ESRI Headlines

Highlighting ESRI technical topics, news, and updates.

Has your organization started learning and using ArcGIS Pro? It was recently announced at the 2017 ESRI Dev Summit that the company will not be putting out updates of  ArcMap after version 10.6. ArcGIS Pro, which is included with your ArcGIS Desktop license since version 10.3 (January 2015), will be the only desktop application that ESRI will be supporting moving forward. Built from the ground up, in order to make it fully 64-bit compatible, ArcGIS Pro was developed from the input of the worldwide GIS community to meet the modern GIS professionals needs. To read more on ArcGIS Pro and learn about ESRI’s vision for this application visit this blog post .

The newest version of ArcGIS Pro is 1.4 alpha, released with ArcMap 10.5, has added functionality to work with Ortho products, Georeferencing and more. Click here to learn more about what is new with this application.

To get familiar and learn more about Pro take a look at this introductory lesson on the ESRI Lesson Gallery, and check out this webinar produced by NPGS staff “An Introduction to ArcGIS Pro: The New and Improved ArcMap”.

Interested in learning more about the GIS application development opportunities, click here to learn how NPGS can help you!

Programming Corner: Python

Highlighting programming: languages, tidbits, updates and news.

The newest Python version was released on December 23, 2016. Python 3.6 has a host of new features and improvements that include: New syntax,  New library module, CPython implementation improvements, Standard library improvements, Security improvements, and Windows improvements. To get the detailed list of these new features and enhancements for Python version 3.6 click here.

The latest python tool we are working on at NPGS is a change detection tool. It can detect changes between two feature classes of the same data type and projection. By running this tool, you can quickly identify a changed attribute, geometry, or both.

To learn more about the python language visit  python.org. To learn more about ArcPy in ArcGIS visit this webpage here.

GIS Tips & Tricks

When we learn something new or helpful we like to pass it along.

ArcMap Shortcuts can take some time to learn but in the end can help you be more productive with your mapping tasks.  Next time you need to reach for the pan hand on the toolbar try this shortcut instead.

This one is easy to learn.  Hold down the “c” key on the keyboard. This toggles the pan hand on and off. Another easy shortcut is to open feature class table from your map table of contents, hold control and double click on the feature class. This opens the table without having to right click and find in the menu.  To find an entire table of ArcMap shortcuts here.

Upcoming Events and Conferences

Events of interest for our GIS and Web development folks.

Twin Ports Web Pro’s Meetup April 27, 2017
Web pro’s meetups happen in the Twin Ports always on the last Thursday of the month at 7:00 p.m. Join any time through https://www.meetup.com/Twin-Ports-Web-Professionals/ to hang out with fellow web professional to share ideas and network.

MN GIS/LIS Consortium Spring Workshops May 2017 (TBD)
Spring workshops will be fast upon us. Plan your budgets so you can be sure to attend this great event put on by the Consortium. Get the details here as the event takes shape: http://www.mngislis.org/?spring_works_2017

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