PixSell Inc. received an award from ESRI for development of innovative software. PixSell entered its software product in the ESRI ArcGIS Challenge Contest at the February 2002 ESRI Worldwide Business Partners conference, which was held in Palm Springs, California. PixSell’s ShapeBuilder software application was awarded Third Place in the category: Most Innovative.

ShapeBuilder is a complete online digitization solution for the ESRI ArcIMS development platform, and is designed for enterprise level GIS implementations and data sharing. ShapeBuilder provides a way for Web users to create shapefiles for use with any GIS application capable or reading or using shapefiles. ShapeBuilder is one of three closely related software products PixSell has developed that enable Web users and Java developers to conduct heads-up digitizing from an ArcIMS Web sites using a HTML based Java tool to produce point, line, or polygon shapefiles for immediate download. The other two products are GEOmetry and GeoServ. GEOmetry, GeoServ, and ShapeBuilder can be purchased separately, or as an integrated solution. Unlike other available on line digitizing solutions, GEOmetry, GeoServ, and ShapeBuilder require NO software downloads or browser plug-ins on the client side.

GEOmetry is a Java shapefile writer library, designed for use by Java Application Developers. This is the first shapefile writer built entirely in Java. Moreover, the GEOmetry library is built in 100% Pure Java. No third party tools or libraries were used to develop GEOmetry, and it will run on any platform compatible with Java without the need to “port” any part of the program. PixSell has extensively tested the output of GEOmetry in every shapefile capable ESRI product available. GEOmetry is the only shapefile writer available for Java developers. With GEOmetry, development time is reduced and functionality can be dramatically increased.

GEOServ is a Java Servlet that makes GEOmetry components Web accessible. Like GEOmetry, GEOServ was designed for both Web developers and Java Application developers. The servlet makes use of GEOmetry components and Web enables them with XML. The use of XML greatly simplifies the process of creating shapefiles, and allows GEOServ to be used by any Web application that can send text, such as ArcIMS, TerraSoar, MapInfo or a simple Web form. Testing has shown that shapefile generation is incredibly fast using the GEOServ servlet; usually less than 3 seconds over the Web.

PixSell has been an ESRI Business Partner since 2001. As an ESRI Business Partner, PixSell is authorized to resell ESRI software products including ArcIMS and ArcGIS and to provide professional services in support of ESRI products. Internet mapping services are becoming the standard for geospatial data access and sharing on the Web. Leading the industry is ESRI’ s ArcIMS. PixSell has extensive experience developing with, and implementing, ArcIMS solutions for numerous clients in industry, government agencies and academia. PixSell specializes in supporting ArcIMS, the ESRI Internet Mapping Service. PixSell provides ArcIMS training, installation and customization services, and this expertise and experience with the ArcIMS platform enabled PixSell to develop GEOmetry, GEOServ, and ShapeBuilder.