If the hosted feature layer includes line or polygon layers that contain a large number of vertices and is often viewed at small or medium scales, you can optimize these layers to improve drawing times in web clients.
Optimizing layers uses additional storage space, and layers cannot be edited until the layer optimization process completes. The feature storage required for optimized layers will increase; however, performance improvements can be substantial for web clients. You can see the size of the hosted feature layer on the Overview tab of the layer's item page.
Optimization is most useful for line or polygon layers that include features that contain many vertices.
Keep the following in mind in regards to optimized layers:
- Hosted feature layer views inherit the drawing optimization setting of the hosted feature layer from which they were created; you cannot configure this setting independently on views. To enable drawing optimization on views that contain lines or polygons, change the setting of the hosted feature layer from which you created the view.
- If you update the data in the layer while optimization is enabled, the new or altered features are automatically optimized.
- If a layer in the hosted feature layer contains a polygon or line feature that includes more than 400,000 vertices, drawing optimization will be enabled by default. This applies to hosted feature layers that you publish and those that are created by analysis tools, such as the Create Buffer or Dissolve Boundary tools.
- ArcGIS Online queries the original feature if the line or polygon feature contains fewer than 1,000,000 vertices. When a line or polygon feature contains more than 1,000,000 vertices, ArcGIS Online queries the generalized (optimized) feature.
- If you append a feature that has more than 400,000 vertices, drawing optimization will be automatically enabled on the hosted feature layer.
- Overwriting the layer may change the optimization setting. If the data you use to overwrite the layer contains a polygon or line feature that includes more than 400,000 vertices, drawing optimization will be enabled by default on the overwritten hosted feature layer. If the data does not contain a feature with more than 400,000 vertices, you'll need to follow the steps below if you want drawing optimization enabled.
To optimize drawing times for a line or polygon layer, complete the following steps:
- Sign in to your organization.
You must be the layer owner or a member of the default administrator role or a custom role assigned the set of privileges to manage all content owned by organization members.
- Open the item page for the hosted feature layer.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Scroll to the Optimize layer drawing section.
The layers in the hosted feature layer that currently have drawing optimization enabled are listed.
- Click Optimize layers.
The Optimize layer drawing dialog box appears.
- Enable the toggle button next to the layer you want optimized for drawing and click Update.
The Optimize layer drawing dialog box closes and the update status is shown on the Settings tab.
The optimization process can take several minutes. Editing is temporarily unavailable on the layer until optimization completes.
To disable drawing optimization, repeat the steps above, but disable the toggle button for the layer to disable drawing optimization in step 6.