What's in 9.3
ArcGIS 9.3 continues to expand the use of GIS throughout the enterprise. From GIS professionals to decision makers, clients, and the public, GIS information and analysis can be made available wherever it is needed.
Find out all the answers to the most frequently asked questions about ArcGIS 9.3.
The ArcGIS 9.3 upgrades have been dispatched to all clients under maintenance. If you have not received your upgrade please contact us.
Please note that ArcGIS 9.3 Server and Single Use Desktop require new serial numbers - these have been sent via email. Please keep these numbers in a secure place, as serial numbers will not be included with the media shipment.
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Below is a summary of the new features and functionality included in ArcGIS 9.3.
ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop
ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 sees increased functionality and enhancements and again focuses on improving performance and quality.
- The addition of error reporting and crash detection will mean faults are automatically reported to ESRI Inc. and are more likely to be fixed quickly
- Progress bars will be included in many geoprocessing tools and dialog boxes, which will make working in ArcGIS Desktop more informative and intuitive
- New functionality will include enhancements to mapping and labelling such as label settings including contour labelling and cartographic representations
- Improved analysis tools for spatial analyses, scripting and modelling, and scatter-plot graphics
- Addition of Z-aware editing in ArcMap
- HTML popup windows for layers
- The ability to share bookmarks
- Better support for online content
- Support for VBA 6.5
ArcGIS 9.3 Server
ArcGIS Server 9.3 is a large release, and focuses on performance, security and developer access.
Performance improvements include:
Security has also been improved to allow administrators to easily manage security out of the box with the ArcGIS Server Manager by connecting to corporate active directories.
A new ArcGIS Server Resource Centre has also been released, giving developers access to:
ArcGIS Server will be more accessible to developers by supporting mashups allowing integration of multiple GIS services using lightweight programming models. Two APIs will be provided - JavaScript and REST.
ArcGIS 9.3 Extensions
New functionality and geoprocessing tools are also available in many extensions for both desktop and server, including:
Image Server is also available at 9.3 as an extension to ArcGIS Server allowing you to publish single raster datasets or compiled image service definitions as image services.
Geodata Management
New DBMS support is now added for the geodatabase for:
Replication performance has also been improved and one-way replicas will be permitted to personal and file geodatabases. 9.3 also bring more version management tools.
Mobile
ESRI's mobile solutions have been improved to include new editing tools for ArcGIS Engine 9.3 and deployment options on Linux and Java. ArcGIS Server Mobile at 9.3 will include the new Mobile Editor for Pocket PC enabling the simple creation of applications with task based data collection in an occasionally connected environment. The Mobile SDK has also been improved in the areas of map display, full projection support, editing and sketch tools, and GPS performance.
Explorer
The current release of ArcGIS Explorer is 450. Explorer 480 is due for release in the next few months and will provide multi-threaded tile fetching, direct SDE connection, support for GPX and GeoRSS and Mail to, task framework and popup improvements as well as the ability to activate within a browser.
What to Watch Out For
Beyond 9.3, ESRI Inc. has a large number of development projects underway to improve ArcGIS in the areas of quality and documentation, display and analysis performance, map generalisation/optimisation, map series generation, map scripting (like AML), a Flex/Flash API, editing templates, native .NET and Java Servers, true 3D capabilities, analysis and visualisation and lightweight developer deployments. There will be an ArcGIS 9.4, and release is scheduled for sometime in 2009.
Podcasts
Hear directly from ESRI Inc. what's coming in the ArcGIS 9.3 geodatabase
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