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GeoFUSE Toolbar for ArcMap™ Help


In an effort to further the capabilities of GeoFUSE for our advanced GIS users, GeoEye, in cooperation with ESRI®, has developed a toolbar extension for use within ArcMap™. The toolbar allows ArcMap™ users to quickly and easily search the extensive GeoEye imagery archive from within the ArcMap™ application.

The latest release of the GeoFUSE toolbar for ArcMap™ now supports the creation of AOIs and the execution of archive queries based on multi-part polygons whether they contain a single feature or multiple features. Also supported is the ability perform an archive query based on a unique image ordering identifier by using the "Find" Tool.


If you are new to using ArcMap™, we encourage you to visit the ESRI® Support Center for more information.

ESRI® Support Center


Before You Begin

Two versions of the GeoFUSE Toolbar for ArcMap™ exist. One for 32-bit architecture (x86) and one for 64-bit architecture. If you are unsure of the bit count of your system architecture, please visit the Microsoft® Help and Support Article ID 827818: How to determine whether a computer is running a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version of the Windows operating system.

ArcGIS® and .NET Support

Ensure that you are running ArcGIS® Desktop version 9.2 with Service Pack 6 through version 9.3.1 to include 9.3.1 with Service Pack 1. The toolbar may not install properly in earlier versions. If you are unsure of which version of ArcGIS Desktop you are using, you can download the ESRI® ArcGIS® Patch Finder Utility to determine which version you are using. You can download the executable directly from the ESRI® Support Website:     Download the ESRI® ArcGIS® Patch Finder

Additionally, .NET Support for ArcGIS® Desktop must be installed on your computer or the Toolbar will be unable to install. If you encounter problems with installation, check to see if .NET Support is installed by going to Add or Remove Programs from the Windows Control Panel. Scroll to ArcGIS® desktop and click on change/remove. From within the ArcGIS® Setup window select Modify and click Next. If .NET support is not installed a red X will be present.

Please reference the ESRI Support Site document How to: Install .NET Support for ArcGIS® Desktop.

Proxy Settings

If your organization uses a proxy server for its LAN, please see the Toolbar System Requirements page.

Additional Support

If this help documentation does not answer your questions, additional assistance can be obtained by sending an e-mail to GeoFUSE Support.


Getting Started

The following is a step-by-step tutorial on installing and using the GeoFUSE Toolbar for ArcMap™.


Installing the Toolbar

Begin by downloading the GeoFUSE Toolbar for ArcMap™ to your local machine from the GeoFUSE Toolbar for ArcMap™ Page. Double click on the setup executable to launch setup. Your screen will look like this:

Click on "Next" to continue to the Install Wizard.

Continue the install wizard by following the on-screen prompts. When the installation is complete you will see the following window:

Click on "Close". The installation is complete.

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Launching the Toolbar

Open ESRI® ArcMap™ (Version 9.2 or greater). From the top menu select "Tools" and then "Extensions".

The Extensions dialog box appears. Select GeoFUSE ArcMap™ Extension from the list and click "Close".

From the main ArcMap™ menu at the top of the screen Click on View--> Toolbars--> and Select GeoEye's GeoFUSE Toolbar.

The Toolbar opens up in an un-docked state within the ArcMap™ application.

The Toolbar can be docked with the ESRI® toolbars or it can remain in a "floating" state within your application window. Simply click the titlebar and drag to toolbar anywhere in the window you would like to float it, or drag it into the ArcMap™ toobars to dock it.

You are now ready to perform search and discovery tasks on the GeoEye archive from within ArcMap™.

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Creating an Area of Interest

There are four different ways to specify an area of interest (AOI) using the GeoFUSE Toolbar:

Additional AOI tools include Zoom to AOI and Clear AOI.

  1. Search by Specifying Specific Coordinate Values

  2. Click on the "create AOI by coordinates" button on the GeoFUSE Toolbar:

    Three options are presented for searching by coordinate: By bounding box, by point (buffered), and by polygon coordinates list as depicted below.

    Coordinate entries can be in Degrees Minutes Seconds (30° 27' 30.123, 30d27m30.123s, or 30 27 30.123) or in decimal degree format (-118.236). Coordinate pairs must be entered in x,y (lon, lat) format. After entering your coordinates, clicking the "Create AOI" button the map will zoom to the selected AOI, and a red polygon symbolizing the AOI will be shown on the map.
    Note: All polygon coordinate lists must start and end with the same coordinate pair in order to ‘close’ the polygon and the area of an AOI cannot exceed 1,000,000 sq km.

  3. Search Using a Selected Feature on the Map as an AOI
  4. The "Create AOI from Selected Feature" button is a conventient tool for selecting an AOI by using the shape of another feature. Simply select any selectable polygon feature in your map and click the "Create AOI from Selected Feature" button. The red AOI will be drawn around the selected feature. This is more clearly visible if the selection is cleared after the AOI has been drawn.

  5. Search by Placing a Point on the Map
  6. Clicking on the Search by Point button and then clicking on your point of interest on the map will open a dialog prompting the user to enter a buffer distance (in kilometers). The default buffer is 3.5 km which will result in a 49 square kilometer AOI. When the user clicks on the "Create AOI" button, the map will zoom to the selected AOI, and a red polygon symbolizing the AOI will be shown on the map. The user selected point is the exact center of the AOI bounding box drawn on the screen.

  7. Search by Drawing a Polygon on the Map
  8. Clicking on the Search by Polygon button and then drawing your area of of interest on the map will result in a red polygon symbolizing the AOI being shown on the map.

  9. Zoom to AOI and Clear AOI
  10. These two tools do exactly as one would expect: The zoom to AOI tool will zoom the map to an active AOI. The Clear AOI tool will clear an active AOI.

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Searching the Archive

Once an AOI has been established there are three functional tools for use in searching the archive:

  • Search Preferences
  • Search Catalog
  • Fetch Browse

Selecting "Search Preferences" from the toolbar opens the following dialog:

It is within this dialog that the user can set date ranges, cloud cover levels and image resolution using standard preferences, or set advanced search preferences using the ArcMap™ Query Builder.

Once the preferences have been set (if not set manually, default values will apply) selecting the "Search Catalog" button on the toolbar will query the GeoEye archive.

Results are then returned in the form of footprints color coded by cloud cover as shown below:

Once the Catalog Search has been performed, browse images can be downloaded by clicking on the "Fetch Browse" button on the toolbar:

The user will be prompted to select for which set of catalog results browse images should be fetched, and to where on the local computer they should be saved. The browse images will be saved to the local computer and the browse image layers added to the map, but in an "off" state. Browse images can be displayed and hidden by simply toggling the browse images on and off from within the ArcMap™ table of contents. Note: The application default is to download all footprints; however, if any of the footprints are selected, only the browse images for the selected footprints will be downloaded.

Note that the footprints ("Catalog Results" layer) can be turned off to provide an unobstructed view of the browse image layers.


Search by Ordering Identifier - The "Find" Tool

The capability to search the GeoEye archive by Ordering Identifier has been added to the latest version of the Toolbar. Simply click on the magnifying glass and enter the ordering identifier into the text box and click "Find". Valid ordering identifiers are Ordering ID, Scene ID, Strip ID, Source ID and Image ID. The results will be returned as a feature layer, and browse imagery can then be fetched the same way as with AOI searches.

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Interacting with Results

Since multiple searches can be performed during a single session, the searches are stored in the ArcMap™ table of contents. Default file layer names are date and time stamped; however we recommend that the user rename these layers to suit the project at hand. Common ArcMap™ functions such as exporting features to shapefiles, saving to layer files, converting to graphics, (to name just a few) work with the catalog results feature classes the same as with any other feature class. Using the attribute tables of the results layers helps simplify identifying desired browse images from a large result set, as does using the "Label Features" and "info" button features within ArcMap™.

The way a user interacts with the GeoEye Image Catalog results depends on user preferences within the ArcMap™ application, and user experience using ArcMap™.

If you are new to ArcMap™, we strongly encourage you to visit the ESRI® Support Center for more information on using the ArcMap™ application.

ESRI® Support Center

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Downloading Search Results Data Sets

There are two formats in which a results dataset can be downloaded: KMZ and HTML.

Clicking on the "Export to KML" button on the toolbar will prompt the user to select the catalog results set to export and prompt the user to specify a location in whicht to save the document.

The downloaded file will be a zipped KML document (KMZ) for use within the Google® Earth application.

Clicking on the "HTML Report" button on the toolbar will prompt the user to select the catalog results set to export and prompt the user to specify a location in whicht to save the document.

The downloaded file will be an HTML document suitable for viewing in any Internet browser.

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Using the Permalink Feature

Clicking on the "Permalink" button on the toolbar will launch the GeoFUSE Online Maps application which will draw and zoom to the AOI created in ArcMap®. From there, a link can be copied and then pasted into an e-mail or other document for sharing or or other purposes.

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Viewing Metadata

There are two viewable types of metadata available using the toolbar:

  1. Area of Interest Metadata
  2. Catalog Results Metadata


Clicking on these buttons will open up dialog boxes that provide information about the respective item--AOI or Catalog Results--as shown below:

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