ESRI will demonstrate ArcGIS, a complete platform for sharing and analyzing geospatial information on the Web, at the GeoWeb 2009 conference in Vancouver, Canada, July 27–31.
ArcGIS is a comprehensive platform for delivering geospatial information composed of vast amounts of geographic knowledge—data, models, analytic tools, maps, workflows, and metadata describing our world. This knowledge, created and maintained primarily by geographic information system (GIS) professionals, is increasingly being made available to everyday Web users and is playing a pivotal role in the decision-making process.
The GeoWeb makes geographic knowledge more available to people who don’t use geospatial technology on a daily basis but can benefit from it. ArcGIS, through the GeoWeb, allows everyone to leverage the billions of dollars already invested by governments and private organizations in developing basemaps, thematic datasets, and imagery. And, with ArcGIS, creators of geographic knowledge can maintain control over their authoritative data.
“Whether it is the direct use of 3D map visualizations in newscasts, map mashups on personal Web sites, or the broad implications of using interactive maps to visualize communities and organizations, consumer and commercial awareness of geospatial information has never been greater,” said Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI. “This is causing people to do more spatially integrated thinking, and we’re right in the midst of that revolution today.”
The ArcGIS platform is designed to effectively leverage the Web 2.0 environment and adheres to all Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc., and Web standards. ArcGIS features that support the GeoWeb include
- Capability to share and find geographic knowledge: Layer packages are a new way to easily share map data via e-mail, file servers, or the Web. Also, ArcGIS services can be discovered by search engines if exposed by the user and can be mashed up with other Web services to support new applications.
- Online content: ArcGIS Online provides access to many resources including basemaps, GIS services content, and user-generated GIS content and enables the sharing of these resources.
- Fast Web mapping: ArcGIS Server supports fast and high-quality mapping, globe services, and powerful geoprocessing services.
- 2D/3D geobrowser: ArcGIS Explorer is a powerful, free GIS viewer that implements many new functions attractive to Web 2.0 users and developers.
The ArcGIS platform for the GeoWeb will be featured in the following sessions at the GeoWeb 2009 conference:
Monday, July 27
- Working with the ESRI Flex APIs for Advanced Map RIAs—Duane Nickull and James Ward, Adobe
- Building Rich Internet Applications Using Flex and ArcGIS API—Mansour Raad, ESRI
Tuesday, July 28
- Leveraging the GIS Server Platform—Jeff Archer, ESRI
- Understanding and Building GIS Services—Jeff Archer, ESRI
Wednesday, July 29
- Geospatial Registries, Catalogs, and Search—Are We There Yet?—Satish Sankaran, ESRI
- Integrating Canadian Base Data for Use on the GeoWeb—Gordon Plunkett, ESRI Canada Limited
Thursday, July 30
- Delivering GIS to Everyone Using ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Online—Bern Szukalski, ESRI
- Future Directions in 3D Modeling and Visualization in Geographic Information Systems—John Sharrard, ESRI
For more information on ArcGIS and the GeoWeb, visit www.esri.com/geoweb.