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Download and Install Soil Data Viewer 6.0

Soil Data Viewer screenshot.

This page allows you to download Soil Data Viewer 6.0 for non-USDA Common Computing Environment (CCE) platforms. The non-USDA CCE audience includes, but is not limited to, cooperators, consultants, educational institutions, technical service providers, and the general public.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Requirements
ArcGIS Version Compatibility
Installing Soil Data Viewer 6.0 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform
Registering Soil Data Viewer 6.0 as an Add-In to ArcMap
Uninstalling Soil Data Viewer 6.0
Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 6.0
Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Release Notes

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Requirements

Although the Soil Data Viewer 6.0 installer no longer checks for a specific operating system or a specific version of ArcGIS, Soil Data Viewer 6.0 is currently certified only for Windows 7 Professional x64 and ArcGIS 10.0, or Windows XP Professional and ArcGIS 10.0.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 may or may not work under other versions of Windows, but it hasn’t been tested under any version of Windows other than Windows 7 Professional x64 and Windows XP Professional.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 will not be supported for any version of ArcMap prior to 10.0.

The Microsoft .NET Framework, version 3.5, or higher, must be installed prior to installing Soil Data Viewer 6.0. The Soil Data Viewer 6.0 installer will let you know if this requirement has not been met.

Some version of either Microsoft Access, or its corresponding runtime package, must be installed. Technically, one doesn’t need Microsoft Access to run Soil Data Viewer, but a driver that allows Soil Data Viewer 6.0 to communicate with a Microsoft Access SSURGO Template database is required. While Microsoft Access is not required to run Soil Data Viewer 6.0, one could not import soil tabular data into a Microsoft Access SSURGO Template database without having access to Microsoft Access on some platform.

If a driver that allows the Soil Data Viewer application to communicate with a Microsoft Access SSURGO Template database is missing, an exception will occur the instant that that Soil Data Viewer attempts to open a Microsoft Access SSURGO Template database. If the exception mentions a missing or empty table, the problem is not a missing driver. If you need this driver but don’t want to install Microsoft Access, we suggest that you download and install the 64 bit Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime. The Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime is free.

Soil Data Viewer still only recognizes a Microsoft Access database with a .mdb extension. We do not yet provide SSURGO Template databases in .accdb format. Microsoft Access 2007 and 2010 are both capable of working with an Access database in .mdb format. Our intent is remedy this as soon as possible.

Access 2007 and 2010 users will need to enable all macros. Instructions for doing this are provided in the PDF file Enabling Macros in Microsoft Access.

In order to be able to generate thematic soil maps, ArcGIS 10.0 must be installed. Please see section ArcGIS Version Compatibility for additional information.

If all requirements but the ArcGIS requirement are met, you can still install Soil Data Viewer and run it independent of ArcMap, but output is then limited to a tabular report.

A PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or some equivalent, must be installed on your computer in order to view reports created by the Soil Data Viewer application.

ArcGIS Version Compatibility

The initial release of Soil Data Viewer 6.0 is certified for only ArcGIS 10.0, but it is not uncommon for a version of Soil Data Viewer targeted for a specific version of ArcGIS to be compatible with one or more subsequent versions of ArcGIS. When a new version of ArcGIS is released, we will test Soil Data Viewer 6.0 under that version of ArcGIS. This section will always indicate all versions of ArcGIS that are known to be compatible with Soil Data Viewer 6.0.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 is compatible with the following versions of ArcGIS:

  • ArcGIS 10
  • ArcGIS 10 SP2
  • ArcGIS 10 SP3

Installing Soil Data Viewer 6.0 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform

Download Soil Data Viewer.

A zip file containing the Soil Data Viewer 6.0 installer for non-USDA CCE platforms can be downloaded for free by clicking the image to the left. There may be a significant delay between the time you click the image and when the File Download dialog finally appears.

The login used to install Soil Data Viewer 6.0 must have administrator privileges.

After downloading the Soil Data Viewer installer zip file, unzip the contents of that file into any folder. In the folder to which you unzipped the installer, double click the file named “Soil_Data_Viewer_6.0.msi”, or "Soil_Data_Viewer_6.0”, depending on how your Folder Options are set. This will start the install process, which generally takes little more than a minute.

Soil Data Viewer is automatically installed for all users. There is no option to install Soil Data Viewer for a specific user. The application itself will be installed to C:\Program Files (x86)\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 6.

The install process will add a “USDA Applications” program group to your Start Menu, if such a group is not already present. To run Soil Data Viewer independent of ArcMap, select “USDA Applications: Soils: Soil Data Viewer 6.0” from the Start Menu.

Registering Soil Data Viewer 6.0 as an Add-In to ArcMap

The Soil Data Viewer 6.0 installer no longer automatically registers Soil Data Viewer as an add-in to ArcMap. To manually register Soil Data Viewer 6.0 as an add-in to ArcMap, do the following:

  1. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 6.0.
     
  2. In directory C:\Program Files (x86)\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 6.0, double click the file named “SDVArcMapAddin.esriAddin”. There are two files in this directory where the non-extension portion of the file name is “SDVArcMapAddin”, “SDVArcMapAddin.dll” and “SDVArcMapAddin.esriAddIn”. If file name extensions are currently hidden, you won’t be able to distinguish between the two.

    To display file name extensions in Windows XP, open My Computer or Windows Explorer, select “Folder Options” from the Tools Menu, click the tab labeled “View” and clear the “Hide extensions for known file types” check box.

    To display file name extensions in Window 7, select Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options, click the tab labeled “View” and then clear the “Hide extensions for known file types” check box.
     
  3. In the “ESRI ArcGIS Addin Installation Utility” dialog that comes up, click the button labeled “Install Add-In.”

This will add the Soil Data Viewer toolbar, a toolbar with only one button, to ArcMap, but that toolbar will not yet be docked. To dock the Soil Data Viewer 6.0 toolbar, open ArcMap, click in the grey area to the left of the “x” at the top of the Soil Data Viewer 6.0 toolbar, drag that toolbar into the toolbar area at the top of the ArcMap window, and release the mouse button. The undocked Soil Data Viewer tool bar looks like this:

Undocked Soil Data Viewer tool bar.

If you don’t see the Soil Data Viewer toolbar/button in ArcMap, when you think that you should:

  1. Select “Toolbars” from ArcMap’s Customization Menu.
     
  2. Scan through the list that is displayed and look for “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”.
     
  3. If the list does not include “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”, Soil Data Viewer has not yet been successfully registered as an add-in to ArcMap.
     
  4. If the list does include “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”, look to see if there is a check to the left of that entry. If there is, Soil Data Viewer Toolbar should already be visible in ArcMap. If there is no check to the left of “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”, left click on “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar” to add the Soil Data Viewer toolbar to ArcMap.

Please see the Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Online User Guide for instructions on running Soil Data Viewer 6.0 as an add-in to ArcMap.

Uninstalling Soil Data Viewer 6.0

To uninstall Soil Data Viewer 6.0, from the Start menu, select Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. From the list of installed programs, select “Soil Data Viewer 6.0”, and then click the button labeled “Remove”.

If Soil Data Viewer 6.0 was registered as an add-in to ArcMap, prior to uninstalling Soil Data Viewer 6.0, you may be surprised to find that you can still run the Soil Data Viewer application from within ArcMap. When Soil Data Viewer 6.0 was registered as an add-in to ArcMap, ArcMap squirreled away its own copy of Soil Data Viewer 6.0.

To ultimately remove Soil Data Viewer 6.0 as an add-in to ArcMap, start ArcMap, and from the Customize menu select “Add-In Manager”. After the Add-In Manager dialog is displayed, select the add-in labeled “SDVArcMapAddin”. This should cause the SDV add-in to be displayed in the panel to the right. In that panel, click “Delete this Add-In”.

Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 6.0

The Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Online User Guide contains detailed instructions for obtaining and preparing data for use with Soil Data Viewer 6.0.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 operates on data that can be downloaded from the Soil Data Mart website.

Some version of Microsoft Access must be installed. The tabular soil data accessed by Soil Data Viewer must reside in a Microsoft Access SSURGO template database, and Microsoft Access is required to be able to import that data. A request to download data for a survey area typically includes a request for a SSURGO template database, but you can also request a SSURGO template database independent of a request for survey area data, from the Soil Data Mart Template Database Downloads page. Only SSURGO template databases at version 32 or later are compatible with Soil Data Viewer 6.0.

Soil Data Viewer 6.0 Release Notes

Installer Changes, Fixes, and Enhancements
  1. The installer no longer checks for a specific operating system.
     
  2. The installer no longer checks for a specific version of ArcGIS.
     
  3. The installer no longer automatically uninstalls any earlier version of Soil Data Viewer. It is not necessary to uninstall an earlier version of Soil Data Viewer prior to installing Soil Data Viewer 6.0.
     
  4. The installer no longer requires ArcMap to not be running when installing Soil Data Viewer.
     
  5. The installer no longer automatically registers Soil Data Viewer as an add-in to ArcMap.
     
Application Changes, Fixes, and Enhancements
  1. The checks that are made when a SSURGO Template database is opened have been modified. This should be transparent to users.
     
  2. Due to differences between ArcGIS 9 and ArcGIS 10, some changes had to be made to make Clear Themes work correctly under ArcGIS 10.0.
     
  3. The problem that was causing the following intermittent exception has been fixed:
    “System Exception: An error occurred generating a new Shapefile”
     
  4. Absolutely no new functionality beyond that already provided by Soil Data Viewer 5.2 has been added. The only thing new about Soil Data Viewer 6.0 is that it works with Windows 7 Professional x64 and ArcGIS 10.0.
     
Known Issues
  1. When running Soil Data Viewer standalone. i.e. not as an add-in to ArcMap, the bottom of each page in both an Aggregation Report and a Map Unit Description report includes a license warning for the software we used to create these reports. This problem does not occur when running Soil Data Viewer as an add-in to ArcMap.
     
  2. The following sequence of actions results in a “Shapefile already exists.” error.
     
    1. Start ArcMap.
       
    2. Start Soil Data Viewer under ArcMap.
       
    3. Create a thematic map.
       
    4. Close and restart Soil Data Viewer under ArcMap.
       
    5. Create a thematic map.

This issue has existed since Soil Data Viewer 5.0. When this issue occurs, clicking the “Clear Themes” button should allow you to proceed.