00:01Welcome to the session Best Practices for Designing Effective Map Services.

00:05My name is Craig Williams and with me today is Ivonne Seler, and we'll be talking about not only...

00:12... best practices, but kind of the details of, you know, what types of services you put together to make a really good Web map.

00:22So, to do this we'll talk about map service planning and design.

00:27So, how should you serve up different types of data?

00:29What fits in different categories of services.

00:34And that ties into ways to serve your map, so talking about cache tiles, dynamic map services...

00:41...client-side graphics, when you should use each one of those.

00:44And then we'll follow it up with performance tips for map services, just things you should keep in mind when...

00:51...you're publishing map services.

00:53And along the way we'll give a demonstration of using the Map Service Publishing toolbar, to publish an...

00:59...optimized map service, and the steps that that toolbar can take you through to optimize the performance of your map...

01:05...and rout out any problems that you may have in your service.

01:11So, one of the things we're trying to move people away from is what we call the Web 1.0 application style.

01:19So, to me, this is an ArcIMS map, you know, big map with tons of layers.

01:25You go through and you individually toggle them all, and it refreshes and draws dynamically...

01:32...from the map service every time you make a change, and that's slow.

01:37So how many of you have seen map services that present a user interface like this?

01:44Yes; I don't want to see this.

01:48Essentially...I have a colleague at Esri who calls this the Swiss Army knife of maps.

01:55So, everything's in there that you need, but you can't find it, and when you go to use it, it doesn't really work that well.

02:02And essentially this is putting a lot of desktop GIS workflows onto the Web.

02:06Now that's okay if you're a GIS professional, but I imagine most of you are actually serving data out to people who aren't...

02:13...GIS professionals, who maybe don't know the individual differences between all these layer types and things like that.

02:20So, why is this important?

02:22This is important because we're sharing data with more people, non-GIS professionals, basically that have...

02:29...experience with consumer mapping sites.

02:31And these sites have raised the bar, right?

02:34Everybody is using Google Maps, or Bing Maps, or whatever they like.

02:38And, this one-size-fits-all web map of IMS layers that you turn on and off doesn't really work for...

02:47...people who are used to this paradigm.

02:50You get slow performance, they get frustrated, they'll stop looking at your site.

02:56So, that's why today we're going to be talking about building a new style of web maps.

03:03And, essentially when we're talking about that, we're talking about the main principle is dividing up...

03:07...your basemap data and your operational data into logical groups.

03:13You present a small number of layers to turn on and off.

03:16You might not even present that with a table of contents-like experience.

03:19It may be a button that just all of a sudden draws some extra data.

03:24And, you build a really good web map by using a high-performance blend of cache tiles for the data...

03:31...that's not changing that often, or that you can manage the cache updates.

03:35Dynamic layers for, you know, data that you're interacting with, or data that's updating quite a bit.

03:40And then in some cases you may find the need to use client-side graphics, just to provide the functionality...

03:45...that you may need in your web application.

03:49So, when we talk about organizing data into logical groups, this basemap/ operational layer split...

03:54...is the most important thing to keep in mind.

03:58Basemaps, typically we're talking about cached map services here, and the idea here is to provide a geographic...

04:06...frame of reference, containing vector data that's maybe not getting updated that often or that you can...

04:12...manage the updates and be able to update the cache.

04:16And raster data.

04:17So, say you fly aerial photography every six years or something; you can do updates there.

04:24And one of the key things with the basemaps that we want to promote is the idea that, you know...

04:29...don't try to put everything in a single basemap.

04:32Ideally, you want to reuse these in multiple web applications.

04:37You don't want to make that Swiss Army knife map, you want to make a lot of really good maps.

04:43And, to do that, you're going to need to reuse some of these basemap services.

04:47So you may have an imagery cached map service that you'll reuse in many applications.

04:53But you make the investment to build that cache once, and you can reuse it across the board.

04:59Operational layers, on the other hand, show a focused item of interest.

05:03This may be the item that you're actively working with, or you need to perform analysis on, and the idea here...

05:10...is that they're the main focus of the application itself; they're what supports whatever you're doing in the application.

05:16And, typically, when we're talking about operational layers, they're displayed on top of the basemap.

05:22So, we'll get into a case study that you're all familiar with, talking about, you know, complex maps.

05:28Everybody uses Google Maps at some point.

05:31And, when you think about Google Maps, you know, there's the regular maps, street view, there's the terrain view...

05:38...and then there's, like, the satellite imagery view.

05:42If you were to actually try to re-create that map, you would find yourself needing to use a lot of different layers.

05:50There's a lot of data in there.

05:53But you don't think about that when you're using it.

05:55It's a single cached service in most cases, and you're just viewing the map, and the cartography's good...

06:02...and things make sense, and you don't have to think about the fact that, you know, there's probably a ferries...

06:07...layer and golf courses and hospitals that someone's managing in a back-end database.

06:13The terrain view, for instance, uses a lot of the same data as the regular street map view, but adds things...

06:21...like contours, changes the symbology, et cetera.

06:24And you know for the aerial satellite view, they got to manage imagery and source information...

06:30...so that they can actively show you that information as you pan and zoom around the map.

06:36So, one thing that you might not think about with Google Maps is that they actually have operational layers.

06:42So, if you ever view the traffic information on Google Maps, that's an operational layer...

06:47...actually brought in as vectors and drawn in the browser.

06:52There's also the Wikipedia. You know, georeferenced Wikipedia articles show up, photos, you know, the web cams.

07:00Even, say, whether or not there's street view available in your area.

07:04These are all operational layers that you turn on and off above the basemap.

07:11So, we talked about Google Maps.

07:13Let's look at some more modern ArcGIS Server examples of these paradigms.

07:17So, the first one I'll go to is this Orange County, Florida, property appraiser map.

07:33This is a typical map; when you first start viewing it, it shows an overview of the county itself.

07:37You can zoom in to it, though.

07:41And the drawing performance is fairly good.

07:45You can see that it's revealing more information as I zoom in further.

07:50You can get down to some parcel levels, shows you some text for the parcels.

07:54And then, you know, when you need to interact with a parcel, there's a bunch of tools.

07:59And one of the cool things here is they have this nice little view of the parcel information.

08:06And you can actually see a little photo of it.

08:08And, they actually have links to viewing the Google street view and an oblique view on Bing Maps.

08:15And then, some information here.

08:17Now look at these fields of information they're showing here.

08:21Do you see ObjectID?

08:27No.

08:30So, Clint Brown, who is director of software products at Esri, he'll say, if you have ObjectID field...

08:36...in your info windows, you've failed.

08:40And it's pretty true.

08:41I mean, you don't just want a dump of your field values.

08:43One of the things that aggravates me is actually, when you have tax assessment values, or values here...

08:51...that, you know, often they're not formatted.

08:53That's a monetary value.

08:55You know, slap a dollar sign on the front of it, so people actually know that.

08:59So, you know, this is just one example of, you know, an organization that's tried to present a more useful view of the information...

09:08...not just dumping out all the attributes from the attribute table.

09:21So, how many of you have seen the Solar Boston site?

09:25We demonstrate it quite a bit because it's pretty good.

09:31It's another example of a different type of report where they're not actually showing you...

09:36...necessarily attribute data. We'll zoom in.

09:40What this is about is, it shows you whether or not it would be a good idea, perhaps, to put solar panels on your roof...

09:51...you know, if it'd be cost-effective due to the solar potential.

09:54So, you first go to this map and there's not that much blocking your view of the map itself.

10:02If you want to interact with it more, there's some tools that can slide in.

10:05You can pick these up and move it around.

10:07And the tools are pretty simple.

10:08You can click on a building, and it brings up this little report, and it's showing you the solar potential during...

10:17...the months of the year, and whether or not this building would be good for, you know, solar panels.

10:26So there's some calculation values in here.

10:28Talks about the assumptions that this calculation is making and, you know, what you can do next.

10:37So these are just some examples of, you know, good sites.

10:41I won't necessarily go to the City of Greeley one, but if you look at the slides after User Conference...

10:47...you can visit that site as well.

10:50So, okay, now we're going to talk about ways to serve your map.

10:53So, I kind of touched on this briefly - cached maps versus dynamically drawn maps versus client-side graphics.

11:00What we'll do is we'll talk about each one of these.

11:04So, cache tiles are predrawn images.

11:07There's some process that cooks the images, writes them to disk.

11:12And, because the map is already drawn, these will offer you the best performance and scalability.

11:19And these are the standard for all the commercial websites.

11:21So, Google Maps, Bing, all the ArcGIS Online services, are cached map services.

11:28And, you know, it's really nice that you get this fast and drawing map, but you may be sitting there thinking, okay...

11:35...but I've got to invest in making this cache.

11:38And that is one thing to think about, it requires you to create and maintain the cache.

11:43So you need to balance that with your data updates in your organization.

11:49So, what should you cache?

11:50We are going to say that you should always cache basemap data.

11:55But, there's also the case of operational layers that you can cache.

12:00So, the Google examples I talked about before, these photos and Wikipedia links, they're cached...

12:07...they're tiles that get downloaded to the browser.

12:10The other case that no one thinks about in this way, but is almost always cached, is weather data.

12:16You go to weather.com, they have this viewer where you can view, you know, the radar weather data on top of...

12:23...Bing Maps basemap, and that's cached images.

12:29They're updating the cache very frequently, but they're still cached tiles.

12:34The cached tiles offer them scalability and also offer some other added benefits, such as making the ability to play...

12:41...through an animation of those different time set caches easier.

12:45So, in some cases you may want to consider caching your operational layers...

12:51...but you'll need to manage the updates and how often you can update that data.

12:56So, where do I create a map cache?

13:00Where is the cache stored?

13:02What if the data changes?

13:03There's a lot of things to think about with caching.

13:07I'm not going to cover them here.

13:09So, there's other sessions. Today is Wednesday, so the early one's already happened, so you got Thursday to think about.

13:17And, you know, there's some past presentations from Developer Summit and past User Conferences online...

13:22...if you can't make it this week, that cover these topics.

13:26Caching alone is worthy of at least one presentation, if not more, because there's a lot of different...

13:33...workflows that people have to account for.

13:38So, we just talked about caching; well, what should you draw dynamically?

13:43Well, think about real-time data; I mean it would be nearly impossible to cache real-time data.

13:50The weather guys do it, but if you think about how weather data works, I mean, they're really only...

13:53...updating once every five minutes or so.

13:57So they can handle it.

13:59Frequently changing data with a large scope, so if you run a national organization with editors editing data...

14:06...all over the country, or if you're worldwide and you're doing it all over the world on a single day...

14:14...managing the changes, and updating the caches may be very difficult.

14:19And then, one of the things we commonly see is that for internal map services, if you're serving up services...

14:25...for intranet-based applications that only a few people in your organization are going to be viewing...

14:33...you can probably draw it dynamically; and if that performance is good enough for you, then that's okay.

14:42A couple of things to keep in mind when you're talking about dynamically drawn map services.

14:46Every time you make a request through a dynamic map service, the server has to go and get the data, then it has to render...

14:54...the data into an image, and then it sends that image back to the client.

15:00In the cache case, the only thing that needs to happen is you need to pull that image from the client.

15:04And in most cases, that's cached, so if you've been there before, it's already on your browser.

15:10So, dynamic map services are slower than caching, but at 9.3.1 we introduced a new optimized map service...

15:20...that improves the performance of dynamic map services greatly.

15:26So, optimized map services use a new, faster drawing engine.

15:31And we serve up a different file type.

15:34So in the past you'd serve up a map document, and with optimized map services you serve up a map service definition.

15:41And the end result is that you get a map service.

15:45So, for the web APIs and the REST endpoint, it looks the same and behaves the same, for the most part.

15:55Optimized map services offer faster, dynamic drawing than ArcIMS.

15:59So, in previous versions of ArcGIS Server, people were resistant to move because their IMS...

16:05...applications drew faster, and that's one of the big items we rectified with optimized map services.

16:10The other thing to keep in mind is that optimized map services support a subset of the most common layer types.

16:17We chose layer types that we thought made the most sense for dynamic map services, and we continue...

16:25...to add more to that list at each release.

16:28But, you know, when you analyze your map and work through the workflow of making an optimized map service...

16:35...you need to think about what's in that service and whether or not it makes sense from a performance standpoint.

16:41And the way you create the map service definition, and you can create the service as well, is that you...

16:46...prepare and publish with the Map Service Publishing toolbar in ArcMap.

16:52So, to show that workflow I'm going to hand it over to Ivonne.

16:55She's going to go through and analyze, fix errors and warnings, preview and then publish a map service.

17:02Right. What I... Can you hear me?

17:10What I have here is a map of Gulfport in Mississippi, and my goal is to publish it as an optimized map service.

17:18So, therefore, first, I need the Map Publishing toolbar and I find this in Customize > Toolbar and Map Service Publishing.

17:30In this toolbar I find tools for analyzing my map, so I can find all the issues that exist in my map.

17:38I can preview it and see and get a feel and touch for my map service that I want to create.

17:46I can then save it as a map service definition file, or I can publish it directly to ArcGIS Server.

17:55I can also change the options for my map service that I want to publish.

18:01So I'm going to start with analyzing my map.

18:05And this opens the Prepare dialog.

18:08We have three categories in this dialog; the first is errors.

18:13These are issues in your map that you have to solve before you can publish it as an optimized map service.

18:20We have warnings.

18:23These are changes you should do to your map that are highly recommended to improve performance.

18:29And then we also have messages that might help you with performance for your map service.

18:38So we have this list that you, for example, can sort by severity from high to medium to low.

18:46You see the status: it could be unresolved or resolved issue.

18:50You get a description of the error warning or message.

18:54And you can also search for specific issues in your map.

19:00I'm going to start with the errors.

19:03My first error tells me that the layer type is not supported.

19:07When I right-click this error, I get a list of solutions.

19:12The bold one is always the recommended solution.

19:15In my case here, it's "Remove the layer" or I can read the help.

19:19And I can also select the layer in the table of contents.

19:23So I click this first and I see that it's the buffer points.

19:27This is a geoprocessing layer, and geoprocessing layers are not supported in optimized map services.

19:35So I right-click again, and I remove the layer.

19:40And as you might notice, the status of my error changed to Reanalyze.

19:45So what I have to do is I click the Analyze button again, and now I'm down to just one error.

19:52And this one is "The layer data source is inaccessible."

19:56I can actually already see this here, because I have the red exclamation mark on my layer.

20:02So right-clicking this error, I get a longer list of solutions that I could apply to this error.

20:09I will choose the first one, Set Data Source, and what it does, it actually calls the repair.

20:15So even if I would have more broken layers in this map, it would automatically also repair all the other broken layers.

20:25And I already know where my data are, it's md_watershape.

20:34So I will just apply this, reanalyze, and now I don't have any errors in my map.

20:40I could already go ahead and publish this map.

20:44What I am going to do is I will preview it first.

20:48So I click the Preview button, and this opens this Preview window.

20:55And very important in this window is the time; it tells me how long it will take to draw this map.

21:03And when I open it the first time, it's around a second.

21:08I also have navigation tools to zoom and pan around in my map.

21:15I'd see the scale, make it a little smaller, and I can also, for example, pan the map to the viewer or zoom the map to...

21:27...the viewer, so I can synchronize what I see in my map document and what I see in the Preview...

21:33...for my optimized map service.

21:37So I will zoom my map to the area that I'm looking in my map service.

21:44I can also preview it with specific settings for the image format.

21:49And see here, I have different formats that I can use. It's depending on what you want to publish; for example...

21:58...if you want to create a cache, it's important which image format you're using, and here you can already get a view...

22:06...how this specific image format would look like in your optimized map service.

22:13So after seeing this I will now move on and solve other problems in my map.

22:24The first high-severity warning that I have is "Layer's data source doesn't have a spatial index."

22:33The spatial index is important to quickly find features, to draw features fast, so I need the spatial index...

22:43...to improve my performance.

22:45I right-click the warning, and I use the Add Spatial Index.

22:53So this is opening a geoprocessing tool for me that will add the spatial index to my specific layer.

23:10And it already selected the right feature class that I want to change, so I can just click OK, close it...

23:23...reanalyze my map, and now this problem is solved.

23:29My next two high-severity warnings are for the same layer.

23:34It's the hillshade, and this is a raster layer, and this raster does not have pyramids...

23:41...and it's also in a different projection than my data frame.

23:46We as ArcGIS Desktop user often very used to the projection on the fly, so for me it often happens...

23:55...that I don't even recognize that I used a layer that has a different projection, because...

23:59...the projection on the fly is just happening in the background and I can work with my map.

24:05But when you work with map services it takes a big hit on performance, because every time that you...

24:12...draw the map, you have to do the projection on the fly.

24:16So we highly recommend that you have all your data in the same projection when you publish as a map service.

24:27For the pyramids here, the only option that I have is the help.

24:32The help is available for each and every error message, warning, or information, so that you can read first...

24:41...what problem you have in your map, and then do the right steps to solve that problem.

24:50Here you can read everything about the pyramids, what it means, how to create them.

24:59I already created a dataset that has the pyramids as well as the projection, so what I'm going to do is...

25:06...I go directly into the table of contents, I open the hillshade properties and I will set the new data source.

25:20And here it is, it's the hillshade_p.

25:26Now I reanalyze my map to see if the problem is solved, and you can see that now only the medium warnings are left.

25:35So I want to show you that this had an influence on the performance.

25:39So I open the Preview window again, and this time I don't need a second to open it, it's down to 0.38 seconds.

25:48So that's the new neat thing about the Preview window, you really see that changes that...

25:52...you did really have an influence on the performance.

25:58Now I'm going ahead and we'll solve the rest of my warnings.

26:03The first one is "Enabling the option to convert layer transparency to color transparency may improve performance."

26:12As Craig already mentioned, in 9.3.1 we used a new graphic engine for the optimized map service.

26:20And this new graphic engine is capable of drawing the color transparency instead of the layer transparency.

26:27And this will improve the performance severely.

26:32When I right-click this warning, I have the option Help, because this is a new, this is introduced newly in 9.3.1.

26:44We really want you to get informed first before you apply it.

26:48But what I'm going to do is I will use the color transparency.

26:55And I reanalyze the map.

26:58And now you see it's resolved in the map service definition.

27:02And what that tells me is that I didn't change anything on my map document itself.

27:08But, when I convert it into a map service definition, this changes...

27:14...to "Color transparency will be converted and available."

27:21Because this is a problem that is not completely solved in the map document, it still has the...

27:26...status Resolved in the map service definition.

27:29If I only want to see the unresolved problems, I can check the Show Only Unresolved Items...

27:39...and now I will just see the five warnings that I haven't touched yet.

27:46And they are telling me all the same, "The layer contains a multilayer line symbol whose symbol...

27:51...width may result in aliasing when displayed."

27:57Much as the color transparency is new with the new graphics engine, it also has specific properties...

28:06...for the anti-aliasing.

28:09So aliasing can appear, for example, I'm not sure if you can see it from that far...

28:18...but you see this jagged line, so this is an aliasing effect; I get this zigzag line.

28:26If I use anti-aliasing, I can improve the quality of my graphics.

28:33And you can change this in the map service publishing options.

28:38So here you can set it once for the feature layers.

28:43And this goes from None to Best, and you can do it separately for the text.

28:50And this is also from None to Four.

28:53When you change these options, be aware that this comes for cost.

29:00If you, for example, set the anti-aliasing to Best, it will not draw as fast as if, for example, you have None anti-aliasing set.

29:15I have different options here to solve these problems.

29:19One is, I could change the width of the symbol, so that I don't have this effect anymore, also on my map document.

29:28Or I can automatically correct the line width so that a specific line width will be drawn in the optimized map service.

29:35And that's what I'm going to do.

29:38So I'm selecting this option for all my warnings.

29:51And now basically I have no errors, no warnings.

29:54The only thing left are my messages.

29:59And the first message I see is "The layer uses a gradient fill."

30:04This message is also related to the new graphics engine.

30:10Here you would have the help for this, and it tells me basically that it will look slightly different in my...

30:19...optimized map service than I'm used to in the desktop.

30:24So in this case I would just briefly look over it and see if the differences are really that big so that...

30:33...I have to take action, but actually it looks quite similar to me.

30:40I would just leave it as is.

30:44The last messages that I have there, "Layer draws at all scale ranges."

30:50In my case, I will leave it that way because I really want all the layers to draw at all scale ranges.

30:57But if you create your map services, you really want to make sure that only the layers draw that you want to see at specific scales.

31:06Because it's very expensive to draw a layer that has a lot of features at all scale ranges...

31:13...if you don't need it, if you can't even see it.

31:17So I would not do any changes here because I'm fine with my results.

31:21And I will now publish the map.

31:26I have two ways to do this.

31:27I can create a map service definition file.

31:34I go to my folder where I have my MXD, and I will save it together with my MXD.

31:43I do this because every time you want to do changes to your map document, the workflow will be, you do the...

31:50...changes to your map document, you reanalyze the map to see if any introduction that you did actually...

31:59...changed the performance or caused errors and warnings, and then you re-create the MSD file.

32:07And you would use this MSD file, for example, to create your cached map service.

32:13Or, you can also publish directly to ArcGIS Server.

32:19And this opens the wizard that is already familiar to you from ArcCatalog, so I have my server, I have my service name...

32:31...I choose the capabilities that I want; for me, it's Mapping Only; and now I could finish the creation of my service.

32:42I want you to pay attention to this area, Map Service Definition.

32:47You see that, also here, a map service definition file is created.

32:52But I don't choose the location.

32:55The location is chosen by the system and it is on my server machine.

33:00So here's it's on c:\arcgisserver\arcgisinput.

33:05This is where my map service definition file will live.

33:10So I can finish this up and then I quickly want to show you in ArcCatalog the preview of my MSD that I can use later...

33:19...to publish to the server and the service that I just published.

33:31And I will refresh and preview.

33:38And here you see my map and I can zoom it and can have a look, and I also have my map service here...

33:51...and I will see the same map as I just published. Thank you. Craig?

33:59All right. Thanks, Ivonne.

34:03So, just to recap some of the things that Ivonne covered.

34:06There are some cartographic choices that you can make when publishing an optimized map service.

34:11So, anti-aliasing is a feature of the drawing engine in an optimized map service, and you...

34:18...can choose it for both features and text.

34:21The text setting will also apply to any character or marker symbols in your map.

34:27Primarily, this is used to improve visual quality.

34:30It's almost always used for basemaps that are being cached.

34:34It slows performance, but in that case it's slowing the performance of the caching, which is okay...

34:40...because it's going to produce a better quality product in the end.

34:44So, if you look at any of the main commercial, you know, map services that we've talked about, they're all anti-aliased.

34:54Since anti-aliasing is part of the drawing engine in optimized map services, it is available though for...

35:01...dynamic map services, and this isn't available when serving a map document, because in that case...

35:08...the anti-aliasing is applied for caching only as a post-processing step.

35:13So, one of the things you should think about though when you're choosing anti-aliasing is what image format...

35:18...you're going to be using.

35:20So whether you're caching or you're going to be requesting dynamic images, you need to think about that format.

35:26Because anti-aliasing, for instance, doesn't mix well with PNG-8 because you're introducing...

35:31...a lot of colors into the map with these gradients of the smooth drawing.

35:37One capability of the optimized map service is a true PNG-32 output, and this works really well...

35:44...with anti-aliasing for overlay effects.

35:47So, if you've ever used the Google Maps hybrid view, where it's showing some street information on top...

35:53...of the cached tiles of imagery, that's a PNG-32 with anti-aliasing, and that's how they can have smooth text over...

36:03...the image and make it look really nice.

36:06There's also this option about choosing color transparency versus feature transparency.

36:11I would urge you to read the help document on this subject if it comes up, because it's pretty complex.

36:18You've got to make the decision whether or not color transparency will change the appearance of your...

36:22...map, there's a chance that it could, but the reason we've even brought this option to the forefront is...

36:28...that color transparency increases performance, and that's because color transparency can be handled faster...

36:35...inside of the drawing engine, specifically.

36:38And then, keep in mind the symbology of your map.

36:42We used to recommend, when publishing map document-based map services, to use this Esri_Optimized style.

36:53Despite the fact that it uses the term "optimize," you do not have to use this in an optimized map service...

36:59...but keep in mind that, you know, more complex symbology will slow down your map.

37:05So keep it simple if you can.

37:09So, what types of data and layer types are available for optimized map services?

37:15Well, all geodatabase feature class types, shapefile, SDC, raster data types; you know, annotation layers...

37:27...most of the common layer types that you'll be using.

37:29Most 2D symbols, callouts, legends, things like that.

37:33There are a bunch of items that aren't supported.

37:35How do you know if you have one of those in your map?

37:38Well, when you analyze you'll get told that you have one of these items in the map.

37:41You can also read the help because this stuff is thoroughly documented.

37:46So, each individual item that's not supported is documented in the [ArcGIS] Server Help.

37:53So, if you can't use an optimized map service, it's probably for one of these reasons.

37:59You may need fine-grained ArcObjects access through the map server API.

38:05This is not really a pattern that we're heavily promoting anymore.

38:08And, the most common use of it, actually, is the ADF Editor task.

38:13If you're heavily relying on the ADF Editor task, I would urge you to visit the feature service sessions this week...

38:21...and learn about the new capabilities of ArcGIS 10.

38:25You may need to serve a map that has an unsupported layer type, or an unsupported renderer type.

38:30Classic case of this, actually, was the plenary on Monday.

38:33If you were at the keynote talk, there was a lot of dot density maps.

38:37We don't actually support the dot density renderer in optimized map services yet, so they served MXDs.

38:45But, you know, we're working on adding more each release.

38:48When possible, break out these unsupported types into separate services, if you can.

38:56And you know, a couple of other things to think about that may be in your map - Maplex labeling...

39:01...cartographic representations, they were not supported in optimized map services at 9.3.1.

39:07They are at ArcGIS 10, so we added those types.

39:11But we really recommend both of those only for caching due to their performance.

39:15Maplex, specifically, can be really slow if you have really complex rules; it'll give you great text placement.

39:21We use it for all the ArcGIS Online basemaps, because we can't visit and edit all that text by hand.

39:28But to use it in a dynamic map service would be way too slow.

39:34Cartographic representations, you might be able to get away with that a bit more.

39:37And then 3D and chart symbols are another type we don't support.

39:43If you find yourself needing to serve a map document-based service, the traditional MXD...

39:50...service, continue to use the Esri_Optimized style.

39:53That will give you a performance benefit.

39:56Those are simpler symbols that draw faster in the MXD drawing engine.

40:00And, still use the Map Service Publishing toolbar.

40:04In this example, there's an error that you won't be able to rectify to serve your map, but you can at least...

40:10...find all those issues like projection on the fly and broken data sources in a huge map, et cetera.

40:16So you'll want to use this just to find those deep hidden issues that may be in your map.

40:24Now, we've talked about map services, for the most part.

40:27Some of you may be going to imagery sessions this week and saying, hey, we haven't talked about...

40:31...image services and how they fit into web maps.

40:33You know, when should I use an image service or, you know, cache my imagery.

40:38Well, image services are really great for making images available quickly, so you get a big drop of images...

40:45...you need to get them up online fast.

40:47And, perhaps you need to modify the image display on a per-request basis; so do things like sharpening...

40:54...or contrast changes, you may want to modify the compression.

40:58So, if you're serving out to a device that has low bandwidth, you can request a degraded image...

41:05...but get it there faster and not take up as much network traffic.

41:11So, there's many things to think about with an image service, and there's many things to think about with performance.

41:18So, map caches are always going to be faster than an image service.

41:22But if you need a lot of the interactivity of an image service, you'll want to go down that image service path.

41:28And we have help documents, help topics, about kind of the tradeoffs of image services, you can find this...

41:37...in the Image Server 10 documentation, it's called "Optimization considerations for ArcGIS Image Server."

41:45Talks about hardware, response time, and then when to kind of bail and cache your map.

41:50So think about that.

41:57So we've talked about caching, we've talked about dynamic map services, and this third item...

42:01...is what we call client-side graphics.

42:05Client-side graphics are different in that we're not requesting images or, you know, requesting...

42:11...the server to make an image and hand it back to us.

42:13What we're actually requesting is data. And the web APIs, you'll request this data, it'll come back with attributes...

42:24...and then those features are drawn in the browser.

42:29So when should you use client-side graphics?

42:32Well, if you have really interactive operational layers for your mashup cases and your web maps...

42:39...so you need to really see the geometry, interact with the geometry, you want to have interactive highlights...

42:45...you'll probably use client-side graphics.

42:48Additionally, if you have layers that need to be thematically symbolized on the fly, I'll give a...

42:53...demonstration of this in a minute, but the map server does not support this currently.

42:59So, if you want to make a thematic map and have people be able to change the attribute, for instance...

43:05...that is being viewed, or change the color, you can do that with the client-side graphics.

43:10And then the other thing to think about is query or geoprocessing results.

43:14So, say you run a geoprocessing task and you get back, you know, a set of lines as the result.

43:20You may want to draw those as client-side graphics, just to be more flexible and not have to rely on a map...

43:25...service that's tied with your geoprocessing service.

43:29So we'll looking at an example of thematic mapping web map.

43:33This is actually on the ArcGIS Resource Centers, County Thematic Representation.

43:40And I can view it live.

43:44What we'll see here is South Carolina, and what we have here is this simple choropleth map...

43:51...shows population in the year 2000 by default.

43:54And what I have here is a drop-down that provides a list of different attributes we can show...

44:01...and I can change those and the map will change.

44:03And I can also change the color.

44:06I can change these colors to whatever I want.

44:09And this is happening very fast in the browser because these features have all been brought down.

44:18So it's really flexible with what kind of attributes, if you want to explore data in an application like this.

44:28A couple of things to keep in mind when working with client-side graphics.

44:32You should probably generalize the geometries.

44:34That last application was pretty fast because it was South Carolina.

44:38If you're dealing with a really detailed geometry of Texas counties, it may not be so fast, because you're...

44:44...bringing over and holding a lot of that geometry and memory in your browser.

44:48Be careful not to request too many features, and be aware of your server limits on the feature request.

44:56So we keep bumping up this number, each release of ArcGIS, as we get the query functionality...

45:00...to be faster on the server.

45:02But you may reach a point where you're actually querying for more features than the server limit is set to return...

45:09...and then you're going to get kind of a truncated list of those features.

45:14So, where can you learn more about client-side graphics and all these techniques we've been talking about today?

45:20A couple of different places.

45:21This session, in particular, is based a lot on a blog article that we wrote in 2008, but it's still really relevant...

45:31...called Design Patterns for Web Maps.

45:33It's on the Resource Center.

45:35Sterling, who's one of the server documentation leads, posted this.

45:39It was really written by Sud Menon, Jeremy Bartley, and Sterling together...

45:45...and it covers, you know, all these strategies for basemaps, client-side graphics, when to handle these different items.

45:57The implementation of something like client-side graphics is going to differ, depending on the web API you're using.

46:03So, see the web API sessions; there's tons of them this week, for JavaScript, Flex, Silverlight...

46:09...whichever one you're going to use.

46:11Additionally, we do have a lot of examples on the Resource Center.

46:14I can't stress that enough.

46:16Go visit the Resource Center; each one of these APIs has a resource center that covers examples...

46:20...of how to do all these things.

46:24Now, one of the questions I commonly get asked, after presenting about the web APIs is, which web API do I use?

46:32Well, this depends on your organization.

46:34Do you have developers who are going to be doing the work?

46:37If so, what language are they used to working with?

46:39What development environment do they have?

46:43You may have restrictions in your organization about whether or not you can deploy something that uses a plug-in...

46:48...whether or not that plug-in is available for everybody.

46:52We get this question a lot, and to answer it we wrote a blog post, because we finally had to come up with an answer.

47:01If you're a developer - I mean, this kind of is an easy question to answer, because you know what you like...

47:08...but what we saw was a lot of GIS folks getting into this space and starting to write web maps and...

47:15...code against the web APIs, and they're not sure where to start.

47:17So, this topic covers - once again, posted by Sterling - covers all the questions that can help you make that decision.

47:31All right. Authoring a good web map.

47:33So, you see these cached map examples.

47:36You may have a lot of data, but you might not know where to start for making a really...

47:41...high-quality example of the cartography.

47:45Well, look at the map template gallery on the resources site; once again, we've basically posted templates...

47:53...for all the ArcGIS Online services. They're small areas.

47:57You can kind of remove that data, plug in your own data, and stand up these map services very quickly.

48:02This is how we're doing the Community Basemap work on the world topographic map.

48:06People are just downloading the template, plugging in their data, sending us back tiles.

48:13Most of these templates are designed for the caching basemap cases.

48:18But, there are user community-based templates, so we've worked with user groups and different industries...

48:26...to come up with these industry-specific templates.

48:29Some of those templates cover both basemaps and operational layers.

48:33For instances, the water resources template covers both of those.

48:36And they have maps and applications in these templates.

48:45When you're authoring a cached map, you need to keep in mind that you need to design the map for each scale in the cache.

48:52So one of the easy ways to do this is to follow these key simple procedures.

48:57One is to add all the scales for the tiling scheme to the ArcMap drop-down for scales.

49:07You go to this customized list option, you can do that.

49:12Prior to ArcGIS 10 you actually had to import a text file of those scales.

49:16At ArcGIS 10 you can import a tiling scheme directly, and it'll just suck those scales out of the tiling scheme and put them in there.

49:23This will allow you to step through each scale just by using this combo box.

49:28The other step that we do, and you'll see this in the templates if you go and download them, is that...

49:33...we create a group layer for each scale.

49:37We set up this scale dependency on that group layer, and we use those group layers almost as...

49:43...independent maps to manage the map at each scale.

49:48Because you really have to design the map for the scale that it's going to be viewed at.

49:51Oftentimes, you will be using the same data between scales.

49:56The way you should do that is to copy the layers between the groups and actually have duplicates of those layers, because...

50:02...while you may be using the same data, chances are the symbology's not going to be the same, because you're...

50:07...going to need to filter; you're going to need to use definition queries and change symbol sizes as you move across scales.

50:13But, by keeping a single scale in a single group layer, it's going to greatly simplify your experience...

50:18...of managing the data and the layers.

50:23Couple of things to keep in mind - less is always more; simple symbology's still faster.

50:31Obviously the more complex your symbols are, the more work is being done, slower things can get.

50:39People often want to bring print workflows into the web, so get as much information onto a...

50:44...single scale of this map as possible.

50:48In many cases, you don't need to do that anymore because you can zoom in to the map.

50:52If you want to see more detail, you just zoom in.

50:54So you're not trying to cram everything on the image so that people don't have to zoom in and out.

51:01In the paper world you did that, because you probably only had one scale of the map.

51:05But that's not the case with web maps.

51:08Avoid the long TOCs and toolbars and anything desktop-application-looking in your web map.

51:18When dealing with client-side graphics, avoid requesting more attributes than you actually need in the client-side graphics.

51:26Don't request them all unless you actually need them all.

51:30And use intuitive info windows, so get rid of the ObjectID field, you know, put formatting on...

51:39...say, numeric values that indicate a monetary value.

51:45And then we'll finish up with a few performance tips.

51:48One of the things we like to say is, precompute when possible.

51:52A couple common cases of precomputing, annotation, classic case. Annotation always draws faster than...

51:59...labeling, because annotation is precomputed positions; labeling needs to dynamically...

52:06...figure out the positions of the text.

52:09Another thing that people don't think about is to query, the precompute query or tool results...

52:15...and I show an example of that.

52:19If I go back to this Solar Boston site. Where is it?

52:25So I calculated the solar potential for this rooftop, right?

52:29Well, if I bring up the tools again, I chose this Select Building option.

52:35But what I can actually choose is this option to draw an area.

52:39Say I want to put in a big solar field, right there.

52:45Well, if I had selected a building, the result would have already come up.

52:50And the reason why is that they cache the results for every building in their database, so that you could just select a building.

53:00Well, now this guy at the Esri User Conference 2010 in San Diego has just hammered the guy's server in Boston with a...

53:08...geoprocessing request to calculate the solar potential for this crazy polygon, and it takes about a minute to calculate this.

53:19So precaching it for all those buildings is a big deal.

53:24It greatly improves the performance of the site.

53:26You can find your building, click on it, you get the result immediately.

53:29If you always had to calculate that result, it would take that long, so now it's up.

53:35So, think about things like this when you're designing your web map. Ah! Start over. Where was I?

53:50All right. Projection.

53:53Ivonne covered this when she gave her demonstration.

53:59Often, a touchy subject.

54:01People are very tied to their projections and the accuracy of their data, but then you want to serve up your...

54:05...data on top of Bing Maps, and you've got to deal with web Mercator all of a sudden.

54:10There's a couple of different approaches to take for this; one of the things that we see often is that people...

54:16...often end up making kind of a shadow copy of their database for serving.

54:22They'll do an extract every once in a while and serve that data.

54:26You can reproject when you do that.

54:28If you're using replication to make that copy of the data, you can actually reproject on a replica.

54:34The replica can be in a different projection than the base data.

54:38So, say you want to have a really fast map in web Mercator, you could actually define your replica to be web Mercator...

54:44...and the replication would take care of that.

54:49The ultimate precompute when possible is obviously caching, so there's nothing faster than delivering prerendered images.

55:00Now on this projection-on-the-fly subject, there's a couple of different ways to go.

55:04The best situation is that you have no projection on the fly in your example map.

55:10So, you serve up a map, all the data sources are in the projection of that map...

55:17...and the web map that is using the map service is also in that projection.

55:23Now, the next step of that is actually projecting on the fly in the map service.

55:28So, the map server API actually supports requesting images in different projections, and as a service ...

55:36...publisher, there's not actually anything you can do about that, because anybody can execute that request.

55:40You need to keep that in mind if you're developing a web map that's using that service to avoid doing it.

55:45But, in some cases it can be ok.

55:50Now, serving up a map that has projection on the fly already burned into the map.

55:55That's the case that Ivonne went through.

55:57We tell you when you're projecting on the fly; try to avoid it if you can.

56:01And then the worst thing possible that we always see is that people serve up...

56:05...map documents with map services in them that are projecting on the fly.

56:12Now, we don't like people to project on the fly, and we definitely don't like people to put map services...

56:16...in map documents and serve them, because it's like a Telephone game of services.

56:23I call this one service that then calls this other service. Who knows if that service is calling another service.

56:30It can get really slow.

56:31And we don't like it so much that you can't do it in an optimized map service.

56:36We don't allow you to embed one service inside of another.

56:42On data access side, if you're using SDE, remember to follow the SDE tuning tips.

56:47So, tune SDE; use direct connect, if at all possible, because you'll get increased performance.

56:55When working with file-based data, avoid UNC paths.

56:59UNC paths are really convenient, especially when you're like, using data across your organization.

57:05They are slower, though.

57:06The alternative is to map a network drive; it's a little bit faster, but for the ideal case you want to access that data locally.

57:18Indexes matter for the data.

57:21Spatial indexes are really important, and it's not just about keeping them up to date.

57:25Keeping them up to date is important, but you also want to have the correct size relative to what data you're requesting.

57:31You don't want to have some feature that is skewing the index grid of your spatial index...

57:38...and causing you to return a lot of features on every query.

57:41That's just going to slow down map drawing performance.

57:45Attribute joins are important for a couple different cases.

57:49Joins is the main one, so when you have your join fields, those need to be indexed.

57:56And then common queries.

57:57So, you may not need the parcel ID for drawing at all, but you may have a web mapping application...

58:06...that allows somebody to type in that ID and zoom to that parcel.

58:13Well, in that case you're going to want that field to be indexed, because it's going to make that search faster.

58:22So, just to review, we want you to organize your map services into logical groups.

58:27Basemaps, operational layers, and you deploy these basemaps and operational layers using these techniques...

58:35...of caching, dynamically serving, or using client-side graphics.

58:40And follow all the performance guidelines of the tools in ArcMap that help you guide through...

58:45...potential performance problems, and the other items we talked about today, and remember to precompute when possible.

58:54Resources here this week, Esri staff down in the showcase, Hall C, a little bit different island configuration...

59:02...this year; we're in the back, but just look for all the new signs that identify the groups.

59:08There's a big server section in the middle, and then kind of the mapping side is on the side of that.

59:15Other sessions this week, the caching sessions, all the web API sessions, and there's a lot of other...

59:20...ArcGIS Server sessions about scalability, performance, everything.

59:25And then after the conference remember to visit the Resource Centers for more information.

59:29If you have any questions, you can prod us for answers and we'll get back to you, hopefully with a blog post...

59:36...if we receive enough traffic on a particular item.

59:41So, we'll take questions now.

59:43Please fill out the surveys if you can, and have a good day.

59:56[Audience question] How do you know what projection a certain service uses...

59:59...and is there any efforts toward standardization?

1:00:03How do you know which projection a service uses, and is there any movement towards...

1:00:08...standardization? That's your question?

1:00:12Well, there is a movement towards standardization, it's web Mercator, whether you like it or not.

1:00:18A lot of people don't like it.

1:00:20An example I gave before was if you're in northern Sweden, you don't like web Mercator, 'cause it's ...

1:00:25...a horrible projection for that area.

1:00:27But in the United States it's okay, I guess.

1:00:32If you're dealing with ArcGIS service, you can go to the services directory and see the projection of the service.

1:00:39So, yeah.

1:00:45[Audience question] You're talking about specifically, well, on what I call graininess in web map [inaudible].

1:00:53I don't know how to describe it any more than that.

1:00:56But a lot of times when I'm publishing map services, I get a very grainy display.

1:01:03Okay.

1:01:04[Inaudible audience question]

1:01:07I know exactly what...

1:01:08So he's saying that he's seeing a grainy image when he has a map service that he's publishing.

1:01:15What that is, is that's called dithering, and you commonly see that with a PNG-8 image format...

1:01:22...when you have more than 256 colors in your map.

1:01:27And with PNG-8, it depends on the algorithm that's used to make the palette of 256 images.

1:01:36The algorithm that optimized map services uses is different than the one that regular map document-based services use.

1:01:44And the optimized map service one is better.

1:01:46So you will see that less often; you will see it, occasionally.

1:01:52It's sort of a problem because a lot of people, say you dump a hillshade into your map...

1:01:57...you're going to see that problem almost immediately, because the gradient of the hillshade is essentially...

1:02:02...causing more than 256 colors in your map.

1:02:06And then, the image creation algorithm needs to figure out, oh, how do I try to make this map look the same...

1:02:15...and that's this dithering algorithm, and it can look quite bad in a lot of cases.

1:02:20It's sort of a nasty problem, too, because in most cases in our web APIs, the default format it requests...

1:02:26...if we don't specify it, is PNG-8, and the reason that they do that is because PNG-8 is...

1:02:30...typically smaller, so it comes down faster.

1:02:33So if you want to use PNG-8 as the format, you need to make decisions in your map, turn off...

1:02:42...anti-aliasing; you'd want to turn off text anti-alising too, probably...

1:02:46...and make sure that you have a limited color palette in your map.

1:02:52The other option is to use a different image format.

1:02:55So, use PNG-24.

1:02:57[Audience question] What about 32?

1:02:59Thirty-two would be ok, but 32 can be larger.

1:03:03You need to really test the performance and look at the image size of what's being returned.

1:03:07If you actually use the Preview window in the Map Service Publishing toolbar, if you look at the drop-down...

1:03:16...the default that we always choose for you is BMP, which is crazy if you think...

1:03:20Like, it's crazy to think about, but there's a reason we did it.

1:03:24So, the reason it's BMP is because BMP provides a really good baseline for how fast the image...

1:03:31...can be created with no compression, and then as you choose other formats, like say you choose...

1:03:37...PNG-8, you can compare the results from BMP to PNG-8, and actually look at the overhead of...

1:03:46...what the PNG-8 palettization and compression is causing on your map service.

1:03:52And if you're dealing with really high performance map services, stuff that draws in, you know...

1:03:56...like point one seconds, that can actually make a huge difference.

1:04:02So you need to use the Preview window, and then the other thing, the little secret, is that when...

1:04:06...you deal with the Preview window, the images are written to your temp directory, so you can actually...

1:04:10...look at the image sizes there.