Geo Web Publisher, seems easier
Reviewing what is now Geoweb Publisher V8i, it is well known that this product has had Muuuucha Evolution, although the logic remains, there is a great change between what was a primitive tool for geo-engineers to publish their data in vector and what is now a proposal intended for geospatial purposes.
I have the V8i version, I plan to do a review but before, I take the opportunity to talk about what the previous versions were so as not to make the article of comparison so heavy and to remember the weaknesses they had.
Publisher - GeoWeb Publisher
Initially, Publisher was a geofundada difficult to implement, since it occupied a lot of knowing the guts of the workspace of Microstation and Geographics legacy. It had no wizard, no template icons, everything had to be built on foot. For 2004 Geoweb Publisher was released, which already included a wizard for the creation of pages with basic frames and for everything that had been cibstryudi with the Publisher (with the nails) it was an offense that the improvements did not compensate for. Besides, you had to invest in adapting the changes.
The VPR
When Geoweb Publisher arrived, Bentley stopped being stubborn with the Java applet, which it had arrived at with Microstation J. A Bentley's own ActiveX called vpr emerged, as an acronym for what could be done with: view, print and redline.
The service in the form of images was not a problem, the problem was always the vector data viewer, even if the data was served via IIS, if the initial version required the installation of a more archaic than specific Java engine (JRE) in the implementation Of the AcitveX was shut down to run only with Internet Explorer, and it was a drag to make it run for the first time, if you had a slow connection and little patience (or knowledge of what was going on in the liver of the data office)
Everything that the vpr did was a simple dgn display, but it was possible to serve almost anything that Geographics did, since in practice Geoweb Publisher was itself a Geographics working from the server. So the magic was in the wonders that were made on Geographics, it could serve thematic, topological analysis, even quasi-vectorizing online and this was added as a redline file associated with the original dgn. Sure, with the weaknesses before XM, you couldn't make transparencies unless they were geofumed with PictureScript Scenes (PSS), there were no dynamic symbols, and it was medium. Depleted The management of scales, in practice the projection was not in a conventional way and when generating a theme on a new seed file was lost in space for a strange reason.
It required a deadly resource from the server, as Publisher serving routines that were executed in Geographics on user demand was understandable. Although I admit it was admirable, if we consider that it raised 25,000 plots in a vectorial way in seconds, and once the refreshment was dropped it was not necessary at the level of zoom meeting, only of pan outside of extent. Also the integration to Project Wise allowed control of the work flow and association to external documents through Web Explorer Lite.
Everything was done following the guidelines of the Geographics project, which could well be in Oracle, SQL or Access. The display window read the four corners of the viewer, and did spatial analysis on the Index file and then referenced the dgn registered in that view (or through the map manager). This display was not a common image, since the msliks became hyperlinks of the objects that were linked to the database and in this way the associated table could be displayed.
Then, it allowed to configure the categories and attributes in a lateral tree to turn on or to turn off. The limited ones Query keys disguised buttons that executed common Microstation tasks: turn off or turn on layers (levels), Attachar Reference maps, images, shut down, run mdl routines, macros or vba applications.
Not standard
But there were no OGC standards, it was all a Bentley smoke, their style. In the only two possible positions: the resignation that the interested party must tuck in his shirt sleeves or the tranquility that he is a GNU bearded hairy man, who previously worked at NASA and is now dedicated to doing GIS.
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I've had a look at Geoweb Publisher v8i, and my respects. I think that in this Bentley improves its point of view of the common user, who does not have Walter Mercado at his side to explain his daily letter. Make it easier, it could be, the truth is that now it has a more understandable logic in the flow from the built object to the service.
But rather than waiting for the implementation to be easy, the power of what it does looks interesting, like the evolution of the primitive dpr, now as idpr I find it magnificent in a spatial database concept (from the map) where it is possible Integrate dwg, dgn, xfm and even archaic shape files that are then served from a spatial database.
And then support OGC standards.
We'll see it in the next few days.