Convert ESRI ArcGIS Visual Basic 6.0 applications to .NET

Description

ESRI’s ArcGIS platform is a widely used geographical information system, used in utility, transportation, and geological applications worldwide. Part of its success relies on the fact that it has a robust API that can be used to create complete applications on top of its products. This is leveraged in the different industries to create successful systems that rely on spatial data.

One of the most commonly used languages to develop custom functionality for ArcGIS is Visual Basic 6.0. ESRI, however, has announced that ArcGIS 9.3.1 was the last release that supported this platform, justified by the fact that Microsoft stopped supporting VB6.0 in March 2008:

ArcGIS 9.3.1 was the last release supporting Microsoft Visual Basic 6 (VB6). Microsoft no longer supplies or supports VB6, and we can no longer support this development platform. Users who have custom functionality built using VB6 will need to rewrite their applications using a supported development language (e.g. VB.NET, C#) for their applications to be supported in 10.0.

Deprecation plan for ArcGIS 9.3.1 and ArcGIS 10

Deprecation plan for ARCGIS

Because of this, there is a great interest for companies with existing ArcGIS applications to move to one of the supported .NET languages. The Mobilize Visual Basic Upgrade Companion provides a cost-effective alternative to migrate existing VB6.0 ArcGIS code to native .NET components.

Mappings for ESRI ArcGIS in the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion

ESRI provides Primary Interop Assemblies for ArcGIS Com objects, which contains all the necessary definitions for calling the COM API through a COM Interoperability layer from .NET code. The VBUC is able to recognize and use these ESRI-provided PIAs without further customizations. Right now Mobilize has worked with applications that use the following COM APIs, and the VBUC has been able to successfully map them to the corresponding PIA, as shown in the following table:

COM Reference	.Net Primary Interop Assembly Reference
esriGeoDatabase.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GeoDatabase.dll
esriCarto.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Carto.dll
esriSystem.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.System.dll
esriFramework.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Framework.dll
esriGeometry.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.dll
esriDisplay.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Display.dll
esriArcMapUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.ArcMapUI.dll
esriEditor.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Editor.dll
esriSystemUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.SystemUI.dll
esriNetworkAnalysis.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.NetworkAnalysis.dll
esriEditorExt.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.EditorExt.dll
esriArcMap.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.ArcMap.dll
esriDataSourcesGDB.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesGDB.dll
esriOutput.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Output.dll
esriCartoUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.CartoUI.dll
esriDataSourcesFile.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesFile.dll
esriDataSourcesRaster.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesRaster.dll
esriCatalogUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.CatalogUI.dll
esriDataSourcesRasterUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesRasterUI.dll
esriGeoprocessing.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Geoprocessing.dll
esriGeoReferenceUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GeoReferenceUI.dll
esriLocationUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.LocationUI.dll
esriCatalog.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Catalog.dll
esriControls.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Controls.dll
esriDataSourcesOleDB.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesOleDB.dll
esriGeoDatabaseDistributedUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GeoDatabaseDistributedUI.dll
esriDisplayUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.DisplayUI.dll
esriGeoDatabaseDistributed.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GeoDatabaseDistributed.dll
esriGeoDatabaseUI.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GeoDatabaseUI.dll
esriGISClient.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GISClient.dll
esriGlobeCore.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.GlobeCore.dll
esriLocation.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.Location.dll
esriMapControl.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.MapControl.dll
esriToolbarControl.dll	ESRI.ArcGIS.ToolbarControl.dll

Additional APIs should also map correctly.

The VBUC is able to automate the calls to these APIs to .NET almost completely. There are, however, certain tweaks that need to be performed to completely convert and ArcGIS DLL. ESRI provides information on how to solve these issues in the ArcGIS Engine .NET Resource Center. For additional information about these issues, please review the document Common issues when migrating from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET at http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/ArcGISEngine/dotnet/870876e4-64ca-4831-a632-4c08cbafe993.htm.