The Future of Arcview; Part 2

August 9, 2000
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Part Two
(Part One of this article is available here.)

The change in underlying technology from ArcView 3.x to 8.1 is dramatic. Does that mean everything in ArcView 8.1 will be incompatible with 3.x? Will the shapefile structure change? How about the underlying project file structure? We put these questions to Rich Turner during our recent interview. Turner also shared with us some of ESRI’s visions of the future.

Shapefiles will remain the same. ArcView 8.1 will give users the choice between saving geographic features in shapefiles (now an industry standard format) or in the new “personal database” format, which saves features and their attributes in a Microsoft Access database. That’s right: the features will be stored with the attributes. No longer will the two be separated. Clearly, however, migrating to the personal database structure is irreversible: ArcView 3.x cannot read this new format.

Database handling is one place where ArcView 8.1 will be distinguished from its higher-end sibling ArcInfo 8.1. “In the ‘advanced’ geodata model, you can define complex features [that is, made up of simpler objects such as points and polygons], but you need ArcInfo for that. ArcView can use those, but it cannot edit them,” according to Turner.

The ArcView 3.x project file will become a “map document” in 8.1. Users will be able to import large parts of 3.x project files into their map documents, but a complete import will not be possible. Most affected by this limitation will be developers and power users who have customized their projects, because the import process does not translate customization scripts into VBA.

Improvements in software create a quandary for developers. The temptation is to improve on file formats, at the risk of making old documents unreadable. It is not humanly possible, however, to anticipate all future improvements in software when a document format is first designed.

It is nevertheless possible to manage upgrades transparently. The best way is to have the upgraded software read older documents directly. This is the experience Microsoft Word and Excel users have had. The next-best way is to import older documents without loss of information. Recent upgraders of Access have experienced that. Both approaches are acceptable.

ArcView users have not been so fortunate. Upgrades from 2.1 to 3.0, and again from 3.0 to 3.1, caused occasional project documents to become unreadable. Some users lost their work. When asked about this issue, and whether it might affect future upgrades in ArcGIS 8.x products, Turner could only say that ESRI’s “goal is maintain upward compatibility.” At a minimum, users should demand that ESRI make a public commitment to preserving the readability of documents produced by ArcGIS 8.x products.

We asked Turner about efforts to support users who make the move to the new technology. ESRI has done a notable job in the past with providing support for using its software tools: courses, instructional materials, web pages, technical “white papers.” Now there is also a new Microsoft-like “knowledge base” available on ESRI’s web site.

Turner also reports that the most popular technical workshops at the User Conference are being developed into courses. These include the workshops on “What Avenue Programmers Need to Know About VBA in ArcView 8” and “How ArcView 8 Users Can Leverage the Database.” Eventually there will be a “full suite of courses” to help users migrate to ArcView 8 and use it effectively.

ESRI is also working to complete technical white papers and produce examples of converting Avenue to VBA code. Developers within ESRI are building sample code as a model for users. Expect to see the results of these efforts, and more, appear at the ESRI web site throughout the rest of the year.

The motivation behind a wholesale change in technology is the potential for future improvement. To date, much of the effort at ESRI appears to have gone into recreating within ArcGIS 8.1 the capabilities that were present in earlier versions of ArcInfo, ArcView, and their extensions. What is next? The new “Model Builder” product, recently released with Spatial Analyst 2.0, provides a clue.

Model Builder is a visual interface to parts of Spatial Analyst. The user creates and executes a spatial model by drawing pictures of the parts of the process and graphically connecting the pictures to indicate the flow of data.

Turner characterizes this version of Model Builder as “the first phase of a more ambitious initiative.” (The word on the street is that “phase” overstates the case a little: because Model Builder exposes only a small subset of Spatial Analyst’s rich set of capabilities, it might be fairer to characterize it as a “proof of concept.”) The bigger goal, Turner says, is to expand this approach to the entire “Arc model:” to take the same visual metaphor and expand it to all GIS analysis. Unlike the present version, which is tied to one product, later versions will be “smart enough to detect the capabilities [installed on a computing device] … It will be an intelligent interface to the GIS capabilities you have access to.”

It seems that as GIS software becomes richer and more complex, it will in some ways become ever easier to use. However, cautionary tales from mythology through modern times, from Prometheus through Fail-Safe, warn us of the dangers of misusing powerful technology. “People have to be more intelligent about what the technology does,” volunteers Turner. “Technology is just a tool.” At the closing session of last month’s User Conference Clint Brown echoed the same concern: “A key goal is to teach proper practices and methodologies, not just the use of the software.”

With this increased complexity and demand for knowledgeable use will come increased specialization. ESRI’s recent retooling of ArcView and ArcInfo can be seen as an effort to provide the platform to support this specialization.

You can look at these products in two ways, Turner states. With the convergence of the underlying technologies, you can now scale ArcView up to include more sophisticated tools, feature editing, and advanced geoprocessing without changing software or hardware. Or, you can view ArcView simply as a subset of ArcInfo. “You can scale up or scale down, depending on how you look at it. It gives you the flexibility to do specific tasks within a single ArcGIS environment,” concludes Turner.

The segregation of key components of ArcView/ArcInfo into separate products supports specialization out of the box. For example, users can create “cost-effective editing seats” by assembling appropriate modules, without needing to pay for the analytical tools. The potential for further specialization is present, too, in the COM architecture itself. It may take a year or two, but eventually third-party developers will be providing a wide array of tools for specific purposes or industries.

Change. It is frightening and it is exhilarating. ESRI has laid down a pattern for implementing change in GIS software for the next decade and beyond. It remains now for GIS users and developers to grasp this potential and to use it wisely and effectively. One thing is clear: this is only the beginning.

(Part One of this article is available here.)

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