What this book covers
Chapter 1, Getting Started with ArcGIS, introduces you to the book. Since you are new to ArcGIS, it will briefly explain what ArcGIS is and why a developer would customize ArcGIS to create cool applications with it. In this chapter, we illustrate each example, the technology, and the skills that a developer will acquire upon completing the example.
Chapter 2, App 1 – the Cell Tower Analysis Tool, kicks off with the first example, where you will learn how to develop on ArcGIS for Desktop using ArcGIS add-ins. Developers will write a tool to show a cell phone tower's signal range, display the strength signal on the map, and display how cell phones will connect—in simulated real time—to the tower with the strongest signal, all on ArcGIS for Desktop.
Chapter 3, Mapping Signal Strength, takes the application further to the next stage where you will learn about proximity tools, how to use them to measure distances between points, and perform analysis based on a result. This will help us in determining the closest tower, which will eventually be the one with the strongest signal. The signal strength can be calculated with the formula tower range-distance.
Chapter 4, Real-time Maneuvering, takes the application to a real-life scenario. In this chapter, we simulate a cell phone that moves on the map and switches towers for the best signal possible. The cell phone reads coordinates from a GPS textfile, which has been produced previously. The active tower will keep flashing while the cell phone is connected to that particular tower.
Chapter 5, App 2 – Extending ArcObjects, introduces our second application, the restaurant mapping application. You will create an application that will allow you to filter, search, and interact with restaurants on the map. This will also help you to view the reviews and ratings of different users. You will learn how to write some ArcObjects code to work with geodatabase, query feature classes, and relationships.
Chapter 6, Reviews and Ratings, introduces you to the relationship queries, which is a bit of an advanced topic that requires special care. You will be able to query related tables, such as reviews and ratings, pull this information, and display it on the application. A developer will learn how to highlight restaurants on the map by selecting it from the application.
Chapter 7, Advanced Searching, takes the application to a higher level with the advanced geodatabase search. In this chapter, we will introduce advanced spatial queries, where the user of the application will select an area and the application should display all the restaurants in the selected area according to their categories. You will also perform an advanced interface technique, where the developer will add a custom text box to the toolbar to search for restaurants and filter them accordingly as the user types in the box.
Chapter 8, App 3 – Advanced ArcObjects, will propel you to the advanced stage, where you will write a real-life business-related deployable application. The Excavation Planning Manager helps construction workers plan their excavation for utilities and telecom networks beforehand in a given area and at an estimated cost of excavation. The application analyses the underlying soil type and green area to find out the cost of removing these areas by carrying out extensive spatial analysis. You will be able to store multiple designs of excavation and determine which is the cheapest or most applicable design.
Chapter 9, Excavation Cost Calculation, will help you use advanced spatial operations to determine the estimated cost of a given excavation. The application will carry out spatial analysis on the area under the excavation polygon, and based on the soil type, the cost of removal of per 1 meter cube of soil might affect the overall cost of excavation. For instance, a stony area is more difficult to excavate than a regular sand area.
Chapter 10, Saving and Retrieving Excavation Designs, propels our application to the real-life scenario. Before this chapter, excavations were scattered and ungrouped; in this chapter, we will group excavations into designs. So here, a user can create a new design and add multiple excavations for his/her design and calculate the total cost of his/her design. A user will be able to search for a design, edit it, and delete it, along with all its underlying features.