Verlauf: ArcGIS

ArcGIS

GISWiki - Das freie Portal für Geoinformatik (GIS)

Deutsch

Beschreibung

Desktop-GIS-Produktfamilie der Firma ESRI, ersetzt ab Version 8 die ArcView-Versionen 3.x.

Es existieren die skalierbaren Produkte ArcView (Grundversion, nur lesender Zugriff auf die ArcSDE), ArcEditor (mit schreibendem/administrativem Zugriff auf die ArcSDE) und ArcInfo (Zusätzlich Unterstützung von Coverages, komplexe GIS-Analysen etc.)

Alle Versionen bestehen aus den Hauptbestandteilen

ArcMap - Karten erstellen, bearbeiten und analysieren
ArcCatalog - Daten verwalten
ArcToolbox - Nützliche Tools zum Im- und Export in ander Formate, zum Verschneiden, analysieren, etc. Sowohl aus ArcMap als auch aus ArcCatalog aufrufbar (seit Version 9 nicht mehr eigenständiges Modul)

Erweiterungen

ArcGIS Extensions von ESRI:
- 3D Analyst/ArcScene - 3D-Szenen
- Spatial Analyst - Räumliche Analysen
- ArcScan - automatische Digitalisierung
- Network Analyst - Netzwerkanalyse, kürzeste Route, Erreichbarkeitsanalyse, ...
- Maplex - Schriftplatzierung (Labelling) (kostenfrei bei ArcInfo enthalten)
- ArcPublisher - Packt und verschlüsselt Projekte samt Geodaten und erzeugt PMF-Dateien
- ArcReader - kostenfreie Viewer-Software, die PFM-Dateien liest
- ArcPress (Druck und Export) ist seit 9.1 kostenfreier(!), fester Bestandteil aller ArcGIS-Produkte
- ...
ArcGIS Extensions anderer Hersteller:
- Erweiterungen (MapViewSVG)
- ...
ArcObjects- Programmierung in ArcMap

Literatur

Wolfgang Liebig (2001): Desktop-GIS mit ArcView GIS. Leitfaden für Anwender ISBN 3879073589

Wolfgang Liebig, Rolf-Dieter Mummenthey (2005): ArcGIS - ArcView 9 Bd. I ArcGIS-Grundlagen ISBN 3980846369

Wolfgang Liebig, Rolf-Dieter Mummenthey (2005): ArcGIS-Grundlagen und -Analysen 1 / II Band 1:ArcGIS-Grundlagen, Band 2:ArcGIS-Analysen ISBN 3980846393

Wolfgang Liebig / Rolf-Dieter Mummenthey (2005): ArcGIS - ArcView 9 (Band 2) - Band 2: ArcGIS-Analysen ISBN 3-9808463-7-7

Wolfgang Liebig / Rolf-Dieter Mummenthey (2005): ArcGIS - ArcView 9 (Set: Band 1 und Band 2) - Band 1 und Band 2: ArcGIS-Grundlagen und -Analysen. ISBN 3-9808463-9-3

ArcGIS 9 - das Buch für Einsteiger ISBN 3879074305

English

ArcGIS is the name of a group of Geographic Information System software product lines produced by ESRI. At the desktop entry-level, ArcGIS includes ArcView, which allows one to view spatial data, create maps, and perform basic spatial analysis. ArcEditor and ArcInfo are more advanced versions of ArcGIS, which include added capabilities for data manipulation, editing, and analysis. There are also server-based ArcGIS products, as well as ArcGIS products for PDAs.

Product info and history

Bild:ArcMap.jpg

The ArcMap module of ArcGIS showing data for the Chesapeake Bay

As of November 2005 the current version of the ArcGIS software is 9.1. The next version, 9.2, is scheduled for release early in 2006. While there are alternative products available from other traditional vendors such as MapInfo and Intergraph, ESRI has a dominant share of the GIS software market with its software used by 77% of GIS professionals [2].

The release of the ArcGIS suite constituted a major change in ESRI's software offerings, aligning all their client and server products under one software architecture known as ArcGIS, developed using Microsoft Windows COM standards, and designed to store data in a new proprietary RDBMS-hosted format: the geodatabase.

The ArcGIS Desktop software was developed (with some success) to combine the ease-of-use of the ArcView 3.x product with the full functionality available in ESRI's then-flagship Arc/Info 7.x (now ArcInfo) product.

One major difference (of significant impact to the typical GIS user)) is the programming (scripting) languages available to customize or extend the software to suit particular user needs. In the transition to ArcGIS, ESRI dropped support of application-specific scripting languages (Avenue and Arc Macro Language (AML)) in favor of Visual Basic for Applications scripting and open access to ArcGIS components using the Microsoft COM standards. At the ArcGIS 9 release a GIS processing ("geoprocessing") environment was implemented that allows execution of tools from any scripting language that supports COM standards. Although the most popular of these is Python, others have been used, especially perl and VBScript. These changes have rendered an extensive range of user-developed and third-party add-on software and scripts that worked with the older software systems incompatible with ArcGIS.

Because of the changes in scripting capability, functionality, operating system choices (the ArcGIS Desktop software is basically Windows-only), and the significantly larger system resources required by the ArcGIS system, a substantial user base has opted to continue using the older products. ESRI has continued support these users. ArcView 3.x is still available for purchase, and ArcInfo Workstation is still included in a full ArcGIS ArcInfo license to provide some editing and file conversion functionality that has not been included to date in ArcGIS.