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Soil Data Viewer 5.1 Download and Install

Download the Soil Data Viewer 5.1 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 5.1 Platform Requirements
Installing Soil Data Viewer 5.1 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform
Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 5.1
Soil Data Viewer 5.1 Release Notes

Soil Data Viewer 5.1 Platform Requirements


Microsoft Windows® XP operating system (Home or Professional edition) is required for running Soil Data Viewer 5.1.

The Microsoft® .NET Framework, version 1.1 offsite link image     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”. If Microsoft® .NET Framework, version 2.0 is installed, but Microsoft® .NET Framework, version 1.1 is not, you will need to install version 1.1. There shouldn’t be any problem installing version 1.1 when version 2.0 is already installed.

To be able to generate thematic maps, you must have either ArcGIS 9.0 with service pack 3 installed or ArcGIS 9.1 with any or no service pack installed. In addition, you must have installed .NET support when ArcGIS was installed.

If you have ArcGIS 9.0 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 for ArcGIS 9.0 is sufficient because service pack 3 contains all changes included in service packs 1 and 2.

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

If you have ArcGIS installed but are unsure whether or not .NET support for ArcGIS was also installed, look at the contents of C:\Windows\assembly. If .NET support for ArcGIS was installed, C:\Windows\assembly should contain a number of files (assemblies actually) whose name begins with “ESRI.ArcGIS.”.

If .NET support was not installed when ArcGIS was installed, you can modify your existing installation to include .NET support. Proceed as if you were installing ArcGIS from scratch, but select option “Modify” from the dialog that comes up, and then click “Next”. This will bring up a “Select Features” dialog. If the group named “Applications” is collapsed, click the plus sign to the left of the name to expand that group. From that group, open the item named “.NET Support”, and select “Entire feature will be installed on local hard drive”, and then click “Next”. This will bring up another dialog with the text “Ready to modify the Application” near the top. Click “Next” to then modify your ArcGIS installation.

If you meet all but the ArcGIS requirements, 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® Reader® software) must be installed on your computer in order to view reports created by the Soil Data Viewer application.

Installing Soil Data Viewer 5.1 on a non-USDA CCE Platform

The Soil Data Viewer 5.1 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 5.1 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 package actually includes two instances of the Soil Data Viewer application, a GIS enabled instance and a non-GIS enabled or “standalone” instance. When all ArcGIS related prerequisites have been met, the GIS enabled instance is installed. Otherwise, the standalone instance is installed. If you install the standalone instance of Soil Data Viewer, and then later install a compatible version of ArcGIS, you would then have to reinstall Soil Data Viewer in order to install the GIS enabled instance.

The install package will warn you if any requirements have not been met, and will indicate which Soil Data Viewer instance (GIS enabled or standalone), if any, will be installed. You will always be given the opportunity to abort the installation, even when all prerequisites have been met.

If you attempt to install version 5.1 when version 5.0 is currently installed, the installation process will uninstall the 5.0 version before installing the 5.1 version. If you attempt to install version 5.1 when version 5.1 is already installed, the install process will uninstall Soil Data Viewer without reinstalling it.

The entire installation process typically completes in a couple of minutes.

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 5.1: Soil Data Viewer” from the Start Menu. Please see the Online User Guide for instructions on running Soil Data Viewer 5.1 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

Obtaining and Preparing Data for use with Soil Data Viewer 5.1


The Online User Guide above contains detailed instructions for obtaining and preparing data for use with Soil Data Viewer 5.1.

Soil Data Viewer 5.1 operates on data that can be downloaded from the Web Soil Survey website.

You will also need to have a version of Microsoft Access greater than or equal to Access 97 installed on your PC. 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 5.1.

Soil Data Viewer 5.1 Release Notes


Install Package Changes, Fixes, and Enhancements


The install process will now perform a full installation only when the following conditions are met:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.1 is installed.
  • ArcGIS 9.0 with service pack 3 is installed or ArcGIS 9.1 with any or no service pack is installed.
  • .NET support was installed when ArcGIS was installed.

The install process now offers the option to install the standalone version of Soil Data Viewer when any of the following situations are encountered:

  • No version of ArcGIS is installed.
  • An unsupported version of ArcGIS is installed.
  • An unsupported patch level for a supported version of ArcGIS is installed.
  • A supported combination of ArcGIS version and service pack level is installed, but .NET support was not installed when ArcGIS was installed.

The install process now detects where the .NET Framework was installed and dynamically constructs the command that registers Soil Data Viewer as a plug-in to ArcMap. This addresses platforms where the .NET Framework was not installed in the standard location and platforms where Windows XP was installed over a previous Windows operating system.

The install process now more reliably reports failures to register Soil Data Viewer as a plug-in to ArcMap.

Application Changes, Fixes, and Enhancements


In addition to ArcGIS 9.0 with service pack 3, the application has now been verified to work with ArcGIS 9.1 where any or no service pack is installed.

The validation for what constitutes a valid source soil map layer has been enhanced to verify the data type for map unit symbol (musym) and map unit key (mukey), and to verify that map unit polygons correspond to a supported polygon type.

For Soil Data Viewer 5.0, a crash sometimes left a file that prevented Soil Data Viewer from restarting. A crash should no longer prevent Soil Data Viewer from starting.

A Map Unit Description report was added.

The horizon aggregation process was enhanced to exclude all contiguous preceding and trailing horizons within the implied or user specified depth range, where the corresponding value of the attribute being aggregated is null. This new rule typically excludes horizons at the bottom of a depth range that correspond to bedrock. For additional details, please see the section titled “Horizon Aggregation” in the Soil Data Viewer 5.1 User Guide.

A bug in the Dominant Condition aggregation process pertaining to non-numeric attribute values with embedded apostrophes was fixed.