GIS Platform

Your Possibilities Are Endless

Regardless of your industry or the
size of your organization, you can use
the ArcGIS platform to apply
geography to solving problems and
making decisions.
 Spatial Analysis
• Understanding Spatial Relationships and
Patterns
– Spatial analysis is how we understand our world—
mapping where things are, how they relate, what
it all means, and what actions to take.
– From computational analysis of geographic
patterns to finding optimum routes, site selection,
and advanced predictive modeling, spatial analysis
is at the very heart of geographic information
system (GIS) technology.
Understanding Where
Where are my offices located? Where are my delivery
trucks? Understanding where is about putting the
world in context. This includes geocoding your data,
putting it on a map, and symbolizing it in ways that can
help you visualize and understand your data.
Measuring Size, Shape, and Distribution
How long is the river? How tall is the building? How
large are the coca fields? Measuring size and shape
shows how large an object is or describes a feature in
terms of its area, perimeter, length, height, and
volume. It also helps to understand the distribution of
multiple features.
Determining How Places Are Related
Which rivers are within 10 miles of a pipeline? Have
other crimes occurred at this location? Answering
spatial questions often requires an understanding of
spatial relationships such as proximity, coincidence,
intersection, overlap, visibility, and accessibility.
Finding the Best Locations and Paths
Whether you're looking for the best route to travel,
the best corridor to build a pipeline, or the best
location to site a new store, spatial analysis helps you
make more informed decisions about the best
locations and paths.
Detecting and Quantifying Patterns
Where are clusters of high expenditures on electronic goods?
Where are the hot spots of cancer deaths? Detecting and
quantifying patterns in data can be used to find hot spots and
outliers, find natural data clusters, and analyze changes in patterns
over time.
Making Predictions
How will a forest fire spread based on vegetation and
wind? How will store size and travel distance attract or
detract customers? Spatial analysis lets you use
powerful modeling techniques to make predictions and
better understand our world.
Spatial analysis is a key aspect of
the ArcGIS platform
 Big Data
• Discover Greater Value from Your Big Data
– Visualize and analyze your big data in a way that
reveals patterns, trends, and relationships that
reports don't. Even if your data exists in many
disparate places, streams, or web logs, Esri
technology can pull it all together to help focus
your decision making.
 Geographic Analysis Turns Raw
Data into Wisdom
WISDOM Imagine that the raw data coming
KNOWLEDGE fast and furious from many sources
is the foundation of your big data
INFORMATION strategy. This data is saturated with
DATA geographic elements that you're
probably not using. Geographic
tools help you filter and convert
those elements into geographic
layers of information. You can
analyze those layers to create new,
more useful maps for decision
making.
Expose Geographic Patterns
Maps are a way to see the
story behind your data.
• Retailers can see where
promotions are most effective
and where the competition is.
• Banks can get an explanation of
why loans are defaulting and
where there is an underserved
market.
• Climate-change scientists can
see the impact of shifting
weather patterns.
Find Spatial Relationships
Seeing spatially enabled big data on a map allows you to
answer questions and ask new ones. Where are disease
outbreaks occurring? Where is insurance risk greatest given
recently updated population shifts? Geographic thinking
adds a new dimension to big data problem solving and helps
you make sense of big data.
Perform Predictive Modeling
Predictive modeling using spatially enabled big data helps
you develop strategies from if/then scenarios.
Governments can use it to design disaster response
plans. Natural resource managers can analyze recovery of
wetlands after a disaster. Health service organizations can
identify the spread of disease and ways to contain it.
Get Geographic Insights from Social Media
Putting social media data on a map helps you track a dynamic
situation. Retailers display data feeds on maps to monitor and
protect their brands. Banks use geographic analysis to detect
fraud. The mapping of social media feeds has also helped
governments worldwide gauge public sentiment in real time
during significant events, such as elections and uprisings.
 GIS and CAD
• At their core, CAD and GIS are complementary
technologies that have evolved largely independently
over the past 30 years. Esri's longtime best-of-breed
approach provides value to customers by building
better linkages between CAD and GIS systems.
• In recent years, Esri has focused much research and
development on improving how CAD data can be used
as GIS content. ArcGIS now offers better tools for
organization of CAD data and a larger, more useful set
of symbols for representing CAD information. In
addition, ArcGIS provides a commonly accepted
framework for georeferencing CAD data so it can be
used in many types of applications and by a wider
range of professionals.
• More recently, Esri has turned its focus to streamlining
workflows that provide GIS content to CAD users. The
ArcGIS for AutoCAD plug-in provides GIS content to CAD
users via an elegant services-based approach to
interoperability, where designers and draftspersons can
access and use GIS Web services delivered by ArcGIS for
Server without leaving the CAD environment. Esri is
exploring how other ArcGIS for Server services, such as
geoprocessing and geodata services as well as Web editing,
can be used inside AutoCAD and other CAD software.
• Esri has also created a new data specification, the mapping
specification for CAD (MSC), which is a method of defining
and creating GIS content using AutoCAD files and ArcGIS for
AutoCAD. The MSC format not only makes CAD data more
easily understood as GIS content but also gives the CAD
draftsperson the means to enhance drawings with spatial
information and attributes normally enjoyed by GIS users.
• Esri continues to pursue a two-pronged approach that
increases the value of CAD to customers by making it
easier to use in a GIS and building better linkages
between the two systems so that CAD users can enjoy
the full benefits of GIS.
• Looking ahead, Esri is working on fully exploring the
potential uses of all ArcGIS for Server GIS services (such
as geoprocessing, geodatabase, and editing) inside
AutoCAD and other CAD software. Another area of
research is the leveraging of technologies like building
information modeling (BIM) and 3D GIS. BIM promises
to provide well-structured datasets that can be
incorporated with existing GIS applications to improve
asset management, emergency response, property
management, and facilities management projects. GIS
applications can also be fused with 3D GIS for solving
problems associated with 3D networks, volumes, and
complex geometries.
 Web and
Mobile Apps

• Apps That Fit the Work You Do, No Matter

Where You Are
Mapping Apps
• Mapping apps provide focused workflows and
tools for your day-to-day tasks. With these apps,
you can track assets, create operational
dashboards, publish open data, and more.
• Collector for ArcGIS
• Explorer for ArcGIS
• Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS
• Open Data
• GeoPlanner for ArcGIS
• Community Analyst
• Navigator for ArcGIS
• Business Apps
• Easily add mapping to your existing business
processes. By analyzing your data on a map, you
get a more complete picture and better insights
than you would from just looking at
spreadsheets.
• Esri Maps for Office
• Esri Maps for SharePoint
• Esri Maps for IBM Cognos
• Esri Maps for MicroStrategy
• Esri Maps for Salesforce
• Esri Business Analyst Online
• Configurable Apps
• Want apps with your own look and feel? With
ready-to-use templates and widgets, you can
share these apps inside your organization or
use them to engage with your customers or
the public.
• AppStudio for ArcGIS
• Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS
• Story Maps
• ArcGIS Web App Templates
 Mapping and Visualization
See What You've Been Missing in Your Data
• Maps help you spot spatial patterns in your
data so you can make better decisions and see
where you need to take action. Maps also
break down barriers and facilitate
collaboration. ArcGIS helps you do all these
with interactive, high-quality cartographic
maps that you can easily create and share.
Whether you're an analyst, developer, or line-of-business
manager, you can create incredible-looking maps in
minutes and share them securely. ArcGIS is the state-of-
the-art platform for creating and delivering beautiful
maps that emphasize what's important and use best
practices in cartography.
Create Custom Maps for Any Audience
You don't have to start from scratch to create custom
maps. Make simple, focused, and responsive maps using
drag-and-drop widgets in just a few minutes. Or you can
pour your maps into a variety of templates created for
your industry that show change over time, compare
before and after imagery, and so much more.
Combine Data from Many Sources
Pull together data you have in spreadsheets and
databases, and then combine it with publicly available
data, live data feeds, or data shared by other
organizations. ArcGIS lets you stack different types of
data to help you see relationships, patterns, and
trends.
Give Context to Your Data
Where in the world is your data? Layer your data on top
of world imagery, streets, topographic maps, or ocean
basemaps. ArcGIS has basemaps in multiple cartographic
styles designed to emphasize different views of the
world. You can even create your own basemap.
Visualize Your Data in 2D or 3D
Sometimes, seeing information in 3D can shed even
more light on your data. For example, if you are
assessing the shadow effect that a tall building will have
on your city or if you are trying to calculate sight lines for
a new cell tower, having a 3D map is crucial. ArcGIS
allows easy switching between 2D and 3D.
Mapping is a key aspect of the
ArcGIS platform
 Data Management
Get the Most Out of Your Data
Any GIS system is only as good as the data
that's in it. ArcGIS provides a complete set
of tools that give you the flexibility to store,
edit, and manage data in a way that fits with
your existing processes.
• Store Data
– ArcGIS allows you to access, use, and store GIS
data using the method that fits and optimizes your
existing workflows.
• Individual Files
– ArcGIS supports many data formats, such as
shapefiles, file geodatabases, tables/spreadsheets,
CAD, and rasters. A file geodatabase provides
structural, performance, and data management
advantages over other formats. Esri File
Geodatabase API allows you to interact directly
with the stored data.
• Databases
– ArcGIS can make direct connections to various
relational database management systems
(RDBMS) and big data databases.
• Geodatabases
– A geodatabase stores GIS data in a central location
for easy access and management. It can be
leveraged in desktop, server, or mobile
environments. It sits on top of an RDBMS, such as
SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL, and supports
all types of GIS data.
• Cloud
– You can store data in the Esri cloud with ArcGIS
Online or in your own personal cloud
infrastructure. ArcGIS can be deployed on the
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM
SoftLayer, and VCE cloud platforms.
• Edit Data
– Use ArcGIS to compile and manage geographic
data layers that power your GIS. ArcGIS provides a
comprehensive suite of editing tools and
workflows.
• Single-User Editing
– ArcGIS allows you to compile and manage multiple
GIS layers using comprehensive editing tools and
workflows.
• Multiuser Editing
– Establish an enterprise-caliber, multiuser editing
environment with the geodatabase. The
geodatabase uses versioning, replication, and
archiving to provide seamless, organization-wide
editing and use of geospatial data.
Harness Big Data
ArcGIS helps you take control of big data so it
can be analyzed and visualized from a
geographic perspective. It brings together not
only massive volumes of data but also data of
disparate types.
Integrate Your Enterprise
ArcGIS integrates with data stored in your existing
business systems to extend their analytical
capabilities. ArcGIS enhances your business
intelligence, collaboration, productivity, and customer
relationship management systems.
Set Data Rules and Relationships
ArcGIS maintains your data integrity and simplifies
data management when the data is stored in a
geodatabase. You can define relationships, such as
networks and topologies, between your datasets
and set rules, such as domains and subtypes, for
individual datasets.
Manage Metadata
Metadata describes the content, quality, origin, and other
characteristics of data. It's data about data. Complete and
accurate metadata is required to have reliable, quality data.
ArcGIS supports custom and standard metadata profiles,
including FGDC, ISO, INSPIRE, and Dublin Core.
Learn about support for metadata styles and standards in
ArcGIS.
Use Esri Geoportal Server to catalog, edit, and manage your
metadata.
Secure Your Data
ArcGIS is designed to support your organization's
specific security requirements and gives you
flexibility and control over how your GIS platform
is deployed, maintained, secured, and used.

Data management is a key aspect of the

ArcGIS platform.