Our Drafting team use the Geographic toolbox regularly especially the "Export to Google Earth" and 'Capture Google earth image'.
Is there an available ArcGIS toolset that replicates the Google earth tools so we can Capture ArcGIS image?
We would still want to Export to Google Earth (KMZ) as many customers will still have google earth, but we would need a simple tool to replicate this function so we can ensure our designs align to the real world.
Alternatively we need to ask the Esri team to create widgets to import dgn/dwg/kmz files we use and export as DGN files(Levels/layers) we want to use. Downside of this approach is our ArcGIS users manually create their entries and this is not always correct and is only 2D, whereas Google Earth has 3D digital terrain and automatically drapes the raster image to the DTM. Upside is that it will be a single source of our geographic data!
We have MicroStation Vesion 08.11.09.829 (select Series 4)
My understanding would be that there are connectors in Bentley Map that would be able to perform this type of operation with ESRI's ArcGIS. You might like to pose this query in the Bentley Map forum.
RegardsAndrew BellTechnical SupportBentley Systems
Thanks Andrew, we figured there may be tools in Bentley Map, but we will not be allowed to purchase a Bentley Map GIS product when we are trying to consolidate into one GIS data source.
As you should understand MicroStation is not a GIS software product and the Geographic Tool are quite basic ones that allow you to connect to free services. Using software like ArcGIS you are moving into the more complex areas of GIS.
MicroStation is a great tool to work between various Survey data sets, transmission line design software outputs, Civil designs with Power Inroads, BIM tools in Substation design etc, and when everything opens correctly and is aligned we know we are creating accurate Geo-referenced detailed designs. Our Asset Management division use our GIS system to capture many other As built asset information sources. Unfortunately some of their sources and created by hand and not as accurate as the original design source.
We may look at connecting directly to the new internal WMS to meet some of our needs. Being able to do preliminary bench design from Google DTMs will be lost as the company is only implementing a 2D GIS solution :( !
In ArcGIS, there is a layer to KML tool to produce a GE file. There is as well an Add basemap tool to underlay a satellite image online.