I recently listened to a DirectionsMag podcast regarding a new product by a Welsh company, exeGesIS, called ArcSquirrel. Apart from an awesome company name and humorous product name [since we changed our company name, I think a lot about names. How cool is "exegesis" for a GIS company?], it’s a plugin for ArcGIS desktop that enables direct editing and data management of SQL Server 2008 spatial data layers.
While I think it is really great that Microsoft implemented a spatial data type as part of their flagship SQL Server database product, the initial release was a somewhat crippled product. You could query spatial data stored in SQL Server using a wonderful series of extensions to the SQL language, but MS did not package any tools to actually load data. Further, the ADO.Net and LINQ database access frameworks didn’t really support the new spatial data types very well either. Some open source spatial data tools were posted on CodePlex and that was useful, but there weren’t really great tools for editing the data directly.
Enter, ArcSquirrel. This extension for the Esri ArcGIS desktop tools will enable you to edit the SQL Server spatial data columns using your favorite desktop GIS tools. ArcSquirrel adds a new toolbar to the ArcMap application as well as tools for loading GIS data to SQL Server, support for multi-user editing, metadata integration with ArcCatalog and support for joins and spatial functions. At $240/seat, it’s pretty affordable.
This is not the first such specialized GIS data editor that extends the ArcGIS desktop product. Obtuse Software has created ZigGis, an extension to ArcMap for editing PostGIS data. More recently, Esri has developed and released an open source extension to ArcMap that supports editing the OpenStreetMap database. I’m particularly impressed that Esri has not only created an extension for OSM, but has elected to release it under an open source license. The beta version was released in July and the 1.0 release was out last week. Software like this is going to enable the 100,000′s of ArcGIS desktop users to contribute to the global OpenStreetMap database and thereby make it more useful for everyone. Based on the Esri demo at the US State of the Map event, Randal Hale has written up a nice review of the extension. Kudos to Marten Hogeweg and his colleagues at Esri.
Resources
- ArcSquirrel: http://www.arcsquirrel.com/
- ZigGis: http://www.obtusesoft.com/
- Esri OpenStreetMap Editor: http://esriosmeditor.codeplex.com/
- Review of OSM Editor by Randal Hale: http://blog.entchev.com/2010/09/13/arcgiseditor-for-osm.aspx
UPDATE:
10/13/2010: ArcSquirrel has released an API that enables programmatic control over the data management and editing process.
