Esri announced today that ArcGIS Explorer is available to the public. This unique lightweight application lets you not only connect directly to a variety of ready-to-use globes hosted by Esri but also provides tasks that allow you to do more than just visualize a simple map.
You can use ArcGIS Explorer to leverage data, services, and applications on the Web by easily connecting to your own ArcGIS services or those published by others. This application helps you extend the power of these Web-based services by fusing them with your local data.
Says Bern Szukalski, ArcGIS Explorer product manager, “You can unlock the power of GIS for others when you author your own content and tasks and deliver access to these using ArcGIS Explorer. With this free application, you can publish ArcGIS Server capabilities within your organization or to anyone on the Web.”
Tasks may include advanced geoprocessing and GIS analytic capabilities such as viewshed analysis, terrain profiling, and other ArcGIS Server functions; no programming is necessary to create these tasks. In addition, tasks can be saved in specific maps for specific users, or they can be delivered independently.
Both published services and tasks can be centrally managed from a server, so once an update is made to a service, it’s automatically distributed to all users connected to that service, making ArcGIS Explorer an ideal platform for providing wider access to GIS content and capabilities.
Upon startup of the free download, ArcGIS Explorer opens a satellite globe. In addition to imagery, you can access other free globes including worldwide streets, terrain, boundaries and labels, political maps, and physiography. These globes are served to ArcGIS Explorer via ArcGIS Online, which is currently in beta.
ArcGIS Online gives you access to high-resolution premium imagery at no cost and includes a seamless mosaic of 1 m resolution aerial imagery for the contiguous United States and satellite imagery for the world at 500 m and 15 m resolutions.
The high-resolution imagery is a color mosaic of recent commercial imagery for metropolitan areas and best available government imagery for other areas. At the end of the ArcGIS Online beta program, ArcGIS users will be able to subscribe to the premium high-resolution imagery service. Other basic data will continue to be free.
ArcGIS Explorer also includes a software developer kit (SDK) that can be used to extend tasks or implement completely custom tasks that are driven by other Web services. ArcGIS Explorer is both free to download and distribute and does not require any other Esri software product.
Download ArcGIS Explorer at www.esri.com/arcgisexplorer
