & under the hood.
The first thing they covered was the big question unanswered at the plenary- the timeline for 9.4. They're expecting a large, open Beta program this fall. I asked about eligibility at the Beta Island on the floor; it sounds like everyone who has an attendee at UC is going to be automatically enrolled in the Beta (I don't know if they have enough "bug buster" shirts for everyone, though). A pre-release candidate should be due early 2010, and 9.4 release in spring, with fully internationalized versions in 5-6 major languages (I missed the list, but the slide was showing Kanji) a few weeks later.
A key concept in the design of ArcMap was to preserve the current GIS workflows; unlike Office 2007, which fundamentally changed how things are done within that program. The menus and toolbars have been 'tidied up'; The Add Data entry on the file menu has grown to accommodate geocoding and x,y tables (though the button on the toolbar didn't seem to reflect this), the 'Tools' menu has been reduced to just the customization options and logically renamed and a Geoprocessing menu has been added. Geoprocessing tools are now accessible as buttons throughout the the UI, whether on a toolbar or in a menu item; this includes custom tools like models and script tools.
The entire look and feel should be very familiar if you've used Visual Studio, especially VS 2008. This is an interesting contrast to the use of the 'ribbon' interface in ArcGIS Explorer- it seems to underscore the notion of the expertise differential between the two program's users (everyone uses Office/AGX while not everyone uses VS/ArcMap). Anything that generates a persistent window can dock it's window inside the containers by dragging the window to the container and then selecting the location with positioning arrows. Panes can also be set to auto-hide, so that the map area is normally maximized. This includes a 'Catalog' window for browsing for data By default, ESRI wants us to work in an environment where the maps, data, other documents and perhaps even tools or other supporting GIS elements are stored together in one directory for the project- there are some browsing shortcuts that play off this notion. The catalog window in ArcMap doesn't create a separate lock on a gdb when accessing it, eliminating a common frustration of users- having ArcCatalog and ArcMap (separate applications) work on the same data is impossible. Also included is a 'Search' window that can be used to search for data (metadata or tags), maps and tools (styles/symbols also have a search interface, so you don't need to add them & then hunt for the right symbol). Another welcome addition is background geoprocessing, so you can start tasks and get back to your work (I asked: only one background GP process at a time).
Drawing performance has been significantly improved- I'm going to take a guess that they've moved over to the faster graphic engine that's responsible for the optimized map services in 9.3.1. That would explain the support for Maplex and Representations in the map services. A major new feature is the concept of a 'basemap' group layer- you place your background layers into a basemap group layer and it automatically caches the features and accelerates their drawing- the base map provides a continuous pan experience. I haven't gotten the full details on it, but I followed up with the staff member presenting it later- the basemap layers are pressed into images and feature querying is no longer possible, so I'm guessing that ArcMap is making a much more limited request from the geodb than a normal redraw takes (just enough to to process symbology, maybe- shape & categorizing data?). The display engine still needs some work, though- at several times in the presentation, a refresh had to be manually invoked.
A lot of tweaks have gone into working with features. Interactive selection has been beefed up, so that you can select by point, rectangle, or arbitrary area. The Selection tab is being replaced by 'Layers', which will make management of selectability and selection sets more obvious and better integrated with how the data is classified- in fact, I think the Layers tab will be the default tab for many people, rather than the TOC display. The editing environment now makes use of templates, again based on a classification set, which can control which fields are shown during editing and pre-fill values. These editing templates are applicable in both web and desktop contexts. Snapping is now a separate toolbar and more easily provides control and feedback on what features you're snapping to (and seems a lot quicker). Snapping is also available for all tools, so georeferencing scanned plats, for example, has just gotten a lot easier. The editing tools work in ArcScene in a 3-D environment and the editing tools are now unified for features, annotation and dimensioning.
One thing noted is that Mapping & Automation don't necessarily sound like they go together. If you've had to do a series of ~300 park maps you'd know otherwise. Thus the expansion of Python scripting into mapping and the major new feature in the Layout, data-driven pages. From talks after the presentation, it sounds like the data-driven pages is the tip of the iceberg that can be done with python. Essentially, data driven pages creates a series of maps based on a layer. Any layer- a uniform grid, points, arbitrary polygons. To get a uniform grid, there is now a "Create mapping grid" tool which creates a grid based on the extent/presence of a feature class. Just like any other multi-page output function, there are data-driven fields- the default ones are a little limited (relating only to environment, position within series, and the feature controlling the data), but can be expanded using python access to layout graphics. Python can also access properties of the map and layer documents; the big example is a bulk repointing of data locations (Find/replace *.shp -> SDE :) ). More will be in the Geoprocessing Road Ahead session, but it is absolutely clear in my mind that Python is the new AML.
They wrapped the talk with showing the RoadMap for developers/administrators. License management will be more flexible- license checkout will be supported, so you can log in first thing in the morning, check out a license, and hog it even if you don't have ArcMap. Win2K is not supported, Win7 will be. If you're doing .Net development, you'll need VS 2008 or 2010; VB 6 is dropped and VBA will be a separate install to start the withdrawal process.
From a development standpoint, this should be an easier transition- both 9.3.1 and 9.4 can be installed concurrently, so you can still use the 9.3.1 libraries. A *lot* of customization can be done through simply modifying the layer properties and ArcMap document, so some of the basic VBA tasks have disappeared. Python/Geoprocessing will be the environment of choice for analysis. For more complicated GUI modifications, "add-ons", written in .NET/Java but avoiding a lot of the registration overhead, can be developed and placed at a set location. I'm assuming ArcMap will load them, wrap them in a sandbox that handles application registration, and use them as if they were normal custom code. Unfortunately, I haven't seen an example of those yet.
All in all, I'm excited- it's a shame it's nearly a year out.
The Desktop Road Ahead was the first session of the morning. The continuing theme is that 9.4 is an 'evolution' of the ArcGIS platform, not a major change. At the plenary, it was noted that there had been some debate as to whether to call this release 9.4 or 10 (indicating a significant change). If ArcGIS was still overwhelming a desktop product, the '10' argument would probably have won out; while ArcMap is still recognizably ArcMap, some serious changes have happened in the UI & under the hood.
The first thing they covered was the big question unanswered at the plenary- the timeline for 9.4. They're expecting a large, open Beta program this fall. I asked about eligibility at the Beta Island on the floor; it sounds like everyone who has an attendee at UC is going to be automatically enrolled in the Beta (I don't know if they have enough "bug buster" shirts for everyone, though). A pre-release candidate should be due early 2010, and 9.4 release in spring, with fully internationalized versions in 5-6 major languages (I missed the list, but the slide was showing Kanji) a few weeks later.
A key concept in the design of ArcMap was to preserve the current GIS workflows; unlike Office 2007, which fundamentally changed how things are done within that program. The menus and toolbars have been 'tidied up'; The Add Data entry on the file menu has grown to accommodate geocoding and x,y tables (though the button on the toolbar didn't seem to reflect this), the 'Tools' menu has been reduced to just the customization options and logically renamed and a Geoprocessing menu has been added. Geoprocessing tools are now accessible as buttons throughout the the UI, whether on a toolbar or in a menu item; this includes custom tools like models and script tools.
The entire look and feel should be very familiar if you've used Visual Studio, especially VS 2008. This is an interesting contrast to the use of the 'ribbon' interface in ArcGIS Explorer- it seems to underscore the notion of the expertise differential between the two program's users (everyone uses Office/AGX while not everyone uses VS/ArcMap). Anything that generates a persistent window can dock it's window inside the containers by dragging the window to the container and then selecting the location with positioning arrows. Panes can also be set to auto-hide, so that the map area is normally maximized. This includes a 'Catalog' window for browsing for data By default, ESRI wants us to work in an environment where the maps, data, other documents and perhaps even tools or other supporting GIS elements are stored together in one directory for the project- there are some browsing shortcuts that play off this notion. The catalog window in ArcMap doesn't create a separate lock on a gdb when accessing it, eliminating a common frustration of users- having ArcCatalog and ArcMap (separate applications) work on the same data is impossible. Also included is a 'Search' window that can be used to search for data (metadata or tags), maps and tools (styles/symbols also have a search interface, so you don't need to add them & then hunt for the right symbol). Another welcome addition is background geoprocessing, so you can start tasks and get back to your work (I asked: only one background GP process at a time).
Drawing performance has been significantly improved- I'm going to take a guess that they've moved over to the faster graphic engine that's responsible for the optimized map services in 9.3.1. That would explain the support for Maplex and Representations in the map services. A major new feature is the concept of a 'basemap' group layer- you place your background layers into a basemap group layer and it automatically caches the features and accelerates their drawing- the base map provides a continuous pan experience. I haven't gotten the full details on it, but I followed up with the staff member presenting it later- the basemap layers are pressed into images and feature querying is no longer possible, so I'm guessing that ArcMap is making a much more limited request from the geodb than a normal redraw takes (just enough to to process symbology, maybe- shape & categorizing data?). The display engine still needs some work, though- at several times in the presentation, a refresh had to be manually invoked.
A lot of tweaks have gone into working with features. Interactive selection has been beefed up, so that you can select by point, rectangle, or arbitrary area. The Selection tab is being replaced by 'Layers', which will make management of selectability and selection sets more obvious and better integrated with how the data is classified- in fact, I think the Layers tab will be the default tab for many people, rather than the TOC display. The editing environment now makes use of templates, again based on a classification set, which can control which fields are shown during editing and pre-fill values. These editing templates are applicable in both web and desktop contexts. Snapping is now a separate toolbar and more easily provides control and feedback on what features you're snapping to (and seems a lot quicker). Snapping is also available for all tools, so georeferencing scanned plats, for example, has just gotten a lot easier. The editing tools work in ArcScene in a 3-D environment and the editing tools are now unified for features, annotation and dimensioning.
One thing noted is that Mapping & Automation don't necessarily sound like they go together. If you've had to do a series of ~300 park maps you'd know otherwise. Thus the expansion of Python scripting into mapping and the major new feature in the Layout, data-driven pages. From talks after the presentation, it sounds like the data-driven pages is the tip of the iceberg that can be done with python. Essentially, data driven pages creates a series of maps based on a layer. Any layer- a uniform grid, points, arbitrary polygons. To get a uniform grid, there is now a "Create mapping grid" tool which creates a grid based on the extent/presence of a feature class. Just like any other multi-page output function, there are data-driven fields- the default ones are a little limited (relating only to environment, position within series, and the feature controlling the data), but can be expanded using python access to layout graphics. Python can also access properties of the map and layer documents; the big example is a bulk repointing of data locations (Find/replace *.shp -> SDE :) ). More will be in the Geoprocessing Road Ahead session, but it is absolutely clear in my mind that Python is the new AML.
They wrapped the talk with showing the RoadMap for developers/administrators. License management will be more flexible- license checkout will be supported, so you can log in first thing in the morning, check out a license, and hog it even if you don't have ArcMap. Win2K is not supported, Win7 will be. If you're doing .Net development, you'll need VS 2008 or 2010; VB 6 is dropped and VBA will be a separate install to start the withdrawal process.
From a development standpoint, this should be an easier transition- both 9.3.1 and 9.4 can be installed concurrently, so you can still use the 9.3.1 libraries. A *lot* of customization can be done through simply modifying the layer properties and ArcMap document, so some of the basic VBA tasks have disappeared. Python/Geoprocessing will be the environment of choice for analysis. For more complicated GUI modifications, "add-ons", written in .NET/Java but avoiding a lot of the registration overhead, can be developed and placed at a set location. I'm assuming ArcMap will load them, wrap them in a sandbox that handles application registration, and use them as if they were normal custom code. Unfortunately, I haven't seen an example of those yet.
All in all, I'm excited- it's a shame it's nearly a year out.
posted by James Tedrick at
9:50 AM
1 Comments:
This was a very nice summary of the UC plenary. I work at ESRI and often times while working on very focused items, tend to lose the big picture. Your description was a nice refresher/reminder. Thank you.
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