Imagery Best Practices

Supporting Imagery and Lidar in the ArcGIS platform has been around for a long time. In the ArcGIS Server Space, Image Server became available at 9.3.1. Since then it has evolved to Mosaic Datasets, Image Services, Raster Functions and now raster analytics. Now imagery is really an integral part of the ArcGIS platform. However, it is only as performant when the imagery is managed and configured optimally.

I often get asked,

• what format should I store my imagery in?,
• How many images can be in a Mosaic Dataset?
• How should I structure my imagery? and
• what is the maximum number of images per folder?

When answering these questions I have drawn on past experience and advice from Esri. Now though Esri have compiled all this information into an Excellent Centralised resource Imagery Workflows – Best Practices https://doc.arcgis.com/en/imagery/workflows/best-practices/what-are-best-practices.htm

In the Imagery formats and Performance section it details topics such as:

• File format suitability
• Recommended imagery formats
• Reformatting imagery
• Pyramids
• Statistics
• Working with large mosaics
• Storage system performance

If you’re going to be managing imagery and lidar I recommend you reads these documents. They are comprehensive and invaluable. I must admit I have been doing this for 12 years now and there is information on Lidar management that I did not know about.

This is just one component of the ArcGIS Imagery Workflows documentation Esri has just produced.

Gordon

ArcGIS 10.2.1 for Utilities supports GDA2020

Esri recently released an update for the ArcGIS 10.2.1 for Utilities and Telecom that has included support for GDA2020 projections and transformations.
The update includes

• support for the mathematical transformation between GDA94 and GDA2020
• Support for the NtV2.0 Grid file transformations
• Also included are the Conformal and Conform + Distortion grid files.

If you intend on migrating to GDA2020 at 10.2.1 then we recommend you update to the latest Patch #9 available from
https://support.esri.com/en/download/7680

Understanding GDA2020 and it’s relationship with Web GIS

Background

Australia sits on one of the Earth’s fastest moving tectonic plates which has been moving 70 millimetres per year. By 2020, Australia will have moved 1.8 metres north east of it’s location in 1994. To effectively map the earth, representations, known as datums are used to model and identify locations. Australia’s national datum; Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA94) will soon be replaced by a new datum Geodetic Datum of Australia (GDA2020). GDA2020 will align with current positioning technology.

Geoscience Australia and the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) have released a new Geodetic datum GDA2020. The datum provides higher positional accuracy and will be able to represent locations dynamically rather than the stationary GDA94. .

In the coming two to three years most organisations will be transforming their spatial data from the GDA94 datum to the new GDA2020 datum. Esri’s, ArcGIS Software has been updated to accommodate these new datums across Australia and will support all of our customers rigorous requirements for locational and positional accuracy.

Redlining in the ArcGIS Platform

I often get asked about the ability to redline within the ArcGIS Platform.Within the ArcGIS Platform there are essentially 4 options for Redlining as follows:

Site Scan – Esri Edition app provides drone flight planning using your GIS content

Esri business partner 3DR has released a free app for iOS that interfaces with ArcGIS Online, allowing Esri users to view GIS content from ArcGIS Online to assist with the drone flight planning. 

The Site Scan – Esri Edition app provides mission planning and flight control for a number of leading drones to optimize drone collections for use in Drone2Map or Ortho Mapping in ArcGIS Pro.  This release is compatible with the DJI Phantom 4 Pro, DJI M200, DJI M210, DJI Inspire 2, DJI Mavic Pro, or Yuneec H520-G, as well as the 3DR Solo.

The Site Scan – Esri Edition app allows users to take advantage of substantial amounts of publicly accessible data, as well as custom data layers from the user’s ArcGIS Online account, as base and reference data for mission planning.

Site Scan – Esri Edition is free to everyone with an ArcGIS Online account. The app is available on iTunes at http://esriurl.com/SSEE, and will be available soon in the Esri Marketplace.   

 Try it out! 

ArcGIS delivers GDA2020 NTv2 Grid files

With the delivery of ArcGIS Pro 2.2 and ArcGIS 10.6.1 Esri now supports GDA2020 NTv2 grid files out of the box. However, they are not installed with the product. We have had several reports now of customers deploying the latest product and the NTv2 transformations not being available.

Esri Releases Historical Imagery – Wayback

Have you ever looked at the Esri Imagery basemap and wished you could see the changes over time. Esri for a long time has only provided the most recent imagery they have access to for your area of interest.

Well now in the ArcGIS Living Atlas Esri is providing all their historical imagery for your area of interest. Entitled the WayBack Imagery collection Esri providing both an exciting web application World Imagery Wayback which allows you to see the changes in the imagery over time and allows you to select an image and add it to your ArcGIS Online site as well as a Living Atlas group Wayback Imagery group which will allow you to see all the different epochs of  imagery.

Go have a look I’m sure you’ll find it useful.

Gordon