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Soil Data Viewer 5.0 Download and Install

Download the Soil Data Viewer 5.0 installation package 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 5.0 Platform Requirements
Installing Soil Data Viewer 5.0 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform
Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 5.0

 

Soil Data Viewer 5.0 Platform Requirements


Microsoft Windows® XP operating system (Home or Professional edition) is required for running Soil Data Viewer 5.0.

The Microsoft® .NET Framework, version 1.1 must also be installed. You can check the list of programs under “Control Panel: Add or Remove Programs” to determine if this is already installed. Look for “Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1”.

To be able to generate thematic maps, you must have either ArcGIS 8.3 service pack 3 or ArcGIS 9.0 service pack 3 installed. If you have ArcGIS installed but aren’t at the required service pack level, Soil Data Viewer will refuse to install. Soil Data Viewer can be used without having ArcGIS installed, but output is then limited to a tabular report.

If you have ArcGIS installed but are unsure of the current service pack level, you can select ArcGIS:Desktop Administrator from your Start Menu. This brings up a dialog that displays your current service pack level. Having only service pack 3 installed is sufficient because service pack 3 contains all changes included in service packs 1 and 2.

Service pack 3 for both ArcGIS 8.3 and ArcGIS 9.0 can be obtained from the ESRI Support Center page for ArcInfo Desktop.

This version of Soil Data Viewer has not yet been tested under versions of ArcGIS greater than 9.0, and will not install under versions of ArcGIS greater than 9.0. We will make an ArcGIS 9.1 version available as soon as possible.

A PDF viewer (such as Adobe® Reader® software) must be installed on your computer in order to view reports created by the Soil Data Viewer application.

Installing Soil Data Viewer 5.0 on a non-USDA CCE Platform

The Soil Data Viewer 5.0 installation package for non-USDA CCE platforms can be downloaded for free by clicking the link below.

The login used to install Soil Data Viewer 5.0 must have administrator privileges.

After downloading the Soil Data Viewer installation package, double-click it from within Microsoft® Windows Explorer to unzip the contents of that file into any folder. In the folder to which you unzipped the installation package, execute the file named sdv_setup.exe. This will start the install process. The install process does not require any user input and typically completes in under 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 placed in C:\Program Files\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 5.

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: Soil Data Viewer 5.0: Soil Data Viewer” from the Start Menu. Please see the Online User Guide for instructions on running Soil Data Viewer 5.0 as a plug-in to ArcMap.

The Online User Guides for versions 6.1, 6.0, 5.2, 5.1, and 5.0 are available upon request.

The installation package for Soil Data Viewer 5.0 actually contains three different installation packages: one for platforms where no version of ArcGIS is installed, one for platforms where ArcGIS 8.3 is installed, and one for platforms where ArcGIS 9.0 is installed. If you install Soil Data Viewer on a platform where ArcGIS is not installed, and then install ArcGIS on that platform, you will have to reinstall Soil Data Viewer 5.0 in order for it to work with ArcGIS. If you install Soil Data Viewer on a platform where ArcGIS 8.3 is installed and then upgrade that platform to ArcGIS 9.0, you will have to reinstall Soil Data Viewer 5.0 in order for it to work with ArcGIS 9.0.

Obtaining and Preparing Data for use with Soil Data Viewer 5.0


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

Soil Data Viewer 5.0 operates on data that can be downloaded from the Web Soil Survey website.

You will also need Microsoft® Access 97 or later. The tabular soil data accessed by Soil Data Viewer must reside in a Microsoft Access SSURGO template database. A request to download data for a survey area can also include a request for a SSURGO template database. You can also download a SSURGO template database independent of a request for survey area data from Web Soil Survey by clicking on the “Start WSS” button, “Download Soils Data” tab, and “Download SSURGO Template Database” bar. Only SSURGO template databases at version 32 or later are compatible with Soil Data Viewer 5.0.