Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Habitat Monitoring: Remote Sensing Research at San Diego State University
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Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Habitat Monitoring: Remote Sensing Research at San Diego State University |
Change Detection GIS - ArcIMS Introduction
ESRI's ArcIMS software package enables internet users to access limited GIS functions via the World Wide Web. The software allows internet browsers to access GIS functions that reside on the server side, which eliminates the need for users to have complex GIS software installed on their local machines. Despite the fact that the GIS services offered by ArcIMS might be somewhat limited, it does have the advantage of being able to provide basic GIS tools to users that would not otherwise have access to any GIS services. Currently, ArcIMS can provide two levels of GIS over the internet depending on the capabilities of the user's local workstation. For this demonstration both types are available the first and least complex of these is the HTML image server. Users are able to access the data on this server with only a basic internet browser since all map rendering is done on the server. With this type of viewer, users are not able to manipulate layer properties and if a users wants to add data from a local data directory it can only be viewed when it is on top of all other layers in the viewer. In contrast to this the more complex JAVA feature server which requires the user to have two different JAVA plug-ins installed on the local workstation before the viewer can be accessed. These plug-ins allow for local map rendering in the browser, which allows users to manipulate layer properties and seamlessly combine data sets that reside in local data directories. Data query functions are also more complex in this type of viewer. For this ArcIMS demonstration project, both types of viewers are available via the hyperlinks below.
The vector data sets included in each of these viewers is the same, with the two most dominant vegetation classes Coastal Sage Scrub and Chaparral as the background and four image derived change classes within each vegetation polygon as the upper layers. JPEG files of the original 1-meter resolution ADAR image mosaics from both 1998 and 1999 are also included in the HTML viewer as image backgrounds, but due to an ArcIMS bug these files could not be included in the JAVA viewer. This technical problem will hopefully be resolved very soon. Note: when accessing the JAVA viewer it may be necessary to click on the "zoom to full extent" button before the data can be seen, this is just another minor bug that must be dealt with at this time. The links below also include sites for downloading the necessary plug-ins to access the JAVA viewer.
Links
[ HTML viewer ] [ JAVA viewer ] [ JAVA JRE plug-in ] [ ESRI JAVA plug-in ]