ESRI has updated the tutorial on how users can go about preparing data for use with the ArcGIS 9.3 Network Analyst Extension. Instructions along with sample data has been provided. Download and unzip the data, ‘DataAndDoc.zip’, from the Related Information section below, and then follow the instructions located in ‘ArcGIS Network Analyst data prep tutorial.doc’. A number of a users run into problems when using this extension. This tutorial should help them fix up some of these issues. The download with the instructions can be found here:...

Earlier this month ESRI released the new ArcGIS Server 9.3 Flex API. Full information about this release can be found here: http://mandown.co.nz/esri/…  ESRI has now released a press release about the new ArcGIS Server 9.3 Flex API. Redlands, California—ESRI announced the new ArcGIS API for Flex Beta at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California, which was held August 4–8, 2008. The new ArcGIS Server 9.3 Flex API offers a bundle of advantages to web mapping users. The ArcGIS Server 9.3 Flex API is being offered as a free download. ArcGIS API for Flex is integrated...

Now that the ESRI International User Conference 2008 has concluded, the focus has moved to our ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2008. This is fast approaching and registrations for this opened yesterday. This year we will be offering a number of pre-conference workshops along with some excellent content in the Eagle Technology Group Ltd stream. The schedule for the pre-conference workshops has been posted with the full agenda coming very soon. We are just in the last stages of finalising this. Registration information along with information on the pre-conference workshops can be found here:...

ESRI has released a new patch that enables you to make use of Microsoft Virtual Earth maps via ArcGIS Online in ArcGIS 9.3. A valid subscription or free evaluation is required in order to use this ArcGIS Online Premium Service. ESRI® announces the ArcGIS 9.3 (Desktop & Engine) for Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ ArcGIS Online Premium Service. The Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps premium service collection is a new offering from ArcGIS Online. It enables you to use the Microsoft Virtual Earth Roads, Aerial and Hybrid web map services in ArcMap 9.3. When accessed, each of these services appears as a...

The ArcGIS Explorer Development Team has released ArcGIS Explorer Build 500! The ArcGIS Explorer Team is pleased to announce that ArcGIS Explorer 500 was released just a few minutes ago. There are a few changes in updated release. Support for ArcGIS Online subscription services. Proxy server support improvements. A change to allow installation on machines running Windows 2000. Information on this release can be found here: http://blogs.esri.com/info/… You can download this latest version...

Every year we run a competition for all of our users in New Zealand allowing one lucky individual to win a trip to the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego. This competition titled “Benefits From GIS” is a poster competition which will be judged at the ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2008. All posters submitted will be on display at the conference which will be held from the 21st to the 23rd October 2008 in Rotorua. Here are some of the details about this competition: Aim To recognize those who are using GIS to benefit the organisation deploying it.  This is not a poster...

ESRI will be hosting a web seminar on how you can get you online maps to run faster. The web seminar will focus on caching strategies with ArcGIS Server 9.3. The live training seminar Implementing and Optimizing ArcGIS Server Map Caches will air on ESRI’s Training and Education Web site at www.esri.com/lts on August 28, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. (Pacific daylight time). There are many different ways to go about to caching and coming up with a strategy is very important. We have come up with a strategy that we make use of in house for all our caching. This makes the caching...

This is pretty easy to get working in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. In order to get this working you need to tell Intellisense the location of the libraries you are using. Ken Cox has written a great article on how to get this working. Telling Intellisense is just a matter of adding a special comment at the top of the .js file. Three slashes followed by the reference in an XML element syntax. /// <reference path=”jquery-1.2.6.js” /> Intellisense will parse the referenced file and once you start typing you should see the jQuery members. Full information on this can be...

This has been talked about since the ESRI Developer Summit 2008 earlier this year and earlier this week Richie Carmichael wrote up about a new Microsoft Silverlight map viewer that he has developed for ArcGIS Server 9.3. The Silverlight map viewer is a proof of concept developed by the ESRI Prototype Lab.  The viewer is based on the MultiScaleImage control which is also known as DeepZoom.  DeepZoom is essentially a technology for viewing an image pyramids.  A popular implementation of the DeepZoom technology is the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia web page. The map viewer is based on...

Many users ask this question when dealing with raster data. Should you load raster data into an ArcSDE geodatabase? The Geodatabase Development Team has answered this question. The pro’s of making use of an ArcSDE Geodatabase: Fast data accessThe geodatabase stores your data in blocks, which allows ArcGIS to access only the blocks of data that you need to use. Once loaded, this format allows ArcGIS to access your data very quickly. Multi-user accessThe geodatabase allows multi-user access to data whereas most file formats are not meant for multi-user operations. CompressionRaster data can be...