Available with Advanced license.
In ArcGIS Drone2Map, orthomosaics are generated as tiles then mosaicked together. The existence of these tiles allows the benefit of being able to reprocess portions of the imagery rather than the whole product. This saves time and allows you to iterate corrections on the output orthomosaic to achieve your ideal product. When you draw a correction feature or waterbody mask over an existing orthomosaic only the tiles that contain those features will be reprocessed. This drastically cuts back on the time it takes to generate a new orthomosaic and refine features within the project area.
There are two methods to apply the tile-based processing workflow. The first method allows you to reprocess tiles but maintains the original tile in a mosaic dataset. This means you can select which tile you want to reprocess but allows you to revert back to the original product if needed. The second method automatically overwrites the tiles that have correction features and writes a full new orthomosaic. The original orthomosaic is maintained in the project folder as a backup. To learn more about re-processing, see reprocessing.
Note:
Since tile based processing is only intended for orthomosaic products it is advisable to turn off all other products when attempting the following workflows to save time. Otherwise, any enabled product will be regenerated and prolong processing times.
Individual tile processing
You can configure orthomosaics to be created without the merge tiles option. This generates a mosaic dataset with all imagery separated into tiles. These tiles can have correction or waterbody features drawn over them and reprocessed.
Pick and choose which tiles get used with individual tile based processing.
- From the Home tab use the Options button in the Processing group to open the Options window.
- Browse to the 2D products tab.
- Uncheck the Merge Tiles check box under the Orthomosaic section.
- Click Apply and click OK.
- Use the Start button on the Home tab to begin processing.
Ensure that the Orthomosaic product is checked on before processing.
A mosaic dataset named "Orthomosaic Tiles" is added to the Imagery Products group in the contents pane.
- Once processing completes, click either the Waterbody Mask or Correction Feature drop-down menu on the Home tab.
- Choose the option to Create Waterbody or Create Correction Feature.
The Create Features pane appears and automatically starts an edit session with the polygon template enabled for drawing.
- Draw a new feature over any areas needing modification.
- Click the Finish button on the editing toolbar in the map window.
- Close the Create Features pane.
- Press Start to being re-processing the tiles with your drawn features.
Once processing completes, review the result. You may need to uncheck the pre-processing layers or refresh the map to see the changes.
- Verify the new tile has been created.
By default the First mosaic operator is used to display the tiles within the mosaic dataset. Any new tiles will appear as the first raster dataset and therefore be pushed to the top of the display order. Subsequent runs of the workflow will create additional tiles and continue to use the same operator. You can change the mosaic dataset operator for the orthomosaic by clicking on the orthomosaic tiles layer in the contents pane. The Mosaic Layer tab will appear on the ribbon and contains the Image Display Order group for modifying mosaic dataset display.
Mass tile processing
When you use the default option of merging tiles for generating your orthomosaic tiles are not individually displayed. Instead you can draw the correction features over the existing orthomosaic and Drone2Map will automatically reprocess those tiles. The end result is a new orthomosaic with your pre-processing features applied. Each new processing run will store the old orthomosaic into a new backup folder in the project folder. To learn more about re-processing, see reprocessing.
Draw features and iteratively process orthomosaics to make tile based corrections.
- Check on the orthomosaic product in the Manage pane.
- Use the Start button on the Home tab to begin processing.
- Once processing completes, click either the Waterbody Mask or Correction Feature drop-down menu on the Home tab.
- Choose the Create Waterbody or Create Correction Feature option.
The Create Features pane appears and automatically starts an edit session with the polygon template enabled for drawing.
- Draw a new feature over any areas needing modification.
- Click the Finish button on the editing toolbar in the map window.
- Close the Create Features pane.
- Press Start to being re-processing the tiles with your drawn features.
Once processing completes, review the result. You may need to uncheck the pre-processing layers to see the changes. A backup of the original orthomosaic is created and stored in the project folder under \Products\2D\Ortho\backup. Subsequent runs of the workflow will continue to produce backup folders with the previously processed orthomosaic in them.