ESRI - User Conference 2008 - San Diego - Part 1
1. Arrived in San Diego, excited … this is my first ESRI UC and can’t wait to experience the best GIS conference in the world. Reached the W Hotel (http://www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels/index.html)… it hits you in the face… only one of a kind… cool and funky. They have a nice room tho… everything is functional and well designed. The shower needs some re-design I believe… they need a sliding door.. cause if you are tall… the water splashes. I attended 2 Pre-Conference Seminars – ArcGIS Enterprise Systems: Performance & Scalability on Sat …. and… Cartography with ArcGIS : Map Design for GIS on Sun.
2. ArcGIS Enterprise Systems: Performance & Scalability - This was more cramped than I thought… they wanted to cover AGS 9.3, ArcSDE and Desktop Performance issues in 1 day. The ArcGIS Desktop performance issue is a tradeoff between cartography and functional performance… esp designing and creating MXDs. I believe we have better workstations and graphic card engines now and ESRI should take advantage of gaming display engines to render maps faster. We should not rely too much on Microsoft or OpenGL. AGS 9.3 Map Cache and optimizing AGS map services is another headache we face in deploying GIS web apps. How do we estimate and make decisions on deployment architectures… esp when AGS licenses are so expensive across CPUs / Sockets? I’ve attended this before and some of the similar subjects include Tracing, ArcObject Tips, Oracle Tuning and GDB Toolset. I am quite happy AGS 9.3 has better log reports, load tests and tracing now. We can also leverage on a more stable geoprocessing web service in AGS 9.3. I still see this issue with performance and scalability as a thorn in ESRI’s future direction… they need to clearly release stable and fast performing GIS apps without compromising technology and IT trends.
3. Cartography with ArcGIS: Map Design for GIS – I was pleasantly surprised to see such wide range in the crowd… cartographers, mappers, GIS specialists and consultants… all very experienced and prob more hands-on (skill) than myself. I was interested in new Carto Representations features, Color Ramps / Schemes, Advance Symbology and Thematic Mapping and Mapping Tips. Some of the stuff here is just to refresh my knowledge on better map making. A lot of times when digitizing data… we tend to focus on presentation and layouts instead of building a GIS database… and this fine line between CAD / Graphic Design and GIS is ever present in our daily work. I really think we need to move forward and spend more time and effort in building quality GIS datasets instead of making pretty maps. ArcGIS has great tools and functions to amalgamate GIS and CAD / Graphic Design but it takes honest enthusiasm, skill, experience and good training. Many of the users in this crowd are experienced cartographers and mappers with clear understanding of the end product and long term GIS benefits. Instead of hiring CAD / Graphic Design based digitisers to populate data… we need to progress further in defining and migrating projects into true GIS use.
2. ArcGIS Enterprise Systems: Performance & Scalability - This was more cramped than I thought… they wanted to cover AGS 9.3, ArcSDE and Desktop Performance issues in 1 day. The ArcGIS Desktop performance issue is a tradeoff between cartography and functional performance… esp designing and creating MXDs. I believe we have better workstations and graphic card engines now and ESRI should take advantage of gaming display engines to render maps faster. We should not rely too much on Microsoft or OpenGL. AGS 9.3 Map Cache and optimizing AGS map services is another headache we face in deploying GIS web apps. How do we estimate and make decisions on deployment architectures… esp when AGS licenses are so expensive across CPUs / Sockets? I’ve attended this before and some of the similar subjects include Tracing, ArcObject Tips, Oracle Tuning and GDB Toolset. I am quite happy AGS 9.3 has better log reports, load tests and tracing now. We can also leverage on a more stable geoprocessing web service in AGS 9.3. I still see this issue with performance and scalability as a thorn in ESRI’s future direction… they need to clearly release stable and fast performing GIS apps without compromising technology and IT trends.
3. Cartography with ArcGIS: Map Design for GIS – I was pleasantly surprised to see such wide range in the crowd… cartographers, mappers, GIS specialists and consultants… all very experienced and prob more hands-on (skill) than myself. I was interested in new Carto Representations features, Color Ramps / Schemes, Advance Symbology and Thematic Mapping and Mapping Tips. Some of the stuff here is just to refresh my knowledge on better map making. A lot of times when digitizing data… we tend to focus on presentation and layouts instead of building a GIS database… and this fine line between CAD / Graphic Design and GIS is ever present in our daily work. I really think we need to move forward and spend more time and effort in building quality GIS datasets instead of making pretty maps. ArcGIS has great tools and functions to amalgamate GIS and CAD / Graphic Design but it takes honest enthusiasm, skill, experience and good training. Many of the users in this crowd are experienced cartographers and mappers with clear understanding of the end product and long term GIS benefits. Instead of hiring CAD / Graphic Design based digitisers to populate data… we need to progress further in defining and migrating projects into true GIS use.
posted by geotone @ 9/09/2008
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