Globe service usage
Once you've created the service and started it, users of desktop client applications such as ArcGlobe and ArcGIS Explorer will be able to consume your globe service by connecting to your GIS server and adding the service as data in their documents. Clients can view globe services through either local (LAN or WAN) or Internet connections. ArcScene cannot consume map or globe services.
Configuring Web access for the service
By default, globe services are enabled for Web access. To disable or limit Web access to the service, see Securing Internet connections to services.
When a globe service has Web access enabled, users of client applications can access the service through HTTP. Supported clients of these Web services are the same as the clients that can view a globe service through local connections—namely, ArcGlobe, ArcCatalog, ArcGIS Explorer, ArcReader, and ArcGIS Engine applications.
Allowed operations for globe Web services are Globe, Animation, and Query. All three are enabled by default.
- Globe is always enabled and cannot be disabled, as it allows you access to the globe data.
- Animation allows clients to access any animation contained in the globe document.
- Query allows you to perform find and identify functionalities on feature data.
For a list of the methods associated with each operation, see Limiting what users can do with a service in the topic Tuning and configuring services.
When using a globe Web service, ArcGIS Server employs two methods for serving the data tiles. The first (default) is via a query string approach, where the client has the knowledge to request data tiles by specifying rows and columns. Simply enabling the Web service will activate this mode; there is nothing you'll need to do additionally as the Web service administrator.
If you associate the cache directory with a virtual directory on your Web server, ArcGIS Server can instead use a static HTTP GET to fetch the data tiles. Exposing the cache through a virtual directory has the added benefit of leveraging the IIS Web server's caching, which will help performance. Be sure to allow Read permissions to the virtual directory. You can associate a cache directory with a virtual directory by editing the cache directory properties in ArcCatalog, the Catalog Window in ArcMap, or ArcGIS Server Manager.
Note:You need to make sure that the MIME Map types for your virtual directory use a wildcard mapping (.* ) for allowed file types, since the tiles of a globe cache do not have a file type association.
URL format
Globe services are available through SOAP and REST. The SOAP URL of a Web-enabled globe service follows this pattern:
http://<server name>/<instance name>/services/<folder name (if the service resides in a folder)>/<service name>/GlobeServer
For example, if you had a service Toronto in a folder Canada running on a server myServer with the default instance name of ArcGIS, the SOAP URL would be as follows:
http://myServer/arcgis/services/Canada/Toronto/GlobeServer
The REST URL inserts a rest folder in the URL following this pattern:
http://myServer/arcgis/rest/services/Canada/Toronto/GlobeServer
Web clients
The ESRI Web mapping APIs do not have controls for consuming globe services. ArcGIS Explorer is the recommended application for viewing globe services in a lightweight client.
The only way to view ArcGIS Server services in 3D in a Web application is to use the ArcGIS Extension for Bing Maps to view a cached map service draped over the Bing Maps globe.