jchurchill's blog

ArcGIS 10 is coming in June 2010

I've been trying to skim through all the new information about there about the upcoming release of ArcGIS in June. There are a bunch of new concepts and new features. There is a new thing called the default geoDatabase, more windows are dockable now, editing is enhanced, and lots of simple (say boring) things like that. They have built in a map book feature. You can export map books to pdf.

There are data-driven Pages (w/ customizable dynamic text). This allows you to make a series of maps that can be structured to iterate through a layer's features as the basis for each map. This feature will is customizable using python.

The full power of Python can be used inside of ArcMap. You could then use Python as your command line and scripting environments.


Yes we all have growing pains when there is a site redesign but for years now I've been finding everything I need by going to Google and doing a search and adding site:esri.com at the end of the search string. This searches for info only within esri.com. Google's search engine is so good that I find it far better than searching ESRI's website for information. Well it appears that they pulled the plug on that and you know have to log in through your ESRI Global account to access information. The worst part is that even if you are logged in, the links from Google take you to the front page (http://support.esri.com/en). Thanks for ruining access to your website ESRI. Way to go ! NOT.

exiftool is very cool

I discovered this command line tool called exiftool written by Phil Harvey. It is a platform independant Perl library used to manipulate, edit, read, write exif data in photographic images. So far I've written a bash script to geotag images using user supplied geographic coordinates (DMS format) but it can also use GPS log files to geotag and geosync your photos. By default it creates a backup of the original but can also write over the original instead. It looks like a pretty powerful little tool. I think it was about 8MB to install it and it is freeware.

How to access a misplaced ArcMap Window

Today I accidentally moved a Command Prompt window so far up and out of the way of my main ArcMap application window that I couldn't grab it and bring it back. Very nice (not). It took me awhile to figure out how to get it back. I added some comments and changed the GetDockableWindow function to the one I needed.

I found the answer here.

I never needed to even visit the link that he references but its here in case you want to see it.

5 out of 4 ESRI developers have trouble with simple fractions

The image says it all. Look at the number of records selected.

4770 out of 3515 records selected

Atlantis is still lost

Some folks thought they might have found the lost city of Atlantis using Google Ocean. However this article indicates that it just isn't so.

Hopes dashed as Google Ocean image of “lost city of Atlantis” proves to be nothing of the sort

When to Automate

I'm just pondering something that I think about fairly often when I'm asked to do some immense task like create output for 2,256 watersheds. That was today's task ... and by “today” I mean ... I'm not going to finish it today, it was just added to my inbox today. I have to use the 2001 NLCD to create forest/non-forest data and then clip out a piece for each of the 2,256 sheds to run Fragstats on. What I wonder about is how much of this can I automate with a script. The answer usually boils down to efficiency. I mean how much time would it take to write the script vs. how much time would it take to do it manually. Usually there are several steps (as in the present case) so I have to answer the question for each step. Sometimes a script can be useful in the future so it may be worth writing one even if it takes a little longer to write than to do it manually (because it will be so much quicker next time you have to do a similar task).

Happy GIS Day

I just couldn't not post something on GIS Day. Are you doing anything to celebrate GIS Day ? I posted the GIS day proclamation on the Landscape Ecology Lab door and I'm busy (well the computer is anyway) selecting National Parks that are within 20 km of a city with a population of greater than or equal to 50 thousand in an attempt to identify "Urban Parks". We'll see how it looks. Sounds like I'm doing a bit of GIS today I guess. That's the best way to celebrate GIS Day.

USPS using GIS to stop crime.

I read this article about an office of the US Postal Service (the Banking Service Act (BSA) Compliance Office) is using GIS to track crime. They are using ArcIMS and something called WebFocus. It seems like its used primarily to track money orders sold by USPS (especially multiple money orders or those with large sums of money) that may be part of money laundering crimes.

Missing VB Editor (follow up)

As a follow-up to my last post, completely uninstalling the program didn't work. Then our systems administrator asked if the toolbox worked as a different user. It did work as a different user so I had to kill my user account on my main machine. It wasn't a terrible ordeal but also not the greatest solution but at least I've got my toolbox back.

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