GIS SOFTWARE

Overview- ArcGIS Desktop

For several years the flagship GIS Desktop software has been ArcView.  ArcView featured a Graphic User Interface (GUI) and friendly menus.  At the same time, ArcInfo was directed at the high-end workstation market with strong editing capabilities.  The concept was that many users did not need the power of ArcInfo.  They merely wanted to display, query, analyze, and visualize information in a user-friendly format.  ArcView GIS would serve as, "The Geographic Information system for Everyone." Thus there would be thousand of ArcView users and a small number of ArcInfo users.    

Over this time period, a major change occurred in computing power.  Desktop PCs begin the house much of the capability once only available in expensive work stations.  This opened the door for PCs to run powerful GIS graphics and computing software.   Thus, last year ESRI introduced ArcGIS Desktop, a family of software products that form a complete GIS built on exceptional, yet easy-house capabilities right out of the box.  ArcGIS features a common architecture, common code base, common extension model, and a single development environment for ArcView and ArcInfo made possible by the new Pentium PC power.

The ArcGIS Desktop can be accessed using one of three software products, each providing a higher level of functionality: ArcView 9.2, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo.   Each of three main products offers increasingly more capabilities. The ArcGIS Desktop is an integrated scalable system designed to meet the needs of a wide range of GIS users.   ArcView provides comprehensive mapping and analysis tools along with simple editing and geoprocessing tools.  ArcEditor includes the full functionality of ArcView with the addition of advanced editing capabilities for coverage and geodatabases.  ArcInfo extends of the functionality of both to include advanced geoprocessing.  It also includes the legacy applications for ArcInfo Workstation (Arc, ArcPlot, ArcEdit,  so on). Because ArcView, ArcInfo, and ArcEditor all share a common architecture, users working with any of these clients can share their work with other users.   The capabilities of all three levels can be further extended using a series of optional add-on software extensions such as ArcGIS Spatial Analyst and ArcPress.