Geospatial World

ESRI’s ArcPy… A VBAish Replacement? Maybe…

2011-07-21T08:20:00.000-06:00

I haven’t done much, actually nothing, in the way of development over the last year at SRK. Last week at the ESRI UC there was an awful lot of talk about Python, and ArcPy. I didn’t actually attend any ArcPy sessions, other than watching a bit of one demo in the showcase area. However, one of my colleagues did take in an ArcPy session and was quite excited about, and what it has to offer.

I have done a considerable amount a VBA in the Autodesk products, and moved onto the .NET world when VBA was deprecated. I do not consider my self a ‘heads-down’ developer, but more of a hacker/compiler/scripter, and I was not one of those people that could not leave VBA behind and complained to anyone who would listen that ESRI, Autodesk, <insert any company name licensing VBA), and Microsoft were pure evil for moving on from VBA. There are a MANY reasons why it was time to move, the biggest being 64bit, but I’m not getting into that here.

Where am I going with this you ask?

Well, my first real exposure to Python + ArcPy this morning has me quite excited. WRT to ESRI products at least, this is, and should be, a very viable replacement for VBA scripting. As I was perusing the ArcPy help I saw a sample on how to Export a Map to PDF. “Wow!” I thought, “this could save me A LOT of time if I could script it to process all MXDs in a given folder” So, off I went and within an hour I had the script created and a GP Tool Dialog to allow the user to select the folder to process and generate PDFs for all of the MXDs in the selected folder. I have to re-iterate, I had not touched or used Python or ArcPy previous to this endeavour. It is a very easy to read and use scripting language that I can see a TON of use for. I will be continuing to look for ways to automate processes via ArcPy.
The Python command line in the ArcGIS Products has Intellisense built-in, and anybody with VBA experience would catch on to the syntax in no time at all.

ESRI UC Wrap-up

2011-07-17T19:30:00.004-06:00

Well, I’m back at home after a very early Saturday morning flight out of San Diego. It always seems like a good idea to book these early flights to get home in good time, but I sure wasn’t thinking that when my alarm went off at 3:45am Saturday morning…

Friday was the final day at the ESRI UC, and I attended what turned out to be an ad-hoc combined session including: ‘Working with ArcGIS Online’, and ‘Authoring and Using Great Web Maps’. These sessions were combined, and moved to a larger room, due to the standing room only offerings of these same sessions earlier in the week. The session provided some useful information on the ArcGIS online offerings including ArcGIS Online for Organizations which looks very interesting.

Following this morning session was our SRK GIS meeting. This meeting was one of the primary reasons for us attending the ESRI UC, and this meeting was an opportunity for us to gather and discuss a number of items wrt GIS within SRK. We had a great meeting with many good ideas and suggestions brought forward and it was fun to discuss the exciting new developments everyone had seen during the week, and to hear how other offices are using GIS. We have defined a number of ‘next steps’ to help move GIS forward within our organization.

All-in-all my first ESRI UC experience was a very good one. It is similar in many ways to Autodesk University as far as technical user conferences go: there are some great sessions, and there are some so-so sessions. The trick is to learn how to read between the lines of the session titles and short abstracts to determine the value of the session. It was nice to catch-up with some former clients, to meet a lot of great people, and it truly was incredible to to be at an event with one single focus… GIS.

On a personal note, after our meeting I was able to take in a few of the sites down on the waterfront, including: USS Midway, and a San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants ball game where I was able to see Tim Lincecum dominate the home team for a 6-1 Giants win.

Some photos from San Diego:

Until next time,
Take care.
Warren M

ESRI UC - Day 2 & 3

2011-07-14T09:31:00.000-06:00

A couple days of very good sessions here in San Diego. The ArcGIS Server Performance and Scalabilty sessions yesterday provided valuable info wrt to testing and optimizing large scale implementations. Today I've taken in a couple JavaScript API sessions, and a Web Editing session.

I've been extremely impressed by how the ESRI Showcase area is setup in the exhibit hall. There are islands, and areas to sit down with a computer and discuss and try out every piece of technology available with ESRI personnel. You can also book a time or drop in to discuss your techical issues with the Tech Support team!

On the downside, its disappointing that coffee isn't even provided first thing in the morning... Good thing there are an abundance of 'insert well known brand here' coffee kiosks in the convention center.

ESRI UC - Day 1

2011-07-11T20:31:00.007-06:00

So imagine my complete and utter surprise when I walked into the SDCC, where I thought I was going to know no-one except my SRK colleagues that I had yet to meet, and the first person I see is a fellow AU presenter Gordon Luckett of Arrow Geomatics! It is truly bizarre that in a sea of over 13,000 people, that I just happened to walk in that particular entrance, and Gord happened to be standing right there... All I can muster is bizarre!!!! I was great to catch up with Gord, and I'm sure we'll cross paths this week.

Anywho... As I mentioned previously, today was the Plenary Sessions to kick off the conference. Jack Dangermond discussed his GIS Vision for the coming year, and years, followed by various technical demonstrations. Highlights of the sessions included:

ArcGIS innovations including new features of the upcoming 10.1
ArcGIS Online improvements
64 bit support
Improved LiDAR support
Geodatabase administration tools

I managed to track down my SRK colleagues and finally meet some of the people I have had communications with over the last 11 months.

Keynote speakers included:

Timothy T. Schilling and Michele Adesir-Schilling discussing the Green Living Project, which enabled Rwandan coffee farmers to produce a better quality coffee bean to supply the international specialty coffee market.
Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environement Agency, discussed the 'one degree' change in temperature, and how it will impact the earth.

Well, I need to figure out my sessions for tomorrow, so until next time, take care.

Warren

ESRI UC 2011

2011-07-11T00:16:00.006-06:00

Well it's funny how almost 3 months can get away from a person... Oh well, as I've said in the past, life gets in the way...

I am excited to currently be in San Diego where I will be attending the 2011 edition of the annual ESRI User Conference this week. ESRI UC is truly an international conference with over 13,000 attendees from over 120 countries around the world.

Tomorrow kicks off with the Plenary sessions, and then followed up with a few days of a wide range of sessions including: technical workshops, Special Interest Group meetings, vendor presentations, and much more.

We (SRK Consulting) are also using this event an opportunity for some of the GIS leaders within our organization to gather and have a discussion on a wide variety of topics WRT GIS within SRK. I'm really looking forward to meeting ,and learning from, all of my colleagues from around the world in attendance.

ArcGIS Printing and Google Chrome browsers

2011-04-15T12:10:00.004-06:00

I know, I know... it's been a while... no excuses other than, 'life'.

So, over the last number of days I've been noticing my ArcGIS locking up when I would goto print. Now, if this happening once in a while I probably wouldn't have given it much thought, however, this seemed to be happening quite frequently as of late. I would usually just kill the arcmap process, and try again.

The last couple of times this occured, I happened to notice (before I ended task) that my Google Chrome browser would locked up as well when the print was executed from ArcGIS. Odd... oh well, kill both processes, and re-try.

This last time I noticed that during this 'lock-up' in ArcGIS, if I killed the Chrome process, voila, the print dialog would appear. Ok... now this tells me there is a direct link between the two. A quick Google search, and it appears I'm not the only one experiencing this.

I will continue to do some more troubleshooting and see if this can be resolved.

Until next time,

Take care.

Warren M

ArcGIS TRACE

2011-03-06T21:49:00.000-06:00

As far as GIS/CAD integration goes, I have long stated you should choose the best tool for the job you are trying to do. As such, I have held the belief that if you are doing pure vector data creation/design work, a 'CAD' tool is probably better suited, and vice versa, if you are performing spatial analysis, high end cartographic output a 'GIS' tool is probably your tool of choice.

Over the last number of years I've been talking about how the lines are being blurred between these two camps based on recent advancements in many software tools. One tool that I've found to be extremely powerful in the Arc* products is the Trace command, and I have to admit that some of my beliefs are being challenged a little in light of some recent work I've been doing.

For example, let's say I'm working on a watershed analysis, and creating boundaries to represent the watershed. Now I'm not talking about an automated analysis procedure here, I'm taking about simply digitizing by evaluating contour elevations and other known features.

Consider the following graphic. The 2 red lines represent a water shed boundary, and of course the blue are represents a water body. Now that I have defined the watershed boundaries, I would like to create closed area's to be able to extract an overall area of the watershed.

In the past, I likely would have used a CAD tool for this, and through a series of polyline editing, trimming, cutting, etc, I would have come up with the polygon boundary along the water body edge.

However... this would be a great application of the Trace tool, to 'trace' along existing features.

With the Trace command enabled, you simply click on a feature you want to trace along, and move the cursor along that feature and voila. You can even select a different feature to trace along just by clicking on that feature to set it as the class to trace.

This would be a very handy tool for the 'CAD' vendors to implement into their suite of tools. Hint, hint, hint...

Warren

Hello Yellowknife...

2011-03-01T10:24:00.025-06:00

I'm currently in Yellowknife, NT, and I've always wanted to get up here, but I must say, that I was hoping to do this in the summer sometime, as I hear it is beautiful up there. I guess the only bonus is that it is currently colder here at home, than it is up there! :-) Regardless, this should be a great trip and I'm really looking forward to it.

The purpose of this trip is to go onsite and see first hand one of the projects I am working on, and to get some 'face time' with other people involved in this project.

The project is a 'Freeze Optimization Study' which is part of the larger Giant Mine remediation plan. The main goal of the FOS is to study different ground freezing technologies. For those that do not know, Giant Mine is located in Yellowknife, NT and it produced gold from 1948 to 1999.

The remediation project contains many facets including:

The clean-up of the surface project
Stabilization and securing of the underground project
The maintenance and monitoring for health and safety

See the following INAC link for more details.

During production at Giant, a byproduct of the mining process was arsenic trioxide dust.

Approximately 237,000 tonnes of the dust was produced and stored underground in 15 purpose-built chambers and mined-out stopes, which are step-like parts of the mine where minerals are extracted. The dust is about 60% arsenic. To prevent the release of arsenic into the groundwater around the mine, the Remediation Plan calls for the arsenic trioxide dust and the rock around each chamber and stope to be completely frozen.

Hence, the Freeze Optimization Study. The results of this study will be used for the environmental assessment process, and to provide information on all aspects of the operation including the power requirements, consumption, and rate of freezing. These results will not only provide information on how the various technologies might perform, but these results will be able to be compared against what was originally modeling to determine how close the modeling was to the actual results.

So how do you freeze something that is underground you ask?

Ground freezing technology is a proven method and has been around for over 30 years. Take a look at the Frozen Block Method. And here you can find a case study of ground freezing at McArthur River uranium mine

You might be wondering what sort of 'geospatial' component there is to this project...

My role in this project is managing the data collection from the sensing equipment, and providing processes and access to the data for our people to perform the required analysis. There are over 700 instruments collecting temperature and flow data at 30min intervals.

Here are a few additional links with information on the project:

Northern News Service Online

What's Happening at Giant Mine (INAC newsletter)

Until next time,
Stay warm,

Warren

ArcGIS Mosaic to New Raster

2011-03-01T09:04:00.013-06:00

I've noticed a little 'gotcha' with the new Mosaic to New Raster command in ArcGIS 10...

I do like the new quasi background processing in ArcGIS 10, but the indicator in the status bar seems a little quirky at times, and during a long running process like the Mosaic to New Raster command it seems particularly problematic. Fyi, James Fee's GIS Blog also talks about some of the UI quirks in ArcGIS 10.

When the command is running, the progress indicator starts up, but then it will just go blank for long periods of time.

Is the process completed? Is it still working?

Well, it turns out that it is indeed still working away in the background, however, there is no visual indication of this. If you watch close, you might notice every once in a while you will see the progress indicator start scrolling again for a couple seconds, but then will disappear again?

Finally, after some time, which will depend on the size of raster data you are mosaicing, the completed message will pop-up.

I'll have to pay closer attention to this to see if this is an issue with all long running processes.

Until next time,
Take care.

Warren

ArcGIS Query Layers follow-up

2011-02-02T09:13:00.004-06:00

I just realized I neglected to mention a very important key item in my original post on ArcGIS Query Layers.

2 words…

READ-ONLY

Yes, unfortunately, these Query Layers are read-only, and I don’t just mean the geometries are read-only, even the attribute data is read-only.

Maybe in ArcGIS 11 these will be fully accessible and editable?

One can hope!

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Reason 149…

2011-02-02T09:13:00.003-06:00

I just thought of something…

My recent post is reason #149 to make the move to an enterprise spatial database (or at least a geodatabase) if you’re working heavily in the ESRI world…

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

GISP Proposal for Exam Requirement

2011-02-01T20:11:00.000-06:00

Last week the GISCI had a press release announcing:

GISCI Invites Comment on Proposed Examination Requirement

From the GISCI website:

“After much consideration and deliberation, the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) invites you to review a proposal to update requirements for GIS Professional (GISP) certification. Key among the proposed updates is the addition of a required examination.”

This press release is inviting people to comment on the proposal to update the GISP requirements to include a required examination.

Now, anyone that is already a GISP, or has considered becoming a GISP, or has followed the GISP saga, is probably well aware of the numerous debates on the many social networking sites with respect to ‘what’ being a GISP really means. I have contributed to many of those discussions, and don’t intend to re-start or re-hash the details here. All I’m going to say is, if you have an opinion on this topic, don’t sit back, go make your voice heard and get involved.

The proposal can be read here, and today the site went live, so go make your voice heard!

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Lifelong learning…

2011-01-29T14:11:00.001-06:00

Lifelong learning is something I have tried to practice my entire life. Over the years, this learning has occurred on many different levels and taken many different forms. Whether it was the formal college/technical school education in my earlier years, or the years I’ve spent in the software industry keeping up with all the latest a greatest technologies, or my recent experiences with online education through SAIT Polytechnic, it has been a fantastic experience.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I was not a great student in High School… I struggled quite a bit for a variety of reasons including: too many distractions, poor study habits, and a lack of focus ( I was going to be a rock star! ). I guess I would consider myself a late bloomer, because it wasn’t until I was a little older (and assumedly more mature, although that is debatable…) that I started to enjoy the ‘learning experience’.

This might seem like an odd/off topic compared to my usual ranting's you say, but there is a method to my madness…

After 6 years of some long, late nights, working though lunches, juggling family and personal commitments, I am extremely happy to report that I recently graduated with honours from the Bachelor of Applied GIS Degree program!

This was a fantastic experience, and I learned a great deal and really enjoyed the online learning experience.

A HUGE thanks to my incredible family for enduring and supporting me through this entire adventure!!

Until next time,
Keep on learning!

Warren M

Paths, Paths, and Longer Paths...

2011-01-28T23:43:00.000-06:00

Oh those pesky long paths and filenames...

It seems I had a brain lock and had forgotten how picky ArcGIS can be with paths and filenames. I must have been having a bad day, because I can usually sleuth these things out, but alas, it was my IT department that was successful in resolving the problems I was having. So needless to say, I was a little embarrassed that I missed this obvious one.

What were the problems you ask?

Well, I found that I could not preview some GRID data in ArcCatalog. I didn't think that was a big deal as I’ve come across this on occasion and haven’t thought much about it.

That was until I went to add this raster GRID to a map and ArcMap reported 'Invalid raster dataset'

Huh? What's going on?

To make a long story short, the path was too long... If you create a mapped location to a shorter path and voila! The preview works and I was able to add the GRID to a map.

Now, besides being extremely frustrating, this was a time consuming, resource wasting and costly process to determine the cause. It's obvious that ESRI some has pretty talented developers by the innovative products they’ve created. That said, why couldn't an appropriate error message be displayed instead of 'invalid data'? I don't know, maybe something like ‘The selected file path is too long', or ‘The file path and/or name contains invalid characters'.

I don't know about you, but when I see a software application report 'invalid data' I presume the worst... but in this case it was a simple issue... if only the software could have told me how simple it was...

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

ArcGIS Query Layers

2010-12-19T12:46:00.001-06:00

Over the last couple of years, spatial database technologies have become easier to acquire, implement and configure. Whether it's Microsoft's foray into spatial databases with the release of SQL Server 2008, the numerous Open Source spatial database options, or Oracle, organizations are starting to see the value applying a geographic context to their corporate data.

To make things even easier and more appealing to get into a spatial database, are the ‘free’ of the Open Source communities and the following offerings by Microsoft & Oracle:

Both of these RDBMS are “Free to develop, deploy, and distribute”. This means that anybody can download, and start building a ‘GIS’ warehouse with very minimal costs. Obviously, there are some limitations with these free offerings and they are not going to provide base for a large enterprise solution, but they are a great way to get into the technology.

ESRI has been spatially enabling databases for years, and has solidly established themselves as ‘the’ GIS tool of choice, and some might even argue that ESRI = GIS. The spatial enabling component for ESRI has been something called SDE: Spatial Data Engine. Although this is no longer a separate component, it is still the core of how ESRI manages spatial data in a RDBMS.

My problem with this approach has always been that the data was ‘locked up’, and you needed to go through SDE to get at it. Not really the best solution to provide interoperability…

I have long held the philosophy that in the geospatial world, it shouldn't matter what tool you need to use to do your job, the data should be open and available, and you should use the best tool suited for your task.

It’s no secret that if you need to perform pure vector data creation, a CAD tool is probably more suited to that task, but if on the other hand you need to work with very large datasets, perform complex analysis, or create high-end cartographic output, a GIS tool is probably better suited to that task. Recent software advancements have definitely blurred the lines on software capabilities, but I still believe the above statement to be true.

Now, I’m always looking for ways to improve interoperability between software tools. Autodesk has been on board with this for a number of years through the FDO technology, which provides the Autodesk Geospatial solutions the ability to connect seamlessly with dozens of geospatial data formats, and work with them in their native format… No importing or exporting required.

From a purely spatial database perspective, I would prefer the ability for software tools to be able to work with the databases native geometry, and not have to worry about adding a middle tier, management application to control access to the spatial data. Again, Autodesk is doing this with FDO, and now ESRI has opened up to this philosophy as well.

We are now seeing some improvements from ESRI on this front as well with the introduction of Query Layers. Query Layers essentially allow you to connect to “native geometry” within a spatial database, with no SDE component required.

This new functionality, along with ability to use native geometries in SDE tables, will go a long way to improve application interoperability. The possibilities are endless…

Until next time,
Take care.

Warren M

I’m back… Again…

2010-11-30T21:45:00.000-06:00

Well, it has certainly been a while...

Between work, family, and extracurricular commitments, as well as trying to complete the final course for my GIS degree, let's just say there aren't many hours (minutes) left in the day. But, that's no excuse, and I'm going to try hard to maintain at least a bi-weekly post.

So it's been a few months now at my new position with SRK Consulting and it's been going really well. I've learned a great deal about the mining industry, and there is much more to learn, and all-in-all this has been an exciting time.

The mining industry uses many different, niche, applications for very specific tasks, and I'm looking forward to learning more about these applications. In my new role I'm working closer with the Arc* family of products and having spent a good portion of my career on the Autodesk side of things, it's nice to dive a little deeper into the Arc products. Specifically, I've been working with the ArcSDE geodatabases to better understand how these products are being implemented and configured within a spatial database environment. I want to continue to improve the interoperability between various tools, and understanding more about how SDE is configured will help this.

As I have done previously on this blog, I'm going to discuss technical topics related to the various technologies I'm using.

Today's tidbit:

I recently needed to combine multiple DEMs into a single DEM. The Arc* products do have tools to create a merged image or grid of this DEM data, but I simply wanted a single DEM file created from multiple DEM files. A quick Google search identified a tool called 3DEM. This free tool provides a lot of functionality in addition to what I needed it for including 3D terrain visualization and the ability to create flyby animation's. The program consumes DEM data in a variety of formats including: the standard USGS formats (DEM, SDTS), LAS files, XYZ, and others.

Unfortunately, this tool is no longer in development, but the author has give the site Free Geography Tools permission to host the last version of the program.

Check out this post for details, and click here to download the program.

Until next time…
Take care,

Warren M

MapGuide Enterprise 2011 – LicenceError.log

2010-08-25T09:31:00.001-06:00

If you are running MGE 2011, you might want to have a look in your installation’s Logs folder:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\MapGuideEnterprise2011\Server\Logs

If you see a LicenseError.log file you might want to read on.

It seems that some installs are writing to a log file named LicenseError.log. Now writing to a log file isn’t typically a bad thing, but in many instances, it is writing to this file many times a second anytime MGE is being accessed. As such, this file can rapidly grow in size, and in all likelihood, could be affecting the performance of your MGE.

At this time Autodesk is aware of the issue, however, it will require changes to the code to resolve this so there is no ‘fix’ for the issue.

One solution I implemented as soon as I encountered this was to create a batch file to delete the LicenseError.log file, and scheduled the batch file to run once a day.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren

I’m back…

2010-08-23T13:37:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone,
It’s been a while, but I am back! I’ve recently left my position at IMAGINiT Technologies, and will be moving onto a new opportunity next week.

I hope to resurrect this blog and continue to write and report on ‘all things geospatial’.

Before I mention the company I am going to, I feel I should verify the companies corporate policies on blogging, so for now, all I can say is that I am going to a company that provides consulting services to the mining industry and my role will be a Senior GIS Consultant. I am extremely excited about this new opportunity, and looking forward to the challenges ahead.

What about some content you say?

Alright… Here is something I’ve found with MapGuide Enterprise & the Fusion Viewer over the last few weeks:

I was implementing the Fusion Viewer within a frame based layout and found that there were many instances where the app couldn’t ”find” Fusion when calling out-of-the-box functions. By that I mean, that the application would be making a call to the Fusion API, but it could not find a valid reference of Fusion. For instance, the Select Within command… When running the Select Within command the list of layers to select would be empty so the user could not choose the layer to use for the selection . The solution to these situations was to modify the associated templ file and add some javascript code to the GetParent function to ensure it was looking to the correct frame to find Fusion.

Original GetParent function within the SelectWithinPanel.templ code:

function GetParent()
{
    if(popup) {
        return opener;
    } else {
        return parent.parent;
    }
}

In the modified GetParent function it checks to see if Fusion is ‘available’, and if Fusion is NOT available, then it will look in the frame you specify:

function GetParent()
{
    if(popup) {
        return opener;
    } else {
        if(typeof functionname=='GetParent.Fusion') {
            return parent.parent;
        } else {
            return window.top.<Your Frame Name>;
        }
    }
}

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Future Blog Posts

2009-03-25T20:52:00.001-06:00

Hello!

Well, it’s been a while, and things have continued to been pretty hectic between work, an online course I’m taking, and the day-to-day general family duties.

While it may seem I have been neglecting this blog, I have actually been continuing to blog, just on another venture. My employer, IMAGINiT Technologies, has asked me to start a Geospatial based blog for our company, so that is where my last few post have placed.

So, for the time being, I will be blogging at:

IMAGINiT Geospatial Blog

Come on over, and say hi!

Warren

AutoCAD Map 3D 2009 Update 2

2009-02-25T16:23:00.000-06:00

Autodesk has recently released an Update (Service Pack) for Map 3D 2009.

The update can be downloaded and installed through your Communication Center in Map, or click here to download the installation exe.

To verify the installation goto: Help > About AutoCAD Map, and click on the Product Information button. The following dialog should appear.

If the Product Service Pack states: Version 3, you're good to go!

Take Care

Warren M

AutoCAD Map 3D 2010

2009-02-18T23:44:00.000-06:00

It is that time of year again when Autodesk is getting ready to roll out the latest releases of its stable of products, and included in that list is AutoCAD Map 3D 2010. The 2010 version of AutoCAD Map adds some extremely interesting new features, and I’m going to post new articles over the next couple weeks detailing some of the major changes.

Below is a list of some of the new features and enhancements:

Feature	Feature Comments
Ribbon	New to AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 is the concept of the Ribbon, which is based on the AutoCAD Ribbon 2.0. The Ribbon features commands across the top of the window with tabs in place of the familiar menus. Using the Ribbon, the interface for AutoCAD Map 3D2010 is cleaner, less cluttered, and provides a better way to customize the look-and-feel.
Bilk Copy	Bulk Copy has been enhanced in AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 to include the ability to copy calculated fields to feature sources.
Survey	Several new features have been included to enhance the surveying capabilities of AutoCAD Map 3D 2010. These include: • Creation of Survey Datastore & Schema • Import/Export of LandXML into/from the Survey Datastore • Creation of domain features from Survey features • Point Group support • New Survey Environment • ASCII Point import
COGO	Included in this release are new coordinate geometry (COGO) routines commonly used by surveyors, such as bearing/bearing, and distance/distance. These routines can be used to locate features in the field when only a compass and measuring tape are available. Bearing/bearing is often used to calculate points that would be too difficult or dangerous to access. AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 now features a new user interface. You can use the Ribbon to quickly select COGO commands. You can access the new COGO commands at the command line or on the Input and Inquiry toolbar. You can also use them "transparently". You can use them in the middle of other commands by entering an apostrophe ( ' ) before the command name.
Workflow	Using the Windows Workflow Foundation, a brand new, powerful workflow framework and UI has been integrated into AutoCAD Map 3D 2010. This framework will enable users to build, save and share simple and complex workflows using a visual editor. Workflows can include logic and initiate calls to other workflows.
Overlay	The Overlay toolset contains tools to overlay multiple feature classes to combine, erase, modify, or update spatial features in a new feature class. New information is created when overlaying one set of features with another. There are seven types of overlay operations; all involve joining two existing sets of features into a single set of features to identify spatial relationships between the input features.
Editing FDO Data	Along with enhancements to the bulk copy feature set, AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 features enhanced editing capabilities. You can now edit feature attributes with the Standard Properties window and use all OSNAP modes to edit feature geometry.
SQL Server Provider	TThe open source FDO Provider for Microsoft SQL Server 2008, developed by Autodesk and contributed to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) enables users to take advantage of Microsoft SQL Server 2008’s native support for spatial data. Using the open source FDO Provider for SQL Server 2008 users can directly access and manipulate spatial data within the SQL Server 2008 database and share it with others, extending the value of the spatial information across the organization.

The biggest change, at least visually, in this release is the addition of the Ribbon Bar which was introduced in AutoCAD 2009. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to be an ‘old school’ kind of guy, and don’t care for a lot of
change and clutter in my UI’s. But… having used MS Office 2007 for the last year or so, I’ve gotten used to, and now prefer, the Ribbon Bar style UI. The Ribbon Bar is made up of multiple tabs, and the tabs contain multiple panels. Some panels contain more commands that be accessed by selecting the Arrow at the bottom of the panel to extend the panel.

In Map 2010, there are 3 Ribbon Bar configurations out-of-the-box: Tool-Based, Task-Based, and Map Classic. The latter of course does not need much explanation, and if you consider the names of the other tool, they’re also pretty self explanatory.

The Tool-Based Ribbon has commands organized in a similar fashion to the previous menu structures, where like commands are grouped together.

The Task-Based Ribbon has the commands orientated in a fashion that facilitate specific workflows or tasks.

Stay tuned for details on other new features coming over the next few weeks.

Take Care
Warren M

MapGuide: Fusion beta 2.0

2009-02-12T13:22:00.001-06:00

While it hasn't been officially announced yet, the beta of Fusion 2.0 is available for download and testing. As Jason Birch stated over on the mapguide users forum: "If you want stable release software for your use, then you need to test it when it's in beta (or earlier)"

So... if you're a developer, hacker, tech geek, or somebody who just likes to test the latest and greatest tools, go ahead, download it, install it (very easy process) and test it out!

In the few minutes I've spent with it, the performance improvements are very noticeable with respect to loading, zooming and selecting objects.

Take care

Warren M

AutoCAD Map 3D: SHP Import/Export Hotfix

2008-12-23T15:58:00.000-06:00

Late last week Autodesk released a hotfix for the mapexport/mapimport commands.

We have had some clients report sporatic problems with importing and exporting SHP files, but usually we were unable to re-produce the problems locally.

This hotfix addresses some specific issues with respect to polygons, but this alos might address other problems people have been reporting.

Download the hotifx from the link above, and as always, would like to hear if this has resolved some of your problems... or not...

Take Care
Warren M

Mapguide: Best Practices Wiki

2008-12-18T15:38:00.000-06:00

If you are looking for ways of improving the performance of your MapGuide applications, or just looking for tweaks and best practices, be sure to check out the MapGuide Best Practices Wiki site for some great information!

I hope everybody has a Merry Christmas, and a great holiday season.

Take care,

Warren M

Nearing the end...

2008-12-05T12:46:00.001-06:00

Wow, AU 2008 is wrapping up with the final sessions as I write this post. It has been a great week of learning, meeting new people, and seeing some exciting new technologies.

My class yesterday was attended by 62 people, and went fantastic. There were some great questions asked, and some very positive feedback was given.

Thank you to all who attended.

Now for an extra day of R'n'R in Vegas, and then on the road again next week for the IMAGINiT Western Canadian Geospatial Roadshow in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

Take Care
Warren

Day 1 - AU 2008

2008-12-02T20:49:00.000-06:00

Well, day one sessions are complete, and it was a great 1st day. My co-presentaion in the Analyze This! class went great with some good feedback.

The ADN conference yesterday was quite informative, with information provided on the direction of many of the Autodesk products. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about that due to NDA! :-)

Take Care,
Warren

One week and counting...

2008-11-23T13:52:00.001-06:00

Well, we're down the the final week before AU 2008. I am getting extremely excited now. My presentation is complete, and I'm just ensuring I've covered all of the required content and final tweaks.

For those attending AU this year, I will also be co-presenting again with Mike Schlosser in the Analyze This! How to use AutoCAD® Map 3D for Geospatial Analysis! So be sure to check out this class as well!

If you have checked out my blog and are going to be at AU, please drop by and hi!

Take Care,

Warren

See you in 7 days!

Interested in beta testing Autodesk software?

2008-11-10T14:12:00.000-06:00

If you enjoy being on the cutting edge, and making a difference in the development and direction of software that you use everyday, you should check out the Autodesk MyFeedback site, and consider sigining up as a beta tester.

Side note:

Wow, AU is coming up quick! I've been busy finalizing my presentation and working out the kinks, and starting to get excited now...

Warren M

Take care,

AU in 17 days

MapGuide Enterprise 2009: Update 1

2008-10-23T08:33:00.000-06:00

Finally... There is an Update (Service Pack) available for MapGuide Enterprise 2009 which should address many issues people have been experiencing. There are actually 3 downloads available:

Server Update

Webserver Extensions Update

MapGuide Studio Update

General information can be found here.

Take care,

Warren M

AU 40 days and counting...

SQL Server 2008 Spatial: Management Studio Express

2008-10-21T15:57:00.000-06:00

So I figured it was time to get SQL Server 2008 Spatial up and running on my machine. After installing a few pre-requisites (Windows PowerShell, MS Installer 4.5, etc) I was able to upgrade my current SQL Server 2005 Express, to SQL Server 2008 Express.

The install went fairly smoothly with the expcetion of not installing the SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE). After a quick Google search it was apparent this was a common problem, and you simply needed to re-run the install and choose to install the Management Tools - Basic (which btw, I did not recall seeing during the original upgrade, so I'm not sure if this is by design or not?)

Once SSMSE was installed I fired up Map 2009, and Bulk Copied some data from a previous SQL Server Schema (non-spatial), and was able to create a non FDO schema and dumped some data into it.

I was pleasantly surprised whn I popped back into SSMSE and found the Spatial Results tab on one of the tables I selected. This tab provides a nice graphic display of the spatial data, including tooltips, labels, and a zoom slider. Not Bad...

Take Care,

Warren

AU in 40 days

Map 3D 2009: Survey Toolkit hotfix

2008-10-14T13:21:00.000-06:00

For those who have installed the Survey Toolkit for Map 3D you might have noticed that when you use the '3D Surface' command that the raster is generated, but it does not get added to the Display Manager. If you check the Data Connect window, you will see that the Raster is actually connected, it's just not added to the drawing. The following link provides a hotfix to address this issue: Survey Toolkit Add Layer Hot Fix

Take care,

Warren M

AU in 48 days

Map 3D 2009: Multiple Surfaces and 'gaps'

2008-10-08T19:49:00.000-06:00

I was recently working with a client who was generating Map 3D surfaces from a SHP point file DEM. These SHP files were based on the Canadian NTS sheets, and as such it took 4 sheets to cover the area they were working with. There was a problem once all of the raster surfaces were put together.

As you can see from the image, there were resulting ‘gaps’ between the 4 surfaces. This is likely happening because the dem points do not form a uniform boundary at the edges defined by the NTS sheets.

So, how can we resolve this? I thought what if we could merge the 4 separate SHP files into a single SHP file? How might I do this without any Arc* tools? I suppose one option would be to import all of the SHP files into Map, and then export them out as a single SHP file. But… that’s too much work, and the datasets might be too big to bring all of this into Map.

So, off to trusty ‘ol Google and search for some information on merging SHP files. Well, wasn’t I surprised when one of the first hits was pointing to a Nabble discussion and one of the replies pointed to the GDAL/OGR site and ogr2ogr tool, and FWTools (Frank Warmerdam: a name followers of the MapGuide User list would recognize) I had used the OGR FDO Provider for accessing MapInfo TAB files, but hadn’t looked at it much beyond that. After some quick reading I found there is a lot of useful functionality built into the library! So I created a quick batch file to process the SHP files, re-created the 3D Surface in Map, and Voila! We have a nice continuous surface across the NTS sheets.

Take care,
Warren
AU in 56 days

New FDO Providers

2008-10-03T08:43:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week at the FOSS4G conference taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, Autodesk announced the availability of 2 new FDO Providers through the subscription program:

Autodesk FDO Provider for GE Smallworld and Autodesk FDO Provider for Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

“The latest FDO Providers allow customers to take advantage of the native support for additional spatial data formats -- and let users more easily access, view, edit and analyze data -- within Autodesk geospatial software.”

Take Care,
Warren
AU in 59 days

SQL Server 2008 Spatial: Lack of Arc support...

2008-10-02T12:19:00.000-06:00

While I have been unable to find any direct information from the Microsoft website regarding a lack of support for arc segments in the new SQL Server 2008 Spatial, I did find a few posts on the Microsoft Tech Forums, and one specifically from Isaac Kunen stating that arcs are not supported, and are a high priority item for the next release.

Personnaly, I think this a deal-breaker for many organizations, and I believe it would be in Microsoft's best interest to address this shortcoming sooner, rather than later.

Here ia another great comparison document that cross compares SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6

Take Care,
Warren

AU in 60 days

Map 3D 2009: Create Contour Layer Anomoly

2008-09-18T14:04:00.001-06:00

So, I was playing around with some DEMs and the Create Contour Layer functionality in Map 3D the other day...

When I noticed something 'odd'...
Can you see the oddity from the screen capture of the Data Table Window below?

In case you didn't notice, the Data Table Window is only reporting one record? What the? I know there are hundreds of contours in this resulting SDF, so why is it only showing 1 record?

Well after performing a reality check with a fellow Map enthusiast Nicole Jung (who btw is also instructing at AU this year, so be sure to check out her class: GS304-1P Express yourself! Using the Expression Builder in AutoCAD® Map 3D 2009 and Autodesk MapGuide® Enterprise 2009!) we investigated this for a bit and realized that there seems to be a little anomaly occurring with the refreshing of the Data Window for these SDFs generated via Generate Contours command. I found that if I toggled between Filtered and un-filtered Feature Classes the reocrds would show up...

And then Nicole discoverd that if you simply select one of the column headers to ‘re-order’, Voila! the window is refreshed and all of the records are now shown.

Hopefully somebody finds this useful and/or helpful.
Take care,
Warren
AU in 76 days

Map3D 2009: Theming on joined datasources.

2008-09-10T14:28:00.001-06:00

One of the big problems (at least for me and many of our clients) with the initial release of Map 3D 2009 was that it would not allow you to create a theme based on a column from a joined datasource. The problem was that the joined columns were just not shown in the UI.

However... it would appear that this issue has been addressed in the latest map update.

As you can see from the screen captures below, the joined columns are now available in the Property dropdown list, and the Expression Builder Property list.

For those who do not know how to create a join, some simple instructions are:

Connect to both datasources and add to the map any required features. In the sample image we've connected to and added to the map the Hydrants SDF for the point features, and made an ODBC connection to an Access database that contains more details for the Hydrants

In the Display Manger, right-click on the datasource (Hydrants) that you want to create a join on and select Create Join.

In the Create a Join dialog, choose the secondary datasource to join to. In this sample, select the Hydrants table

Next, choose the common columns between the 2 datasources, and determine what type of join you require: inner/outer join, and one-to-one or one-to-many.

Take care,
Warren
AU 2008 in 83 days...

Map 3D 2009 Update 1... (Service Pack 1)

2008-09-06T09:45:00.000-06:00

Late last week Autodesk released an Update for Map 2009. The Update, or Service Pack, can be downloaded here.

Numerous issues are addressed in this SP, and I would suggest anyone using Map 3D 2009 should probably download and install this. You can use the link above to download and install, or use the Communication Center to install:

After the install is complete you can check the Product Information (Help > About AutoCAD Map 3D > Product Information) to ensure the update was successful:

Some issues that I have personal experience with are problems with using FDO and 3D objects. These were quite flaky and un-stable, and was informed by Autodesk that this is supposed to be addressed in this service pack. The Join problem of not showing joined properties in the Expression Builder is supposed to be resolved as well... I have yet to verify this.

Take care,
Warren
AU 2008 in 86 days...

Google Chrome & MapGuide

2008-09-02T15:16:00.000-06:00

Well we've been hearing about it (Google Chrome) for a while, and it's now available, so I thought I would install it and see what the fuss is about. Seems nice enough... really quick, thin...

But most importantly is that a MapGuide site shows up just fine using Chrome:

Although I did notice that it doesn't seem to format XML for display... This is the result of a MapGuide MapAgent query:

Selecting labels based on point features in AutoCAD Map

2008-07-24T15:19:00.000-06:00

Have you ever created labels from a point feature set in AutoCAD Map? If so, you probably also turned off the display of the point symbol.

So, have you then ever tried to ‘select’ the label graphically?

You can’t!

One workaround would be to leave the point display turned on most of the time, which would allow you to select it, and then turn it off for printing. This works… but that requires you to remember to turn it off…

Another option is to turn on the point display, but set the color to ACI 255, which should plot as transparent, or invisible.

On a white background you don’t ‘see’ the point, but can still select it by picking beside the text. To aid in the ability to select the text you can even increase the size of the point On a black (or any other color) background, you can see the point just fine, but it shouldn’t print out.

Geospatial & Rock Music Convergence

2008-07-23T12:38:00.000-06:00

Finally!!! My two passions have been combined... Rock Music, and anything Geospatial.

Rockin’ Remote Sensing: Aerotec Provides 3D LIDAR Models for Ground-Breaking Music Video

While I personally am not a huge Radiohead fan, I don't think anybody can deny that the band is always willing to try new things. From releasing their latest album over the web, to creating a music video without any cameras or lights. Yes, no cameras, no lights... all 'Data'.

Very cool!
Check it out at:
http://code.google.com/radiohead

AU 2008 here I come!

2008-07-18T09:36:00.000-06:00

It was great to recieve the acceptance email from the AU regading my proposal to instruct a class this year. The title of the class is:

GS310-2 From AutoCAD® Map 3D® to Autodesk MapGuide® in 3 Simple Steps: Connect, Stylize, Publish

Autodesk University is an awesome experience, and I recommend it to anybody that works with the wide variety of Autodesk products.

Stay tuned to the AU site for class and lab listings.

It's Alive

2008-07-09T13:51:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my musings!
I have been thinking about starting a blog for some time now, and figure now is as good a time as ever.

My name is Warren Medernach, and I am an 'anti' computer geek who has a passion for GIS, all things Geospatial and web mapping technologies in general.

This blog is going to contain information related to the Geospatial industry and Autodesk products, and hopefully it can contribute to this rapidly growing industry.

Warren