ArcGIS

ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1999 and originally was released as ARC/INFO, a command line based GIS system for manipulating data. ARC/INFO was later merged into ArcGIS Desktop, which was eventually superseded by ArcGIS Pro in 2015. ArcGIS Pro works in 2D and 3D for cartography and visualization, and includes machine learning (ML). Esri also provides server side ArcGIS software for web maps, known as ArcGIS Server. Prior to the ArcGIS suite, Esri had focused its software development on the command line Arc/INFO workstation program and several Graphical User Interface-based products such as the ArcView GIS 3.x desktop program. Other Esri products included MapObjects, a programming library for developers, and ArcSDE as a relational database management system. The various products had branched out into multiple source trees and did not integrate well with one another. In January 1997, Esri decided to revamp its GIS software platform, creating a single integrated software architecture. In late 1999, Esri released ArcMap 8.0, which ran on the Microsoft Windows operating system. ArcGIS combined the visual user-interface aspect of ArcView GIS 3.x interface with some of the power from the Arc/INFO version 7.2 workstation. This pairing resulted in a new software suite called ArcGIS including the command-line ArcInfo workstation (v8.0) and a new graphical user interface application called ArcMap (v8.0). This ArcMAP incorporating some of the functionality of ArcInfo with a more intuitive interface, as well as a called ArcCatalog (v8.0). The release of the ArcMap constituted a major change in Esri's software offerings, aligning all their client and server products under one software architecture known as ArcGIS, developed using Microsoft Windows COM standards. While the interface and names of ArcMap 8.0 are similar to later versions of ArcGIS Desktop, they are different products. ArcGIS 8.1 replaced ArcMap 8.