Esri’s ArcGIS Pro has reinvented desktop GIS. That may seem like a bold statement, but when you understand why it was built, you see that it is true. It was designed and built from the ground up to fit the needs of the modern GIS professional based on input from the GIS community. In order to meet the requirements that were put forth by the worldwide community, Esri had to start fresh with a completely new architecture and lay a solid foundation that would allow performance and experience to be the guide. This is why a new application was needed, a reinvention based on your ideas and needs, and this is why ArcGIS Pro exists.
ArcGIS Pro is a truly 64-bit desktop application that takes advantage of your modern hardware for maximum performance and smooth map and 3D scene displays. It has a vibrant, contextual interface that serves you with the right tools at the right time, and anyone who has spent time looking for tools knows, this is fantastic. You can now do exciting new things like design and edit in 2D and 3D in one place, work with multiple displays and layout designs, and publish finished web maps directly to ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS.
ArcGIS Pro can work side-by-side with ArcMap so there is no need to pick one over the other. The fundamental principle is you do the heavy work with the power of desktop software yet you can easily connect to people within your organization or throughout the world. This way, your work, co-workers, stakeholders, clients and the public are all at your fingertips. Lastly, because ArcGIS Pro is a central and integrated part of the ArcGIS platform, you get the scalability you need to be individually successful and drive success for your organization.
So come explore your new GIS maker-space! There are a ton of new features and capabilities that have been engineered into ArcGIS Pro, if you haven’t had a chance to learn about the nuts and bolts, there is a wealth of knowledge to be found at pro.arcgis.com.
Here are some excerpts (with links) from the site:
Build GIS projects
ArcGIS Pro organizes the resources that you use to do your work into projects. A project contains maps, layouts, layers, tables, tasks, tools, and connections to servers, databases, folders, and styles. Projects can also incorporate content from your organization’s portal or ArcGIS Online.
Visualize your data
Maps and scenes are the canvases on which you display your spatial data—maps display 2D data, and scenes are a type of map that displays 3D data. You can store as many maps as you need in the same project, and you can open multiple maps at once and view them side by side. This means you can look at the same data in 2D and 3D simultaneously. ArcGIS Pro has built-in navigation functions and keyboard and mouse shortcuts that allow you to explore.
Edit geographic data
You can visualize the layers you are editing in both 2D and 3D so you can see your features from all perspectives. Editing involves creating, updating, and maintaining geospatial information that is stored and organized in layers. You can create new features in a layer by drawing them in a map and assigning attributes to define their characteristics, and update existing features to reflect their current condition based on newly acquired data or information that comes from the field. Use snapping and specified constraints to guarantee that features are precisely connected to each other and are created at the proper dimensions.
Geoprocessing provides a suite of tools for performing spatial analysis and managing GIS data in an automated way. A typical tool performs an operation on a dataset and creates a resulting output dataset. When you find the right geoprocessing tool, you specify input and output dataset locations, adjust additional parameters that affect the process, and run the tool. In addition to the tools that are built into ArcGIS Pro, you can create custom tools.
ModelBuilder is a visual language that allows you to create a diagram or model of your spatial analysis or data management process. This model is composed of graphical elements representing geoprocessing tools, data layers, and other variables and functions. Python is the scripting language of ArcGIS. ArcGIS includes a Python API known as ArcPy, which gives you access to all geoprocessing tools as well as an exhaustive suite of scripting functions that help you automate GIS tasks.
Share your work
Sharing your work is an important part of ArcGIS Pro. You can share everything from entire projects to maps, layers, and other components of your work. You can share maps from your project as web maps. Web maps can be reused within ArcGIS Pro as well as across the ArcGIS platform, and they can be viewed in browsers and on mobile devices.
Get started today
ArcGIS Pro is a new part of ArcGIS for Desktop and as such is available as a part of your current maintenance subscription. The licensing for ArcGIS Pro is managed via your ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS account. If you would like to give it a try, a 60-day free trial is available. ArcGIS Pro is also included as a part of the ArcGIS for Home Use program.
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