ArcGIS 9.2 comments from an ESRI product introduction

On Thursday, October 26th I attending in Louisville, KY a meeting introducting what was new in the ArcGIS 9.2 release. First this is a major release and not a minor upgrade. Both the desktop and the server products will be very different. We were told that it should ship in the next 6 weeks. My comments are from the notes that I took at the ESRI meeting and should be taken only as this.

ArcServer will give greater functional upon initial installation, it will have ArcSDE as part of the initial installation, there will be several different levels of server and this will be discussed later in these comments.

ArcGIS Explorer a free download looks initially alot like Google Earth but it appears to have loads of functionality associated with it.

The access to the server from the desktop will be simplier and very powerful for users in a multiple desktop environment.

ArcGIS 9.2 is open and standards based.

ArcReader is a free product > ArcView is at the user level > ArcEditor (create/manage) > ArcInfo (geoprocessing/analysis)

Improved Scan Technology now integrated

Link maps, graphs and tables together, when you change one item all linked items change together on the fly.

You will be able to utilize Excel Spreadsheets within ArcGIS. I believe this will be very powerful feature.

Image Processing can be done on the fly.

New extension on the Server side.

Goto X,Y manually and input Latitude and Longitude.

You can publish (export) to PDF with a layer tab so you can change the layers within Acrobat.

You also publish to the ArcReader

I believe there is a drastic improvement on the CAD drawing, such as georeferencing CAD drawings.

You can view a second window on a second monitor

Two levels for server: enterprise and workgroup

The web mapping applications are greatly improved in this release. Including mapping, editing, geoprocessing, routing, geocoding.

ArcIMS 9.2 will be available but appears that in many ways we are moving toward server in webbased applications away from IMS.

Same web development for both server and IMS

The ArcGIS manager (webbased) looks alot like MS Sharepoint.

Three levels of server basic (geodatabase, amnagement and web-based replication), standard (Mapping and visualization), Advanced (geoprocessing and editing).

These three levels are available at both workgroup and Enterprise levels.

There is animation at the desktop level in both 2 and 3 dimensions.

Visualization and Communication
Visualization (thematic analysis, authoring, 2D/3D viewers)
Intergation and Learning (visual interrogation, animation and graphing, spatial selection)
Mapping (symbolation, labeling, publishing)

New Graphing Engine

These are my impressions and comments from what I heard and saw.