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 I was pretty happy when day 4 rolled around.  A week full of intro classes really bored me, and I was ready to be done. The first class did not help. ArcGIS Pro: Tips and Tricks, only showed one new thing I hadn't seen before, which was animated line symbology. I definitely want to test this one out. The next class was ArcGIS Online: Best Practices for Organization Management. An exciting new feature is being able to set credit budgets per user! Another new feature is creating member categories and sub categories, and bulk actions. However, you still cannot export credit usage for storage.  ArcGIS Pro: 3D Tips and Tricks showed another animated symbology of moving trees. This presenter really knew his stuff, I was impressed. He showed a way to modify a feature, and load texture i.e. adding a picture (from your phone) of the outside of a building to a 3D representation of the building. You can add also shadows to your scene for a little extra fun. ArcGIS: Real-Time Use Ca...

 Wednesday was another day of intro classes... First up was Imagery in ArcGIS: An Introduction to Image Management. Mosaic dataset is the optimized model (referencing the imagery, publish as an image service, can color balance). They briefly discussed cloud object storage, the create cloud storage connection file tool, ArcGIS Image for AGO -or- ArcGIS Image Decidated, Imagery workflows (website resource), and Image Management in Pro. The next class was ArcGIS Online: What's New. This session was quite glitchy, but some of the things I saw are the sketch tool, and 3 new charts have been added. Dashboards classic is retiring in 11.0, and dashboards will migrate. Map Viewer has a new directions widget (you can save navigation routes), supports basemap projection switching, html pop-ups (!!!) the ability to group layers (!!!) 3 layers deep by dragging and dropping!! About time! Map Viewer editing includes snapping and can edit in forms. In ArcGIS Insights: An Introduction, right off th...

The first class I watched was "AGO: Spatial Analysis." The teacher was wonderful! Thoroughly went through each tool with live demos. Bravo! However, while the demos were cool, every one I could hear a "cha-ching" in my head from all of the online credits she was burning through. Not something a regular user could do. But incredible to see the possibilities now available.  There is a new map viewer...but that means another new application to learn. There is a new analysis viewer coming...but nothing was shown about it. However, it does have an estimate credits button. Woo-hoo! It's about dang time.  The next three classes were all intro classes. I wish there were more options available for online attendees, as they were so basic, dry, and there wasn't much to learn. "ArcGIS Network Management: An Intro" mentioned utility network requires enterprise for multi-users, and it can produce single line and tree diagrams.  "ArcGIS GeoEvent Server: An I...

 The UC was back in person this year, but with some strict COVID rules. I opted for the virtual attendance. While initially I was happy to have this option, it quickly became clear that this was intentionally a subpar offering. There were very few classes offered, and majority of them were introductory classes. The Wizardry class that I look forward to the most every year, wasn't even offered virtually. I know this is a super popular class, and to not offer it virtually is a shame. The Plenary was especially long virtually. This years theme is "Mapping Common Ground." Surprisingly, there were 14,000 people in attendance in San Diego. I saw the virtual numbers peak at 5.9k during the plenary. Here are some highlights: This is the 42nd UC Will.I.Am promotes GIS in his community to encourage kids to go to college and change their path. I have to mention the leaps and bounds cartography have progressed over the past few years. There are some seriously stunning visuals nowaday...

So grateful this event was held this year virtually. I feel that this allows greater participation and opportunities to learn from a wider audience. However, it also allows for interruptions at work, preventing me from watching the entire time. This is where in-person attendance is advantageous. I really enjoyed one speaker that pointed out that GIS doesn't work when siloed. It is best when there is integration across departments and platforms. I have found this to be so very true, and so I constantly encourage interdepartmental and interagency collaboration. He also presented on a project that he did on the Amazon, for over 2 years, and with over 200 scientists. They came up with 89 recommendations. He spoke of how the reduction in water is affecting and diminishing the Amazon. He is a part of a International Geodesign Collaboration group with participation from 61 countries, and over 100 universities, and more that 500 people. They use Hub to organize and host their data.  Anothe...

ESRI left the classes online to keep on watching, which I'm super grateful for, because it gives me a chance to go watch classes I missed or that were going at the same time as another class I was attending.  So here is some bonus content. ArcGIS Defense Mapping Standards Base Cartographic Production Using ArcGIS Pro. They started by talking about the move from ArcMap to Pro is a transition, not a migration, and I completely agree. They showed off the apply visual specification to map tool, which was super cool and I want to try. They also talked about the generate product layout tool, which I will need to see to believe. ArcGIS Enterprise: What's New showed off the new homepage editor and new email support. They also showed the append data tool, to hosted feature layers. Runtime conversion tools from ArcMap to Pro in 10.9.1. They showed off the MapViewer beta, with customized pop-ups (it's about time). And in StoryMaps, photo geotags can finally be used to locate map tour ...

 Day 4 started with Water Utility Special Interest Group Meeting. Philip Mielke did a presentation on 3D assets, but didn't answer my question about how he symbolized the 3D ball joints. You can export the 3D BIM model to use online, also Revit files. Emily Champagne did a great presentation as well on how they're using 3D assets. If you want to see how I've used 3D GIS in the past, look here and here . Next was the Wildfire SIG. The Maine Forest Service showed us the InFORM program, which is recognized nationally and works with dashboards. The US Forest Service showed off their Wildland Fire Histomap, and announced that Alert Wildfire will integrate with the Living Atlas. The Closing Livestream told us that 45% of UC participants are outside the U.S. and to know the importance of your work.   ESRI said they had over 60,000 register for the UC this year. I am impressed that they could handle that many people watching live and recorded events. It also amazes me that there ...

 The first class I attended was "ArcGIS StoryMaps: What's New and What's Coming." The presenter started by talking about how to create your own themes. They also showed that new this year: there will be over 1000 fonts (increasing from 80) image editing - for example, making your photos black and white within the StoryMap mapping enhancements highlight maps - super cool! map tour arrows The next class was "UC Central Live: StoryMaps. StoryMaps are story telling through the use of maps. There are over 1.7 million StoryMaps. One-third of these have been authored by students/educators. Which came first, the story or the map? What story are you trying to tell? Who is the primary audience? Who is the secondary audience? Multimedia package. Provide where and why. StoryMaps engage the entire brain - text, pictures, maps, audio, and video. They ended by urging us to tell our stories. The next class was "ArcGIS Online: Tips and Tricks for Viral Maps. The only excitin...

This years theme is " GIS Creating a Sustainable Future ." I am totally bummed this year is yet again virtual, but covid... Jack kicked things off with the Plenary, and hasn't aged a day.  There was a demo in Pro showing aerial imagery blending to reduce shadows, that was super sweet. There is an overlay mode to combine overlapping layers. There is now the ability to change how selections are symbolized, including making them hatched. They have added a command search bar at the top. There is a "change detection wizard" tool that looks super cool. And they finally have an eye dropper tool for colors! They also demo'd data engineering, which looks pretty sweet and helpful. Lots of charts and data digging in this one.  Blending will be available in web map/map viewer. I love that you don't lose topo or color by using this tool. A few new things that are coming: "instant apps" dashboards now support arcade enterprise on kubernetes  cloud based graf...

 And you thought I was done...An awesome extra bonus feature of having the UC virtual this year, is that the classes were left online a little longer so we could go back and keep watching and learning more. I love this.   The first extra class I attended was "ArcGIS Enterprise Designing Enterprise Sites." I was really happy to come back across this in the agenda. All speakers focused on "Experience Builder," and no one even mentioned Sites.  I'm glad to learn this is not going away any time soon.  The difference is Experience Builder is for ArcGIS Online, and Enterprise Sites is for Portal. When it comes to planning and design thinking, focus on problem solving.  Site consideration: pick a theme for the homepage. There are 2 places to use images - ROW, image card, and gallery card. Some considerations for mobile - navigation, don't bury the lead, keep it lightweight, have a mobile first viewpoint, and less than 5 embedded content per page. Hidden rows conte...

 Day 3 started with a fun class - ArcGIS Solutions for Defense. Can I just say this session blew my mind?! It was so cool to see the software being used in a different way than I had ever used it before. However, there were some tools highlighted that I can see useful in other projects.  Coordinate conversion (hello CAD) Distance and direction Visibility analysis Military symbology editor is available in Pro only. There is also a defense toolbox you can download that contains a range fan tool, incident analysis tool, and a beach landing tool. They demo'd each of these, and it was so cool. The visibility analysis using DEM and observation points. They also showed a generate grid from point tool, which was so slick and easy. I can see a use for this with creating missing person grids on the spot. They also showed web app builder defense capabilities. These tools do not work in a disconnected environment. The US Army is not using Pro. So, the things to look up and download are Ar...

Tuesday started with a class on 3D in webmaps. It was very cool, but I didn't learn anything new. Next was my most favorite class - Map Wizardry with ArcGIS! This was my favorite class last year, and I quickly became a fan of the teachers.  They are cartographic geniuses and serious wizards.  I love their creativity in creating maps that just blow your mind. I made sure to tell my colleagues about this class.  They showed off some seriously amazing work. I need to download some of the style files: firefly symbology firefly basemap stipling symbology in Pro watercolor style spilhaus mapping imhof John Nelson pro styles to download gallery -  Some styles don't always translate to online maps.  One option is to bake it into raster tiles. Their motto is to "go beyond the defaults." They showed a way cool map of Mars, that I seriously geeked out about. Their Cartography book is meant to be a modern manual. Next was Plenary #2. In the afternoon I watched "Solving Webm...

What a year! Because of Covid/the Corona Virus/The Rona, the UC this year unfortunately was virtual.  I was super sad about this.  The UC is a fantastic reminder that I have a seriously cool job.  Being able to attend the UC in person, you are overwhelmed with people from around the world that also do GIS, which is a stark contrast to doing GIS in Utah and being one of very few. That being said, ESRI did a FANTASTIC job with the UC! Being virtual, I had ZERO issues with connecting to classes, listening to speakers, I never lost a connection or was kicked out or had lagging issues, and that is a huge feat! So, great job! Because it was virtual, there were only a handful of class offerings each  hour, and all from ESRI staff.  They also split the plenary sessions into one hour segments each day, instead of all day Monday.  I think that was a great idea. So Monday started with the Plenary.  There were over 80,000 people attending virtually! From aroun...

I started with a class about operations dashboard.  They showed an interesting example of how it was used for superbowl security, and also by UPS and FedEx.  There are 4 different ways to create a new dashboard. Dashboards can use maps bookmarks.  You can create pie charts, but also manipulate the inner radius to create a donut.  You can create hover labels.  You can stack elements, create tabs, add pulse/pan actions (movements) connect charts to maps, can add filters to affect maps/charts, you can create your own url parameters, use dashboards in storymaps, and it now works on smartphones. Dashboards were purposely built for presentations.  They are working on adding arcade, 3D capabilities, and layout improvements.             I went to a class on ArcGIS Monitor, but it was super boring and ridiculously expensive. And also their projector was SERIOUSLY wigging out, so I could not watch.  It's 10...

On my way to my first class, I saw a cartography genius on the escalator, and had a total fan girl moment. My first class was GIS for Active Shooter Response.  The class was PACKED.  It ended up being nothing that I had hoped, and only a grad student's project on FBI stats.  I could not leave to go to a different class.  So here are some random facts - there have been 277 mass shootings between 2000-2018.  California has had the most.  The least occurrences in less populated states.  No correlation for seasons, ccw/armed households.  7 states do mental health background checks.  Did not compare to gun-free zones. This class time was shared with a GIS person from a city in California that showed her project that took her two years.  Basic aerial with building outlines.  For schools.  Oh. Man. I decided I need to present next year. I apprehensively followed up that class with a class on GIS for Informed Decisio...