What's new in the ArcGIS for Aviation: Charting (Aeronautical Solution)

At release 10.1, the ArcGIS for Aviation: Charting expands on new features and improvements in 10. The solution includes new and improved tools and an updated data model.

New at 10.1 Service Pack 1 Patch 7

At patch 7, there is a new tool that allows you to export several products at once. The Batch Export Products tool allows you to export one or more products as PDFs, layout GeoTIFFs, or Production PDF files. You can also configure the settings for each export type before completing the process.

New at 10.1 Service Pack 1 Patch 5

For patch 5, changes have been made to the Batch Masking Preferences dialog box, and a new parameter has been added to the FAA FAR77 geoprocessing tool.

• The Description column has been removed, and the Query column has been added. You can now define queries for defining which features are going to have masking applied for a layer.
• The FAA FAR77 geoprocessing tool has been updated to accommodate specially prepared hard surfaces. There is now a Specially Prepared Hard Surface Runway (specially_prepared_hard_surface_runway) parameter.

New at 10.1 Service Pack 1 Patch 4

The following enhancements have been made to the aeronautical scale bar and chart leads elements in Patch 4 for Service Pack 1:

• For chart leads, there are now four settings in the Orientation Settings group instead of a single Map Orientation property. The Flip Top Text, Flip Bottom Text, Flip Left Text, and Flip Right Text settings manage the appearance of the text on all sides of the chart lead.
• There are now two buttons on the Aeronautical Scale Bar Properties dialog box that allow you to access the properties for the aeronautical scale bar or reset it to the default settings.
• More text elements can now be customized on the Aeronautical Scale Bar dialog box. You can now customize the text symbols for the sub text, units text, scale text, and either letter at the beginning and end of the scale bar.

New at 10.1 Service Pack 1 Patch 3

The following new functionality is available with Patch 3 for Service Pack 1:

• The Cruising Altitude Diagram tool on the Aeronautical Layout toolbar adds a cruising altitude diagram to the chart layout. This element has three different configurations that can be applied according to a charting organization's requirements.
• You can now create Abbreviate Annotation settings, which allow you to specify which fields are used to display annotation through visual specifications or label expressions.

New at 10.1 SP1

Several changes have been introduced at the Service Pack 1 release for 10.1. They include enhancements to current functionality and the introduction of new tools and surround elements.

New tools

Three new tools have been introduced with the service pack. They allow you to create an aeronautical production database and add two new surround elements, respectively.

• The Create Aeronautical Geodatabase geoprocessing tool applies a data model schema to an enterprise geodatabase.
• The Aeronautical North Arrow tool adds an aeronautical north arrow to the chart layout. This north arrow contains True North and magnetic variation lines by default. You can optionally add a grid variation arrow.
• The Terminal Arrival Area tool adds the terminal arrival area element to the chart layout. This element consists of three sectors that can be customized to fit a charting organization's requirements.

Batch masking

Significant changes have been made to batch masking with the service pack.

• Masking rules are now stored in sets called masking preferences. They can be used with any product type.
• The Masking Rules Manager tool has been deprecated. You can now manage masking preferences through the Batch Masking Preferences dialog box or the Aeronautical Properties pane on the Production Properties dialog box.
• The masking rules are not linked to the product class anymore.

General enhancements

• The Aviation Charting has changed the way all the elements and editing tools are configured. You can now access the properties for the Create Airspace Areas, Create Airspace Lines, and Route Processing tools from the respective dialog box. You can also do this for all the layout and terminal procedure elements.
• Preview windows have been added to the configuration dialog boxes for the surround elements. This allows you to preview changes to the appearance of the element before they are applied.

Data model changes

The AIS data model at version 10.1 now has updated support for AIXM 5.1. The data model now contains metadata. The data dictionary available at previous versions is no longer included with the ArcGIS for Aviation: Charting.

Enhancements to existing tools

• You can now apply visual specifications to data from within the Carto Commander tool. This unifies two interrelated workflows into a single user interface.

New geoprocessing tools

• FAA 18B creates surfaces that describe airspaces that should be free of obstructions. Surface creation follows the FAA 18B specification.
• ArcGIS for Aviation: Charting includes a new toolbox, Aeronautical Data Management Tools. This toolbox contains three existing tools: AIXM 4.5 Airspace Derived Geometry, Export AIS to AIXM 4.5, Import AIXM 4.5 to AIS. This toolbox also contains the new tool, Export FAA 18B to Shapefile.