GeoMusings

Work has a funny way of intruding on blogging. I’ve been writing a LOT of proposals lately. The funny part is that so have a lot of others that I know. Federal, state, local…they seem to have gotten their budgets all at the same time. There are worse problems to have.

During this period (which I am calling my “Word Period”) I have been watching as Abe and Paolo get zigGIS out the door. I was able to confirm that I indeed introduced a bug a couple of versions back. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

I have been keeping my sanity by slinging a little code here and there. I am hoping to finish up an experimental Twitter client for ArcGIS Explorer. Mainly, it’s an exercise to get me familiar with the Twitter and Twittervision APIs. Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve done anything with AGX. The upcoming builds look exciting so I want to get comfortable with it again.

There’s light at the end of tunnel on the proposal stuff so I’m hoping to get a little more technical again here in the next couple of weeks. Until then, I’ll have to accept the fact that Word, Paint.Net, Acrobat and Twhirl (all work and no play) have pushed Visual Studio and anything GIS related off my recently used list.

Those of you following the progress of zigGIS via Twitter may have noticed that zigGIS 2.0 is being released to the beta testers. This version features better handling of spatial references and well as enabling editing of PostGIS data using native ArcMap tools.

There’s been a lot of code cleanup along the way and Paolo has build a new installer using NSIS. I will being developing the ArcCatalog objects again in the coming weeks, once the core product is stable (which is pretty much is now but it’s nice to have others to beat on it for a while).

The Obtuse web site should become more informative in the near future but, for now, keep checking here, here and here or follow along on Twitter.

GIS Programming relays the fact that the MapObjects Evaluation version is no longer available. I posted a while back about MO not being supported on Vista. In recent Twitter conversations I have learned that some folks are still running MOIMS apps.

The bottom line is that MapObjects rivals ArcView 3.x as the ESRI product with the most enthusastic fan base. Just mention MO to a GIS developer of a certain age (ahem) and the war stories will start to flow. So, in honor of this latest nail in the coffin, let ‘em flow.

Do you still use/support MO? If so, what are you doing with it?

Do you plan to migrate to ArcGIS Engine or will you consider other libraries, like SharpMap?

What was coolest thing you ever did with MO?

For me, it was a modular application that we designed to integrate a bunch of free-standing analysis apps. Some were AV3 extensions, some were done in MapBasic MapX, some were completely proprietary code, some were already in MO. Our customer couldn’t easily build an integrated analysis product with all of those results. We designed a common GUI and a plug-in COM API so that all of those apps could be migrated into one place but managed according their own lifecycles. We got it working and also built in some collaboration features. We got a couple of releases out before ESRI released ArcGIS with a similar architecture and we decided to go there. It didn’t upset me too much, I considered it the sincerest form of flattery .

Obtuse Software has established a Twitter account for zigGIS with the intent of using Twitter to broadcast status updates on zigGIS. The link to the zigGIS home on Twitter is:

twitter.com/zigGIS

Twitter users who are interested in keeping up to date as zigGIS 2.0 moves through beta into its release and beyond can simply follow zigGIS on Twitter. I highly encourage those that are interested to follow. Initially, this will be an outbound form of communication. We will tweet to anyone who follows but we will not be immediately following anyone.

It is a future goal of ours to evaluate the effectiveness of Twitter as a means of gathering feedback on zigGIS and integrating that feedback into the development process.

As zigGIS 2.0 enters its beta stage, I am (somewhat strangely) reminded of the famous line from Yeats:

“what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Kind of a weird thing to have pop into your head in relation to something as positive as zigGIS, but sleep deprivation can do that.

Anyway, this is more of a status update than an invite. ZigGIS 2.0 is getting ready to enter its beta stage. The beta will be a closed beta amongst a subset of existing users. Abe has blogged about it. It’ll help us get it tested while also keeping the beta program manageable (for us).

So, for those who will be beta testing, now is the time. For the rest who are interested, zigGIS 2.0 is moving forward. More info can be found on Abe’s blog and screencasts are available at the Obtuse site.