It used to be that the biggest expense associated with any GIS project was obtaining the base or reference data. For many Users this is still a big headache with high costs and admnistrative overhead. However if you are using ArcGIS there is an alternative.
ArcGIS Online provides a comprehensive catalogue of small to medium scale data for the entire globe, it’s free to use, easy to access and fit for purpose for the many GIS applications that dont require large scale vector data. You can preview the new World Street Map here and if you like what you see you can use it directly within your ArcGIS Desktop, here’s how.
If you’re in a hurry just click here. When propmted if you want to Open or Save the file, click Open to add the Map Service to ArcMap. Dont worry if ArcMap is not open it will be opened for you and the Layer will be added. Once opened just use it like any other reference map.
If you like the ArcGIS Online reference data an think you might use it regularly then it makes sense to set it up as an ArcGIS Server connection in your ArcCatalog.
- Open ArcCatalog if not already open
- Double-click ArcGIS Servers in the Catalog tree on the left hand side.
- Double-click Add ArcGIS Server.
- Click Use GIS Service.
- Click on Internet, to make a connection to ArcGIS Online.
- Type the URL of the ArcGIS Server, its http://services.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/services
- Click Finsh.
A new ArcGIS Server connection will be added and you will see the full Catalog of ArcGIS Online Services available to you including the World Street Map mentioned above and many others. You can Preview this in the Preview Tab or see its Metadata in the Metadata Tab in ArcCatalog. To use this Map Service in ArcMap simply drag and drop it onto the ArcMap Map Canvas.
It’s great to have instant online access to such a wealth of data however if you prefer to install this data locally you should find much of it on the ESRI Data and Maps CD that came with your software delivery.
