A quick entry from my hotel room in San Diego where I am staying for the 2007 iteration of the annual ESRI User Conference.

In his plenary session today, Jack Dangermond announced a REST Application Program Interface (API) that will be released with ArcGIS Server 9.3 and will allow interoperability between ArcGIS and web services, notably Microsoft's Virtual Earth. With the release of 9.3, ESRI will provide an ArcGIS JavaScript library that extends the Microsoft Virtual Earth Software Development Kit. You can use the extended SDK to mashup content from any ArcGIS 9.3 Server via the REST API for ArcGIS Server with Virtual Earth maps and imagery.

In the Microsoft booth #2101 on the ESRI UC exhibition floor this week, the Virtual Earth team will be demonstrating this capability through 3 simple demos provided by the ESRI team. I have been asked to not share the URL to these demos at this time, but I can share screen captures with a brief explanation of what you are looking at. If you are at the conference this week, stop by the booth to see these demos.

Parcel Demo
A simple demo that illustrates using the ArcGIS system to author and serve content to Virtual Earth via the Virtual Earth tiling scheme. A parcel map service has been pre-cached to match the projection and tile structure of Virtual Earth. A custom tile endpoint is available via the ArcGIS Server REST API. This tile endpoint accepts the Virtual Earth tile naming convention and returns the appropriate ArcGIS Server cached tile.

Access to the underlying vector data can also be achieved by creating an ArcGIS Server QueryTask. This QueryTask allows the developer to perform spatial or attribute queries against ArcGIS Server map and data services. The results that are returned contain geometry and attributes.

The ArcGIS JavaScript library for Virtual Earth contains factory objects that convert the returned ArcGIS Server data structures into the appropriate Virtual Earth shape type. This can then be added to the map and displayed with a dynamically generated InfoBox.

The below screen capture shows where I have zoomed into an area around Riverside, CA and right-clicked on the parcel information. The parcel is highlighted and the InfoBox contains attribute information from the query task result.

Utility Demo
This demo is similar to the Parcel demo except that multiple ArcGISQueryTasks have been integrated into the Virtual Earth experience. The below screen captures show where I have zoomed into an area around Riverside and right-clicked on a point feature (a meter, in this case) and a blue linear feature (primary overhead power lines). The results are highlighted and the InfoBox contains attribute information from each query task result.

Reverse Geocoding Demo
In this demo the reverseGeocode method is used to reverse geocode a point on the map to its nearest address, based on the latest street and address data maintained by an organization.

The below screenshot shows where I have zoomed into an area and right-clicked on the map. The mouse coordinates are used in a reverse geocode operation. The result is a point shape and an InfoBox containing the address nearest to the mouse click.