ArcGIS Server Code Challenge Winners Revealed at 2008 ESRI Developer Summit

The winners of the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge were announced at the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit in Palm Springs, California, on March 19. Developers were invited to post their original code samples to the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge blog so that the code could be reviewed by peers in the ESRI developer community. Prior to the summit, ESRI Developer Network (EDN) subscribers and registered attendees for the 2008 Developer Summit were asked to vote for their favourite entry based on the creativity, applicability, and originality of the code sample.

John Waterman, vice president of Geospatial Solutions at GCS Research in East Burke, Vermont, won the first-place prize of $15,000. His code sample demonstrates how ArcGIS Server can be integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Maps. David Bouwman, senior software architect at Data Transfer Solutions in Fort Collins, Colorado, took second place and $7,500 for his ArcGIS Server Virtual Earth Tile Server entry. Vijay Sambandhan, GIS developer at Bergmann Associates in Buffalo, New York, took third place and $2,500 for his SDE Web Catalog code sample. Nianwei Liu, senior system analyst programmer at the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, received honorable mention for his entry, Google Maps Adapter to ArcGIS Server Map Cache.

"The ArcGIS Server Code Challenge was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how easily GIS and custom databases can be added to Google Maps and Virtual Earth," says Waterman. "People want to use these programs for geospatial analysis and are already making use of the script I wrote, which is great to see."

Bouwman's winning entry used ArcGIS Server to create map tiles that can be brought into Microsoft Virtual Earth, implementing intelligent caching to save space and optimize performance. "I was able to convert Virtual Earth's tiling specification to a bounding box, which is then shipped over to ArcGIS Server to make the map image," Bouwman explains. "The application increases performance by using a dynamic caching process that kicks back images already contained in the cache. We are already using this code for a project with the Wildlife Conservation Society as well as a similar code with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Both sites will be launched this summer."

Vijay Sambandhan's application displays ArcSDE data in a Web browser, bypassing the opening of a separate application. "I used open source JavaScript libraries to emulate ArcCatalog inside the Web browser so that users don't have to open another program to view their data and metadata," says Sambandhan. "Two people have already contacted me about using it, which alone is very satisfying. The win was an unexpected bonus."

Nianwei Liu's code sample brings existing ArcGIS Server resources into Google Maps including terabytes of spatial information from ArcGIS Online. "The focus of the adapter is to seamlessly serve the user's existing map caches with the Google API without having to maintain a separate and potentially costly map cache service. By combining the dynamic caching, spatial querying, and geoprocessing capabilities of ArcGIS Server, there are endless opportunities to build powerful yet easy-to-use geospatial analysis tools over the Web that are easily accessible."

You can see all the entries for the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge and download the code samples at www.esri.com/codechallengewinners.

Stay posted to www.esri.com/devsummit for future code challenge announcements.

Source : http://www.esri.com/