Friday, November 18, 2011

Sydney to Hobart Sponsorship

RIA Mobile GIS is sponsoring Hobart boat Whistler in this years Sydney to Hobart.
As part of the crew I have been training for the race and updating the navigation equipment onboard that combines lots of NMEA strings into a Toughbook for optimal routing and navigation purposes. Of course there's also an ArcPad system onboard running on a handheld for backup purposes, Man Overboard and should we need to take something waterproof into a life raft!
Tonight is the qualifying race for the Sydney to Hobart race - The Maria Island Race.
180 nm, starting 7pm Friday night, finishing sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning.
This will be a good test of the new navigation equipment, new sails and wet weather gear.
You can follow our progress here.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Mobile GIS Hardware Review 2.0

In light of some changes to the hardware market for mobile GIS, a new and improved overview document has been prepared! This document is aimed at providing a concise and informative overview of the devices we recommend and sell, and look at their suitability for field and GIS data capture applications. Specifications and approximate pricing are included.

The document has changed substantially from its earlier incarnation, with some devices removed (such as the now discontinued HP iPaq) and others added. The new Motorola model, the MC65 is a popular new addition to the range. The document is available in PDF format here.

If you require clarification or further advice on the hardware or accessories, please let us know. You can email me at Patrick@riamobilegis.com.au.

ArcGIS for Home Use


ESRI Inc have just announced the new ArcGIS For Home Use Program, making it possible for you to take ArcGIS home with you to work all weekend - yay! All jokes aside, if you part of a community group of some description, then this could be just for you. What you get is:
  • A single use ArcView license
  • ArcGIS 3D Analyst
  • ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst
  • ArcGIS Network Analyst
  • ArcGIS Publisher
  • ArcGIS Schematics
  • ArcGIS Spatial Analyst
  • ArcGIS Tracking Analyst
All for the very reasonable price of $100 (US) per year. Based off the current exchange rate, this means it should cost us around $92.85 is Australia, what a bargain! I wonder how much maintenance will cost?

Anyone who is interested should get in touch with their local distributor.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Where are we Heading?


The pace of technological change, and hence Spatial and GIS, appears to be ever increasing. At times it's getting harder and harder to get a clear picture of where we are heading .....
At least thanks to Jack, and his Conference Q&A Session, we can get a few answers and an indication of where things are heading for the ESRI and ArcGIS environment.

(A year is a long time in the technology space, so 2012 may look completely different!!)

100 Posts!!!

Ok so it's not exactly 'Mobile GIS' related, and definitely not as quick as 'Speedy Gonzales', but we've almost made it to 100 Blog Posts!!

We are now mobile & spatially enabled!

What are two things that you think of when someone says mobile GIS? To me, it is pretty obvious... mobile, and spatial. Well guess what, our Mobile GIS blog is now both mobile and spatial. Hooray!

Take a look at out blog from your mobile device. Very pretty!

I have also started defining the location of the blogs. What this means, I don't really know, but I have done it anyway :)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Mobile GIS Hardware Review

After several inquiries, a document was prepared in order to provide a clear and concise overview of the most popular units used in the field for mobile GIS applications. It covers a wide range of units, from standard PDAs through to ruggedised laptops, and different brands such as Nomad, GeTac, Panasonic and Xplore. Units have been arranged into classes according to the kind of detailed data they are able to capture. The document also includes approximate prices.
Hopefully this will be a good starting point for people trying to research the best mobile GIS solution for them!
If you would like the PDF, please email me at Patrick@riamobilegis.com.au

Friday, January 28, 2011

ArcGIS 10 GDBT



Those organisations out there that are Monitoring and Reporting on their Corporate GeoDatabase, may be interested to know that the GeoDatabase Toolset (GDBT) has just been released for ArcGIS 10.
Head to the ESRI GDBT Site to access further information.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

ArcPad 10 Performance Tips

You might have seen a post that I did back in July (ArcPad Drawing Speed), which compared the drawing times of different datasets using ArcPad versions 7.1, 8.0 and 10.0. This research backed up the claims made by ESRI that version 10 has significantly improved performance over previous releases.

There are a few reasons for this. One of which is a new spatial index that is built in AXF files generated using the ArcPad Data Manager Tools for ArcGIS 10. Unfortunately, if you are still using ArcGIS 9.3, the Data Manager Tools have not been updated, and therefore, you will not receive the new indexing.

There is however a way around this:

  1. Generate your AXF file using either the ArcPad Data Manager tools for ArcMap, or ArcToolbox tools
  2. Open up the AXF file in ArcPad 10
  3. Open the Table of Contents, and open the layer properties of the layer you want to index
  4. Switch across to the Attributes page
  5. You will notice that the check box next to the Geometry field will be unchecked. Click it to build the index.
  6. Click OK on the Layer Properties, and OK on the Table of Contents dialog

The indexing will be applied to that layer, in that AXF from that point on (i.e. you do not need to repeat that process each time you start up ArcPad, unless you generate a new AXF file).

Some points to note are:
  • The above is only applicable to line and polygon layers
  • The indexing can only be read by ArcPad 10. It will not be used in 7.1 or 8.0

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Height Enabling ArcPad

Height enabling features (i.e. collecting 3D x,y,z positions) in ArcPad is simple. You just need to make sure that you have (1) your data set up correctly; and (2) correctly configure your hardware.

Configuring your data
When creating a shapefile or feature class, you must specify that you want to z enable it. From within ArcGIS, this is simply a matter of selecting the "Coordinates include Z values. Used to store 3D data" option on the first page of the "Create new feature class" dialog.
In ArcPad, when creating a new shapefile, you should select the feature type as "PointZ".

Unfortunately, there is no way of z enabling a pre-existing, non z enabled feature class. You must create a new one, import the fields from your previous feature class, then import all of the features across. In this case, any features already captured will not have valid z values. You will need to update these.

Any features from these datasets that are collected within ArcPad will automatically be assigned a z height value at the time of creation. If you digitise a point, a z height of 0 will be assigned. You can easily change this value manually via the geometry page of the edit form if required. If you capture the features using a GPS or laser rangefinder, then provided they are configured correctly to output height coordinates, then these will automatically be assigned to the feature.

Configuring your hardware
This part will probably either be very easy, or a little bit tricky. Basically what you want to do is to make sure that whatever hardware you are using (GPS, laser rangefinder) is outputing data that includes height information. Most GPS units will do this by default. So unless you have gone in to your GPS and altered the messages that are being sent from it, you should be pretty right. If you have played around with the GPS, you will need to dig out your manual and make sure that the height information is being exported correctly.

With laser rangefinders, it should be as simple as making sure that some form of height measurement is being read and exported to ArcPad. For example, you should read the slope distance and inclination to the target. If you export only the bearing and the horizontal distance, then ArcPad has no way of knowing what the change in height from your position to the target actually is.

Accessing the height information
Accessing the height of your points from within ArcPad is also simple. When you create or edit a point, you can switch to the Geography page, which will show the coordinates of the point (including the z height). If you have a line or a polygon layer, it will list all of the coordinates of all of the vertices of that feature.
You can do the same when identifying a feature.

From within ArcGIS, it is not quite so simple. You must add the feature class to ArcMap, start an edit session, use the Edit Tool from the Editor toolbar (the black arrow), double click the point, then open the "Edit Sketch Properties" window. This will list the X, Y, Z coordinates of the selected point (or vertices of a line or polygon).

Another way of viewing this information is to add a float (or double) field to the feature class, then use the "Calculate Geometry" tool in the table view in ArcMap, to calculate the z coordinates of each feature and store that to a field.

Monday, November 22, 2010

ArcGIS & ArcPad 10 SP 1

ArcGIS Version 10 Service Packs have been released.

Download the ArcPad 10 SP1 here. (It is a full ArcPad install)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

ArcPad Data Manager Toolbar: Select Picture Options (ArcGIS 10)

The ArcPad Data Manager toolbar within ArcGIS 10 has an extra page available during the Get Data for ArcPad (Check Out) process. Within this page the user can identify the picture field(s) within the dataset(s), and also define the location where pictures will be stored during the Get Data from ArcPad (Check In) process.

When field data and photos have been collected in the field and then imported back into the ArcGIS/office environment using the Get Data from ArcPad (Check In) tool, the Picture field(s) are populated using the predefined folder location for Pictures and the name of the image (e.g. D:\MyPhotos\Pictures_0001.jpg).


When identifying a point in ArcMap, the ArcGIS 10 dialog lists the point attributes, with the hyperlink function automatically enabled for Picture fields where an image exists. The user can simply click on the Picture field path and the image will be displayed on screen.

Monday, August 16, 2010

ArcPad Check Out Problems

When you check data out for use in ArcPad, the AXF file that gets generated is stamped with the source Geodatabase. This means that when you go to check that data back in, the ArcPad Data Manager for ArcMap and the ArcPad Geoprocessing tools know where the data needs to be uploaded to.

This works really well, because you do not need to place the AXF back in to the same folder that it was checked out to (as you did with previous versions of ArcPad that used shapefiles). The drawback to this is however, when the source workspace is moved: ArcPad has no way of knowing where to put the field edited data.

The simplest way of finding where the Geodatabase should be, is to load the AXF into the ArcPad Data Manager in ArcMap. The source workspace is listed on the form:

If this workspace has a really long path however, you will not be able to see the full path. The other way to find the source workspace is to view the AXF Transaction Log that is stored within the AXF (in the AXF_Properties table). To do this:
  1. Open the AXF in Studio
  2. Start a command window
  3. Copy the SQL statement below, paste it into the window and execute it.
SELECT CONVERT(nvarchar, XML)
FROM AXF_PROPERTIES
WHERE NAME='AXF_TRANSACTION_LOG'

You will see a whole lot of text, which at first may just look like it is in Swahili or some other foreign language, but if you look closely, it is actually XML. The first tag that you will see is CHECKOUT. The third attribute of this tag is 'workspace': the value of this attribute is the source Geodatabase that the AXF was originally generated from.


This is the location that you will need to move the Geodatabase to (temporarily) to allow you to check the data back in.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Application Builder Training - Melbourne - 11 November

RIA Mobile GIS will be holding an ArcPad Application Builder Training Course in Melbourne on Thursday the 11th November. The course will be held in the CBD (venue to be confirmed), using ArcPad Version 10.

To register your interest, please fill out the Registration Form from our web site, and return it to us.

Be quick: Numbers are limited, and early bird discounts apply!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Getac E100A Tablet Release


For Mobile GIS users interested in tablet technology, the Getac presents an update on the E100 tablet, the E100A.
The E100A has substantially increased the E100 memory components; doubling the processor from 800MHz to 1.66 GHz,upsizing from 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM and the previous Hard Disk Drive is now a 80GB Solid State Drive.
Manufacturer confidence in the Getac product is shown in the 5 year standard warranty. The E100A will be available soon, contact us for more information.