Discovering MapIt data

ESRI MapIt provides a REST-ful web service, termed the Spatial Data Service, as a gateway to data tables in a SQL Server 2008 instance. The ArcGIS API for WPF uses this REST interface to query and display spatial data in SQL Server. The Spatial Data Service REST API provides a Services Directory browser application you can use to discover information about the databases and tables available via the service. In most cases, you will use the Services Directory to discover information about a table, construct spatial and attribute queries, and retrieve the URL you'll need to use the table in your WPF application.

Opening the Spatial Data Services Directory

To open the Spatial Data Services Directory for a MapIt site, you must know the URL of the Spatial Data Service. The Spatial Data Service is typically available off the web server's root in the "sds" directory. The Spatial Data Services Directory is available in the "databases" folder. For example, if an ArcGIS Server instance is available at www.example.com, the Spatial Data Services Directory would be located at http://www.example.com/sds/databases.

Note:

The Spatial Data Service name can be changed and thus may not be "sds."

Contact your MapIt administrator if you are uncertain about the URL to the Spatial Data Service.

Finding information about a table

Use the Spatial Data Services Directory to obtain information you need to display geographic data in the ArcGIS API for WPF. In most cases, you will copy a table's URL from the address bar in your browser and paste it in your code. For example, a table named "WorldCities_Geographic" and hosted via the Spatial Data Service on the web server serverapps.esri.com may have a URL of http://serverapps.esri.com/sds/databases/Demo/dbo.WorldCities_Geographic. "Demo" in this example is the SQL Server database in which the table resides. A SQL Server instance can have multiple databases. The prefix "dbo" on the table represents the schema. A schema is simply a named, logical container for database objects, such as tables.

Services Directory also allows you to query table content. Click the Query link at the bottom of the table page to open a dialog box that enables you to construct attribute and spatial queries. Both spatially enabled tables (tables that have at least one spatial column of the data type Geometry or Geography) or non-spatially enabled tables are listed and can be queried.