Performance of ArcGIS Explorer

[JamesStewart]

Hi Folks,

I've got ArcGIS Explorer set up the way I want it (minus basemaps, but that's another post) and am having some performance issues.  I am working in a disconnected environment with access only to our internal network.  My deployment folder contains 27MB of information.  The largest files are my streets.dbf (12.5MB), sea.shp (5.5MB), and land.shp (5.5MB) - for a geographically large city (300+ square km's).  I have a few (3) large files used by the FeatureLabeler addon (375k to 760k).  The rest are smaller files (< 63k) to support 5 shape files containing incident data, 1 hotspot layer, and 1 note.  Basemaps have been cleared.  Ideally, I???d like to create my own basemaps using my ortho photos but, again, that is another issue I am struggling with and thought I better resolve the performance with what I have first.

I???m wondering, are the sizes of my files reasonable?  Is the number of items published reasonable?  Could it be ArcGIS is still trying to connect with the Internet as I navigate thus slowing me down?  The performance I am getting right now is a real issue...

Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome!

James

[JoeFlannery]

James:

In my opinion, those are rather large data sets.  Have you tried using a file geodatabase instead of shapefiles.  ESRI has told me that FGDB is more efficient, thus faster.  Or, export your datasets from ArcMap as a Layer Package.  That process creates file geodatabases.  Also, you may want to delete unused/unnecessary attribute fields.  Use optimized symbology for the export to layer package.

[MichaelBranscomb]

James,

Those Shapefiles don't sound too big but I would definitely take Joe's advice and consider moving to File Geodatabases. When importing the data to File Geodatabases, spatial indices will automatically be generated but you should also think about creating attribute indices for any fields used for rendering/labelling.

Have you run the system requirements checked? (linked from the system requirements page - http://wikis.esri.com/wiki/display/agxpsr/ArcGIS+Explorer+System+Requirements).

Also - there's a speed test - but by default this will try to connect online. you can however override the default behaviour: (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisexplorer/1500//en/firewall.htm)

*********************************************
Redirect URL's for ArcGIS Online and Test Connection Speed

By default, Add Content > ArcGIS Online... and Test Connection Speed direct you to Esri. You can override the default URL's by:

Create a xml file. The xml file should look similar to the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ArcGISOnlineURIList>
  <Base>http://www.arcgis.com/</Base>
  <Secure>https://www.arcgis.com/</Secure>
  <PingTest>http://www.esri.com/</PingTest>
  <SpeedTest>http://www.arcgis.com/arcgisexplorer500/support/downloadfile.zip</SpeedTest>
</ArcGISOnlineURIList>

Save this file and place it in your Inetpub\wwwroot directory on your server.

Set one of the following registry keys to point to your xml file: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ESRI\ArcGIS Online\SignIn\HomeServerURIFile or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ESRI\ArcGIS Online\SignIn\HomeServerURIFile (for example, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ESRI\ArcGIS Online\SignIn\HomeServerURIFile = �??http://www.myservername.com/redirect.xml�?�).

Only one registry key needs to be set. However, if both keys are set, the key located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE will take precedence.
*********************************************

Lastly of course - the usual advice about making sure your graphics driver is up to date, trying not to run too many applications at the same time. Take a look at task manager too - is the CPU being hammered? Is your machine running out of memory?

Regards

Mike

[JamesStewart]

Thanks for the great information folks.  I'm thinking of making a case to have access to Bing maps from the vehicles... I removed my land, sea, streets, and street names and the tool is quite snappy... If I had access to the Bing hybrid map we'd be in great shape.  The entire application just works better with the Bing map vs. my own layers...

Wondering, before I try to figure out how to create my content differently based on your descriptions (which would be taking me to the far limits of my GIS experience!), (1) does anyone know the URL address that I would have to have access to in order to connect with the Bing maps? (2) is there a way to limit the viewable area of the basemap?

Thanks very much everyone for the support.  Invaluable to have this community.

James

[MichaelBranscomb]

James,

Regarding the Bing URL:

1. Initially there's a handshake with the ESRI server at http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com to verify the client

2. Then ArcGIS Explorer is provided with the tiling information (i.e. it's a cached service on the Bing servers):

{"imageUri":"http://{subdomain}.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/h{quadkey}.jpeg?g=585&mkt={culture}&token={token}","subDomains":["t0","t1","t2","t3"],"zoomRangeFrom":"1","zoomRangeTo":"19"}

3. After this ArcGIS Explorer makes direct requests to the Microsoft Bing servers based on the "imageURI" above. The URLs used when I tested this just now are below. This isn't an exhaustive list - a quick search online reveals that there are others e.g. http://t4.tiles... etc.

http://t0.tiles.virtualearth.net/
http://t1.tiles.virtualearth.net/
http://t2.tiles.virtualearth.net/
http://t3.tiles.virtualearth.net/

*However*, because there's a handoff from the ESRI server to the Bing server - it's possible that these secondary URLs might change over time.


Regarding limiting the extent:

The best way to do this would be to develop an Extension Add-in for ArcGIS Explorer. You could then respond to one of the navigation events and each time check the extent did not fall outside/overlap/intersect your chosen extent - see http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisexplorer/1500/sdk/conceptualhelp/index.html#/Customizing_ArcGIS_Expl... for more info on customizing ArcGIS Explorer in general and specifically http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisexplorer/1500/sdk/componenthelp/index.html#/ViewpointChanged_Event/0... for info on the ViewPointChanged event.

Regards

Mike

[JamesStewart]

This is a very big help.  Thanks everyone.

James