Customer Reviews

Extending ArcView GIS: with Network Analyst, Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is not so much a manual as it is a tutorial. I found it useful because I learn best from example. You are walked through various exercises that teach you the basics of each extension. If you are looking for a quick-fix manual, this is not it, however if you are looking to understand how these extensions work and the potential available to a GIS user, this book is for you.

ESRI Press seems to be taking their book publishing program very seriously. This is an impressive volume. I work for the USGS and found the section on the Spatial Analyst to the most well-written description of this highly complicated program to be quite useful. The section on Network Analyst is not quite as strong, but thhen again the Netwwork Analyst is an easier program to learn. I wish they would do booik like this for ArcInfo 8.

This book is actually better with explanations than the manual that comes with ArcView. The tutorials for using the extensions are good. My problem with the book is the disk that comes with it (and you really need a copy of the extensions to really learn them). The disk supposedly contains extension trials - 120 days for each of the three extensions. Trouble is none of them worked! The Network Analyst and the Spatial Analyst wouldn't load completely. And the 3D Analyst caused a fatal error, and shut down the program. So, the book is good - maybe worth the price. Maybe. However, the "free disk trial" is lousy.

I agree that this book is best purchased as a tutorial, not a manual. It is an excellent tutorial - easy to understand, with very useful and realistic examples. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about these extensions. Unlike a previous reviewer, I had no problems with the 120 day trial versions of the extensions software. I have ArcView 3.2 and operate on Windows 98. I don't believe they are compatible with Windows 2000 or XP, as I tried to install network analyst first on an XP machine and got an error message that the network analyst (at least this particular trial version) was not compatible with Windows 2000, and I didn't try the others after that.

The Spatial Analyst Portion was very useful. I don't use network analyst. Could be a little more indepth with the 3D Analyst portion. All in all, a very useful book.

As a graduate student in the University of Florida's Urban and Regional Planning Department. I've been fortunate enough to take a lot of GIS courses at the GeoPlan Center (www.geoplan.ufl.edu). This book, Extending ArcView GIS, has helped me reach my full potential in my courses.

The authors are professionals both in GIS and teaching. I enjoyed the text so much. The examples are very well designed.The problem is the extensions that did not work on my PC-may be due to windows XP, so I used my original extensions.
One good thing in this book is the explanation of the other extensions-in brief ,of course.