This week's meet-up was focused on mobile GIS. Apparently after polling attendees at the previous meet-up, the topic of mobile GIS was on most people's minds, thus the focus of this meeting. The meet had a strong ESRI flavor as it was sponsored by ESRI - several staff from Broomfield organized the meeting and shared with us details of the ESRI Mobile GIS solutions, from ArcPad to ArcGIS mobile. Jason Channin of ESRI gave a short recap of some new features coming in 9.3, a run-down of ArcPAd at R 7.1 (a cool feature of AP at 7.1 is that the solution comes with the latest data rfom Tele Atlas for the US & Canada - freat value!) , and showed a cool demo of ArcGIS mobile running on a Trimble Juno. Speaking of Trimble, Jason also brought up a useful tip for those looking for a great bundled solution (software and hardware) - GeoCollector, a partnership of ESRI and Trimble to get you going in the field - FAST! Finally, we heard a little bit about the new data format, AXF, used to check data in/out of ArcGIS and take in to the field - I'll need to look for more info on that - the format came with release 9.2 along with the ArcPAd deployment manager for ArcGIS desktop 9.2 - a free extension that comes with ArcPad along with some geoprocessing tools.
We heard from the city of Fort Collins about their mobile code enforcement plans for citing/managing infractions on the local by-laws. the team uses ArcPad and Dell Axim PDAs (wow, haven't seen them in years!!) on the upside they plan on updating things this fall with some spanky Panasonic Toughbooks - a tip, those Axims make great paper-weights! We also heard about ArcGIS 9.3, ArcPad 7.1 and we got a good primer from Ryan Smith of ESC on what to look for when setting up and purchasing mobile GIS equipment (hardware, software).
A wow technology displayed was the CapturX solution for ArcGIS from Adapx. We've seen this before, I believe at last year's ESRI UC, however, it still wows people. Imagine this, you print out a map, perhaps a parcel map for an area. the a field worker uses the map on a clipboard, takes it out with him in the field, then marks up using a special pen. He then returns to the office, docks the pen, and voila, all the redlines and comments appear in ArcGIS on a separate layer. A cool solution, albeit with a hefty pricetag (around $29995 I believe) although you can purchase the pan alone and use with an application like OneNote... pretty cool! From the company... "Capturx for ArcGIS makes it easy to collect data in the field by using pen and paper to create features and annotations in ArcMap"
Finally, we heard that ArcGIS 9.3 "might" be coming on in June and the next NOCO GIS Meet up is planned for August 14 at the city of Loveland.
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