Spatial Galaxy » ESRI

Speculations on the File Geodatabase API

Gary Sherman — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:52:15 +0000

At the ESRI Developer Summit there was news of the File Geodatabase (FGDB) API. Based on the tweets from the summit it appears:

The API will be C++ only
API works on Windows and Unix/Linux (specifically RedHat, Solaris, SuSE) operating systems
Rudimentary support only—features such as annotation, relationships, topologies, etc. are lacking

Since ESRI is releasing a targeted API and a not a specification, support for Mac OS X is out of the question.

How well open source GIS applications will be able to support the FGDB (if at all) remains to be seen.

The other question is: Will the API be made freely available or will it require an ArcGIS license?

Will the release of the FGDB API be the “Shapefile-killer”? I have my doubts…

The Shapefile – Reports of My Deprecation have been Greatly Exaggerated

Gary Sherman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:43:00 +0000

The death of the shapefile has again been predicted—this time for 2010.

The technical description of the format has been around for going on 12 years. In that time it has become a sort of lowest common denominator for data exchange. They’re everywhere. Making them go away is going to require a revolution of sorts.

ESRI has been sounding the death knell for the shapefile for a while now. I agree that it isn’t a perfect format but it is nearly perfectly supported.

If ESRI really wants the shapefile to go away, they will produce a fully open API for the File Geodatabase—one that can be used outside the Arc* realm. One that can be obtained and used at no cost or license fee.

There is a raft of open source programmers waiting in the wings to code against it and provide support and interoperability for the open source GIS world.

We’re waiting…

Rasters in the Database—Why Bother?

Gary Sherman — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:34:29 +0000

I’ve come to the conclusion that storing rasters in a database is of dubious value, particularly from a data warehouse perspective.

If you manage a collection of rasters that are updated on a frequent basis, storing them in a relational database with ArcSDE quickly becomes a pain. I’m not talking about a dozen or so rasters, but rather tens of thousands. The overhead of the database and middleware just doesn’t seem to be worth it.

A better solution is to use MapServer with a tile index (created using gdaltindex) to serve them to your desktop clients via WMS. Fast, simple, and easy to update and manage.

ArcGIS Image Server

Gary Sherman — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:34:39 +0000

I was interested to read that ArcGIS Image Server is now available. Now I admit that I haven’t had any advanced information about the product (has anybody?) but was disappointed to find that its only supported on Windows servers.

Disappointed but not surprised. I was hoping for a more open API (specifically something other than ArcObjects and/or .Net) and the ability to use image server on Linux/Unix.