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Soil Data Viewer 6.2 Download and Install

This page allows you to download Soil Data Viewer 6.2 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 6.2 Requirements
Uninstalling Soil Data Viewer 5.x or 6.x
Installing Soil Data Viewer 6.2 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform
Registering Soil Data Viewer 6.2 as an Add-In to ArcMap
Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 6.2
Soil Data Viewer 6.2 Release Notes


Soil Data Viewer 6.2 Requirements

Operating System Compatibility

Although the Soil Data Viewer 6.2 installer no longer checks for a specific operating system or a specific version of ArcGIS, Soil Data Viewer 6.2 is currently certified only for Windows 10 (32 and 64 bit), Windows 7 Professional x64 and ArcGIS 10.0 thru 10.5, or Windows XP Professional and ArcGIS 10.0 thru 10.3, or Windows 8.x and ArcGIS 10.0 thru 10.3.

Soil Data Viewer 6.2 may or may not work under other versions of Windows, but it hasn’t been tested under any version of Windows other than Windows 10 (32 and 64 bit), Windows 7 Professional x64, and Windows XP Professional.
 

Microsoft Access

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 6.2 to communicate with a Microsoft Access SSURGO Template database is required. While Microsoft Access is not required to run Soil Data Viewer 6.2, 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 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.

Instructions for enabling macros in Microsoft Access. (109.4 KB)

ArcGIS Compatibility

The initial release of Soil Data Viewer 6.2 is certified for only ArcGIS 10.0 through 10.5.x, 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 6.2 under that version of ArcGIS. This section will always indicate all versions of ArcGIS that are known to be compatible with Soil Data Viewer 6.2.

In order to be able to generate thematic soil maps, ArcGIS 10.0 through 10.3 must be installed.

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.
 

Other Requirements

Soil Data Viewer 6.2 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 6.2. The Soil Data Viewer 6.2 installer will let you know if this requirement has not been met.

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

Uninstalling Soil Data Viewer 5.x or 6.x


Before installing any new version of Soil Data Viewer, or installing a new version of ArcGIS, always uninstall third party extensions such as Soil Data Viewer first!
 
Begin by removing the old SDV-ArcMap AddIn. 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”. Close ArcMap before proceeding to step 3.
 
Open the Start menu and select Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. From the list of installed programs, select “Soil Data Viewer {5.x or 6.x}”, and then click the button labeled “Remove”.


Installing Soil Data Viewer 6.2 on a Non-USDA CCE Platform

Soil Data Viewer Installer version 6.2 zipfile. (14 MB)


The zip file (14 MB) contains the Soil Data Viewer 6.2 installer for non-USDA CCE platforms.

All previous versions of Soil Data Viewer must be uninstalled prior to installing version 6.2. Refer to the instructions for uninstalling.

The login used to install Soil Data Viewer 6.2 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_6.2.msi”, or "Soil_Data_Viewer_6.2”, 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 6.2.

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 6.2” from the Start Menu.

Registering Soil Data Viewer 6.2 as an Add-In to ArcMap

The Soil Data Viewer 6.2 installer no longer automatically registers Soil Data Viewer as an add-in to ArcMap. To manually register Soil Data Viewer 6.2 as an add-in to ArcMap, each individual user must do the following:

Using Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 6.2.
 
In directory C:\Program Files (x86)\USDA\Soil Data Viewer 6.2, 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.
 
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 6.2 toolbar, open ArcMap, click in the grey area to the left of the “x” at the top of the Soil Data Viewer 6.2 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 toolbar image is currently not available.


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

Select “Toolbars” from ArcMap’s Customization Menu.
 
Scan through the list that is displayed and look for “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”.
 
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.
 
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 6.2 Online User Guide for instructions on running Soil Data Viewer 6.2 as an add-in to ArcMap.

Soil Data Viewer 6.2 User Guide (687.37 KB)

Obtaining and Preparing Data for Use with Soil Data Viewer 6.2

The Soil Data Viewer 6.2 Online User Guide contains detailed instructions for obtaining and preparing data for use with Soil Data Viewer 6.2.

Soil Data Viewer 6.2 operates on data that can be downloaded from the Web Soil Survey 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 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 versions 36 are compatible with Soil Data Viewer 6.2.

Soil Data Viewer 6.2 Release Notes

Application Changes, Fixes, and Enhancements

  1. Soil Data Viewer 6.2 has been updated to work with XTools version 11.

  2.  A problem with the display of the map legend in certain cases has been fixed. The problem appeared when a rating contained quote marks, as in the Ecological Site Name.

  3.  An incorrect data type was being used in maps for Hydric and NCCPI ratings.

Known Issues

The following sequence of actions results in a “Shapefile already exists” error.

Start ArcMap.
 Start Soil Data Viewer under ArcMap.
 Create a thematic map.
 Close and restart Soil Data Viewer under ArcMap.
 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.

Missing Soil Data Viewer toolbar/button in ArcMap.

Select “Toolbars” from ArcMap’s Customization Menu.
 Scan through the list that is displayed and look for “Soil Data Viewer Toolbar”.
 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.
 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.