Download this article PDF 307 KB^[1]

Following these tips will help you wow readers of your Esri Story Maps apps every time.

1. Connect with Your Audience

Who are your readers? Before you build your story map, think about who will be seeing it. Craft your text, maps, and other content to suit your audience. Avoid jargon. Use accessible language. It’s not about dumbing down; it’s about striving for clarity and simplicity.

2. Lure People In

Start your story map with a bang. For your cover image, choose one that’s exciting and attractive. Make sure your title is active and descriptive. While a title like A Walking Tour of Springfield is okay, Discover the Hidden Treasures of Springfield is better, but don’t be ambiguous about the location. Make it clear that you are talking about Springfield, Illinois, not Springfield, Massachusetts.

After you lure them in, keep people reading your map. Put the map’s core concepts at the beginning rather than the end. Don’t include outbound hyperlinks in your introduction. They could distract readers and dissuade them from navigating through your story. Put those links at the end of the map.

Kīlauea: Fountains of Fire

Start you story map...

Developers can work with ArcGIS Online in tandem with Android Studio in order to make their applications available to a wider mobile audience.

The post ArcGIS Online and Android appeared first on GIS Lounge.

Des Plaines, IL (October 17, 2018) --  More than 500 GIS professionals - from 43 states, 5 Canadian provinces, and 8 countries - recently convened in Palm Springs, California for GIS-Pro & CalGIS 2018. One of the highlights of the conference was the Awards Breakfast, during which a number of URISA leaders were recognized for their volunteer service. The  California Geographic Information Association^[1] (CGIA) also celebrated several award recipients.

We congratulate and thank all honorees for their amazing contributions to the community!

Leadership Award: Presented to members who have demonstrated exemplary leadership to URISA, creativity, innovation, and dedicated support of URISA programs. The recipient should be a member of URISA for enough years to show a pattern of leadership. Typically the recipient will have been responsible for new programs or activities, or significantly enhanced an existing activity or program, so that it takes URISA in a new direction and/or enhances our standing in the professional community.

• 2018 Recipient: Kevin Mickey, GISP (The Polis Center, Indianapolis, Indiana)  

Service Award: Presented to members who have demonstrated faithful service to URISA and participation in its program over a period of several years. This award is for specific service to URISA. It should require a significant number of years of (not...

NORCROSS, GA., October 15, 2018 – Hexagon’s Geospatial division announces a new version of M.App Enterprise for 2018, M.App Enterprise 16.5. This privately-hosted solution allows organizations to deploy Hexagon Smart M.Apps that dynamically address their location-based business problems. 

M.App Enterprise is the ideal platform to monitor assets, evaluate changes, and take action, with the new release now including a native mobile client. The mobile workflow enables managers to assign tasks to field workers when it’s necessary to act. With the new mobile application, the platform is available from anywhere, including areas without internet access.

The new M.App Enterprise Studio comes with the Spatial Workshop user interface to manage spatial recipes. Its geoprocessing capabilities make it possible to make calculations with any type of geospatial data.

Updates to the Feature Analyzer component, such as thematic cluster markers, tooltips for boundary data, and the option to share your views according to user type, make it easier to interactively derive insights from a variety of data. 

The new product localization feature ensures that users are no longer lost in translation. New languages can be added to any local M.App Enterprise instance within minutes.

“M.App Enterprise provides a unified geospatial enterprise platform enabling customers and partners to create vertical solutions for their markets and industry segments,”...

Microsoft SharePoint helps organizations all over the world—from government entities to oil companies and retailers—organize their teams, workflows, and data. But native search within SharePoint is heavily reliant on text, so finding a particular file can be frustrating, especially when there is a large amount of data to wade through.

That is why Esri developed a new capability in ArcGIS Maps for SharePoint that lets users map and search SharePoint content more easily. Called ArcGIS Map Search, the app part allows ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise users to drag files hosted in SharePoint onto a map to geotag them for easy search later. Now, when an oil company has an emergency at one of its oil wells, for example, employees responding to the incident can open up a map of all the wells in ArcGIS Maps for SharePoint; click on the one where the accident occurred; and immediately find all the documents related to that well, including permits and safety records.

Users can view all the documents associated with a feature by clicking on a point, line, or polygon on the map.

Users have been requesting this tag-and-search capability more frequently in recent years, and it is now available in ArcGIS Maps for SharePoint 5.0—one of the most significant releases since the first...

The Department for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), has awarded Bluesky Ireland, a specialist in aerial mapping, a contract to supply high resolution aerial photography and digital height models. Applications of the Bluesky data are expected to include rural farm payment schemes and forestry management.

 

As an Irish government department, DAFM’s mission is to lead the sustainable development of a competitive, consumer focused agri-food sector and to contribute to a vibrant rural economy and society. Data delivered to DAFM by Bluesky includes the most up to date aerial photography, colour infrared imagery and a Digital Surface Model (DSM). The three year contract covers data for the whole of the Republic, around 80,000 square kilometres including off-shore islands.

 

“We are delighted that DAFM has joined the growing number of government departments, local councils, utility companies, engineers and environment consultants, that are already benefiting from the day to day use of the most up to date and accurate geographic data for Ireland,” commented Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky International. “We look forward to working with DAFM to complete the capture and supply of data and supporting them in their roll out and application.”

 

The high resolution, fully orthorectified aerial photography is fully compatible with DAFM’s existing map layers and...

Open-source JavaScript library for creating immersive connections to infrastructure digital twins

LONDON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — October 17, 2018 — Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the initial release of its iModel.js library, an open-source initiative to improve the accessibility, for both visualization and analytical visibility, of infrastructure digital twins. iModel.js can be used by developers and IT professionals to quickly and easily create immersive applications that connect their infrastructure digital twins with the rest of their digital world. iModel.js is the cornerstone of Bentley’s just-announced iTwin™ Services that combine iModelHub, reality modeling, and web-enabling software technologies within a Connected Data Environment (CDE) for infrastructure engineering.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181017005008/en/^[1]

Bentley’s iModels have become a de facto standard for visibility into digital engineering models. iModelHub manages an iModel as a distributed database with an intrinsic ledger of changes—enabling alignment, accountability, and accessibility of its digital components—to form the backbone of an infrastructure digital twin.

The iModel.js library is a comprehensive collection of JavaScript packages that build on the most open,...

Reduced pricing on Rugo™ Light and Quick Swap® Power Pack plus new drone lighting bundles

OCEANSIDE, Calif., Oct. 16, 2018 — (PRNewswire) —   FoxFury Lighting Solutions^[1] announces a new rechargeable Quick Swap® Power Pack with Strobe^[2] for the Rugo™ Drone & Camera Light^[3]. This new Power Pack is most useful for drone (UAV or sUAS) night operations as it fulfills the FAA FAR 107.29^[4] requirements for dusk, dawn, and night flights. The Rugo™^[5] is a rugged go-anywhere lighting tool that is primarily used for drones but can also be used as a camera or accent light in photography as well as a handheld search light.

The FAA FAR 107.29^[6] requirement states that drones flown at night must have anti-collision lighting visible from at least three statute miles away and be able to strobe at a frequency of 40 – 100 times per minute. FoxFury's new Quick Swap® Power Pack with Strobe^[7] can strobe at a frequency of 90 times per minute and be seen from the required distance. The other modes on the Power Pack (low, medium, and high) can be used as a constant light source for inspection, search, and general illumination. Similar...

Fourth Satellite Will Complete Global Coverage for Advanced Extremely High Frequency Constellation

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla., Oct. 17, 2018 — (PRNewswire) — The fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) protected communication satellite, built by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT^[1]) for the U.S. Air Force, was successfully launched today at 12:15 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket. Lockheed Martin confirmed signal acquisition at 3:47 a.m. ET.

The AEHF^[2] system provides global, survivable, highly secure and protected communications for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. The satellite will now move into a testing phase prior to hand over to the Air Force. With four satellites in orbit, the AEHF constellation completes a geostationary ring and will be able to deliver global coverage.

"It's good to return with our mission partners to see the culmination of expertise, skill and partnership that we have worked diligently toward to make this AEHF launch a success," said Mike Cacheiro, vice president of Protected Communication Systems at Lockheed Martin. "This is a substantial milestone for AEHF, and as...