Publishing Your Own Maps To ArcGIS Server 10 For Use In ArcGIS For iOS

ArcGIS for iOS was released last week and made available for download from the App Store as a productivity application. Since it’s release there has been lots of talk with users rushing to try many of the new features offered. Information on it’s release can be found here: http://geo.geek.nz/esri/…

Using ArcGIS.com you can create your own maps and view them in ArcGIS for iOS, however there are several reasons where you might not want to host your maps on ArcGIS.com and for these cases, ArcGIS for iOS has the ability to consume maps directly from your ArcGIS Server instance.

Now this works differently to the way ArcGIS Mobile works for consuming maps. Maps to be used on ArcGIS for iOS need to configured before they can be consumed using a REST interface.

When you install ArcGIS Server (.NET or Java Edition) on your web server, the install includes an on-premise “content server” that serves as a repository for the maps you can create and open on an iOS device as well as ArcGIS Mobile
projects.

The default location of the rest endpoint can be found at http://server-name/arcgis-instance/mobile/content. You will see two sources for content storage at that rest endpoint – “MobileWeb” and “WindowsMobile”.

WindowsMobile is used by ArcGIS Mobile 10 while MobileWeb is used by ArcGIS for iOS.

Inside MobileWeb there is a Map folder. This the default folder with the option to create your own folders allowing you to categorise your maps.

Inside a folder you have the ability to Add Items. Items are maps that will be accessible for use on ArcGIS for iOS. ArcGIS for iOS uses JSON to format to the content of the map so we have to use something like notepad to define a few services.

The structure is as follows:

{
   "version":"1.1",
   "operationalLayers":[
      {
         "url":"http://events.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Gulf_Coast_ESI/MapServer",
         "visibility":true,
         "opacity":0.75,
         "title":"Environmental Sensitivity"
      },
      {
         "url":"http://events.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Gulf_Coast_Oil_Spill_Forecast/
MapServer",
         "visibility":true,
         "opacity":1,
         "title":"Oil Spill Forecast"
      }
   ],
   "baseMap":{
      "baseMapLayers":[
         {
            "url":"http://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Topo_Map/MapServer"
         }
      ],
      "title":"Topography"
   }
}

Using the Add Item, you can define you map to be published with the text being the JSON defining the services to be used when the map is consumed.

A success message will be displayed if everything has been correctly entered.

The added item can now be seen in the Maps folder.

Using ArcGIS for iOS you can now connect the ArcGIS Server where your map has been published to and consume this.

The format of connecting to your ArcGIS Server should be: //mobile”>http://<server-name>/<arcgis-instance>/mobile.

With many users of ArcGIS for iOS asking how they can publish their own maps to ArcGIS Server 10 for use, a document outlining this process has been made available here: http://help.arcgis.com/en/…. This document provides extra detail around some of the input operations and format required when publishing maps for use.