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Manage elevation

Elevation rasters store elevation measurements for a given area in an evenly spaced grid. These measurements might depict bare earth digital terrain models (DTMs), or digital surface models (DSMs) that include buildings, vegetation, and other above-ground features. Elevation rasters can also be used to derive datasets, such as hillshades, slope, or aspect to use for visualization or analysis.

Organizations often manage coasllections of elevation datasets with different projections or resolutions, which can be challenging. These collections can also be very large. Instead of users dealing with the files directly, it is often more manageable for the end user to connect to services that provide only the data necessary for visualization or analysis.

Using a mosaic dataset configured to manage elevation data allows you to manage and share elevation data from multiple sources. Raster functions (a capability of mosaic datasets and ArcGIS Image Server) can visualize the data on the fly as a hillshade, slope, aspect, or other derived product with no preprocessing required. You can access metadata about the source data and the data without any resampling being applied, which is important for some analysis workflows. Mosaic datasets can be used directly in ArcGIS Pro but can also be served as dynamic image services, making elevation data accessible to end users and applications.

An alternative to serving mosaic dataset as image services is to persist the mosaic dataset as single resolution dataset. You can use the Copy Raster tool to export to Cloud Raster Format (CRF) or the Manage Tile Cache tool to export as Elevation Tile Cache.

Note:
To create and edit mosaic datasets, you'll need ArcGIS Pro (Standard or Advanced). To serve mosaic datasets, you'll need ArcGIS Image Server.

Imagery Workflows resources

Review the community-supported tools and best practices for working with and automating imagery and remote sensing workflows:

ArcGIS help

Review the following links on reference materials for ArcGIS products:

Technical paper

Read a technical paper discussing MRF raster format and LERC compression.

Training and tutorials

Watch Managing Raster Data Using ArcGIS (2-hour web course) to learn how to use mosaic datasets to enable efficient data storage and fast visual performance.

Developer resources

Review the following resources and support for automating and customizing workflows:

  • Visit the MDCS GitHub repository to download a Python script to help automate the creation and configuration of mosaic datasets.
  • If you plan to manage satellite imagery in the cloud or want to optimize the data format for faster access, visit the OptimizeRasters GitHub repository for scripts and tools for data transfer and management.

Esri Community

Visit the Esri Imagery and Remote Sensing community to connect, collaborate, and share experiences regarding managing elevation.

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