ESRI Hiring "Senior Raster Product Engineer" - Hope This Will Fix Bugs

I noticed ESRI is hiring a Senior Raster Product Engineer.  I really hope this person will be able to smooth out the raster issues with ArcGIS 10.  ArcGIS 10 has some major improvements, particularly with respect to geoprocessing and the Raster Calculator.  Unfortunately when it comes to basic raster display, ArcGIS 10 is one step forward and two steps back.

We have logged three bugs so far: 1) certain large floating point rasters do not display after zooming in past a certain scale, 2) certain 8-bit rasters do not display after zooming in past a certain scale, 3) renaming large rasters in ArcCatalog results in all cells being converted to NODATA.  We found workarounds for all of these, but they require the use of ERDAS IMAGINE.  Ironically, having image processing software in addition to ArcGIS 10 is perhaps now more important than ever.  The key is to stay away from large raster datasets in ArcGIS 10.  If you do have a large raster dataset and access to ERDAS IMAGINE, use the DICE tool in ERDAS to cut up the raster into smaller sections then build a raster catalog in ArcGIS.  This should alleviate the three bugs I mentioned above.

Webinar: Raster Processing in ArcGIS with Map Algebra and the Raster Calculator

I will be presenting a webinar on Raster Processing in ArcGIS with Map Algebra and the Raster Calculator December 20th from 2:30PM - 3:30PM EST.  The webinar is hosted by the Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI).  To register click here.  Below is a brief description of the workshop.  Hope to see you there.

Map Algebra is the underlying language for Spatial Analyst tools and operators.  This workshop will demonstrate simple and effective techniques for processing raster datasets in ArcGIS within the Raster Calculator using Map Algebra expressions.  This workshop is designed for ArcGIS users who are familiar with raster data, but don’t have much experience with either Map Algebra or the Raster Calculator.  Demonstrations will be done using both ArcGIS 9.3 and ArcGIS 10, and key changes to Map Algebra and the Raster Calculator at version 10 will be covered.

Live 3D textures in Google Earth

Robert Pless and his group from Washington University in St. Louis do some fascinating work using images from web cams to update the 3D textures within Google Earth.  I was in St. Louis and got an impressive demo in which his team showed billboards in New York City's Times Square displaying within Google Earth in real time.  Make sure you check out the Project Live 3D website where they have an excellent overview video.