This book was developed based on my work experience at Esri and my lecturing experience at Harvard University Extension, Henan University, the University of Redlands, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of California, California State University, and many other universities. I want to thank my colleagues and students at these universities for providing feedback that has improved the content and structure of this book.
Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their love and support.
Foreword
By Clint Brown, Esri
Much can be said about trends in information technology (IT). Perhaps first and foremost is the growing recognition and acceptance that GIS has evolved into an essential IT. GIS will be at the center of major advances in computing and IT. And many people are coming to the realization that geospatial expertise and systems will be essential for our planet’s future.
Cloud computing—combined with IoT, smartphones, machine learning, and apps—enables an instrumented world where computing can be harnessed to analyze and respond to virtually any issue. GIS is already playing a critical role in these initiatives.
Web GIS provides a comprehensive approach for working with virtually all information sources. Further, the data in each individual organizational GIS is being brought together virtually to create a comprehensive GIS of the world in the cloud. Each of us is creating and maintaining our own layers; because all GIS layers register onto the earth, we are also contributing to and assembling a larger societal GIS for our planet—our individual GIS systems of record are being integrated, extended, and deployed as systems for insight as well as communal systems for engagement.
Virtually everyone is gaining access to this comprehensive, virtual GIS via web connections. GIS maps and apps are enabling all kinds of opportunities and engagements that extend far beyond our original system visions and goals.
In the past decade, GIS has expanded far beyond the professional GIS community. Some interesting developments helped to drive this expansion. As apps became popular, people everywhere began to use online maps—the foundation for shared GIS. Almost overnight, everyone began to recognize the power of GIS as an enabling information platform for improved understanding, decision-making, efficiency, and communication.
GIS provides a geospatial framework to integrate and interpret results. Over the past few decades, the mass adoption of the internet has led to a glut of information that we have come to know as “big data.” GIS provides a geographic context to make sense of it all, while also providing the capability and context to analyze that data in real time.
People everywhere now recognize that GIS has become an essential computing infrastructure for every organization. Consequently, we expect the reach and impact of GIS to continue to expand at an accelerating pace.
Chapter 1
Web GIS introduction
This chapter introduces the concept of Web GIS with the ArcGIS Web GIS platform. The chapter begins with an overview of Web GIS and its advantages, introduces the ArcGIS Web GIS platform, lists the technical evolutions in Web GIS, explains the basic content types and user levels in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise, and demonstrates the workflow to build Web GIS apps using the Esri® Story Map Tour SM template. This chapter familiarizes you with ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise basic operations and workflows, and introduces flexible ways to build Web GIS apps that you will explore in other chapters.
Learning objectives
Grasp the concept and advantages of Web GIS.
Understand ArcGIS Web GIS platform deploy models.
Learn the components of the new-generation Web GIS platform.
Understand the technical evolutions and trends in Web GIS.
Learn the workflow for creating web apps.
Work with GIS data in comma-separated value (CSV) files.
Create and share web maps and web apps.
Familiarize yourself with the Esri Story Map Tour template.What is Web GIS?
Web GIS is the combination of the web and GIS. The web removed the constraint of distance in cyberspace, and thus allows people the freedom to interact with GIS apps globally and access information almost instantly. Web GIS uses web technologies, including, but not limited to, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Uniform Resource Locator (URL), JavaScript, Web Graphics Library (WebGL), WebSocket, and more.
The first operational GIS was developed in the 1960s by Roger Tomlinson. Since then, GIS has continuously evolved from a local file-based single computer system to a central database-based client/server system, often with multiple servers and many more client computers. The invention of the internet in the late 1950s and the World Wide Web in the early 1990s laid the foundation for an evolutionary leap toward Web GIS. In 1993, the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) developed a mapping web page, which marked the origin of Web GIS. In the 2000s, Web GIS evolved into a new generation—a system of distributed web services you can access in the cloud, as represented by the Esri ArcGIS platform.
Inheriting the power of the internet and the web, Web GIS offers many advantages:
Global reach: you can share your geographic information easily within your organization and with people all over the world.
Large number of users: you can share your app with dozens, or even millions, of users supported by the scalable cloud technology.
Low cost per user: the cost of building one Web GIS app is often cheaper than building a stand-alone desktop solution and installing it for every user.
Better cross-platform capabilities: web apps, especially those built with JavaScript, can run on desktop and mobile browsers running a wide range of operating systems, from Windows, Mac OS, and Linux to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
Easy to use: Web GIS apps typically incorporate simplicity, intuition, and convenience into their design. Therefore, public users can use these apps without having prior knowledge.
Easy to maintain: web clients can benefit from the latest program and data updates each time they access a web app. The web administrator does not have to update all the clients separately.
Web GIS presents a pattern for delivering GIS capabilities, and it enables all members of an organization to easily access and use geographic information within a collaborative environment. GIS professionals working on the desktop create and share information to the Web GIS and extend geospatial intelligence to broad users across organizations and throughout communities.
GIS is the science about locations, or The Science of WhereTM. The term has two meanings. One meaning is that GIS is itself a science, as the scientific basis for GIS technology. The other meaning is that GIS has been used for science as an effective tool for making scientific discoveries. The Science of Where is now recognized as a force for solving problems and understanding our world. Web GIS takes the science to a whole new scale, transforming how we share and collaborate, and revealing deeper insight into data. Web GIS unlocks and delivers the science to offices and homes and puts GIS technology in the hands of billions of people. Web GIS demonstrated immense value to government, business, science, and daily life. Recently,