MXDPERFSTAT

Investigating the performance of an intranet mapping website this week, I was introduced MXDPERFSTAT. It’s a fantastic tool for investigating map display performance. Given an ArcMap document (a .mxd file) it runs ArcMap and loops over the map layers, displaying each at a list of scales (e.g. 1:100000, 1:10000, 1:2500, 1:500) automatically. Scale cut-offs are followed, in the same way ArcMap would. Once done, MXDPERFSTAT writes an html report, of the time taken and features retrieved to display each layer at each scale. Since it runs in situ, network delays and other real world bottlenecks are accounted for. It even highlights layers that are abnormally slow, or that fetch an excessive number of features. Perfect for diagnosing a slow map, or guiding a tune up of the infrastructure. Supporting ArcGIS installations, I’m a regular searcher on ArcScripts. How did I miss this for the last 4 years, and what other gems are there? What GIS utilities do you find indispensable?