Check out this new ArcGIS Blog about new functionality to publish tiles from features and have them update automatically by cwhitmore-esristaff!
With the June 2017 ArcGIS Online release, tile layers have evolved; When publishing hosted tile layers from hosted feature layers, you can create tiles automatically. Choosing automatic means you don’t have to worry about building your tile cache ahead of time. Tiles are generated on demand when someone views that area and scale. Once created, the tiles are cached and available for all subsequent views. Demand dictates where tiles are created, rather than having to build tiles for the entire extent of the layer, which may never be viewed at all scales. Additionally, when the data in the feature layer changes tiles are automatically updated. This includes when a feature is added, removed, or modified. Tiles for that area will be updated automatically to reflect the new data within a few minutes. With automatic tiles, you don’t have to worry about building your tile cache ahead of time or updating tiles to keep them updated with the latest feature data.
As part of the rollout for this new capability, tile generation costs have been reduced by a factor of ten. Tile generation previously cost one credit for every 1,000 tiles generated. Tile generation now costs one credit for every 10,000 tiles generated. Storage costs remain the same at 1.2 credits per 1 GB stored per month. Tile generation costs are charged to the owner of the tile layer.
Tile layers published from feature layers are ideal for large datasets where the feature data changes, such as parcel data where boundaries and attribute data may change regularly, or if you don’t want to worry about managing the tile cache. When publishing your feature layer as tiles, pop-ups are automatically enabled on the tile layer with the pop-up configuration of the feature layer. In the map viewer and other applicable browser-based apps, analysis and other query-based functionality such as tabular views of the feature data are available in for tile layers created from feature layers as well.
When a tile layer is published from a feature layer, features are rendered by the service powering the tile layer and delivered to you as images, also known as raster tiles. By taking this approach the service avoids sending potentially large and complex features and data to your device and forcing your browser or app to do all the heavy lifting to display that information on a map. Because only tiles are sent and rendered, you get much better performance, especially on browsers, for large data such as county wide parcel data. Previously, there were a few considerations that must be evaluated when using tile layers. The tile cache must be built ahead of time. If data changed, the tile layer must be updated as part of a separate process. These considerations effectively limited the role tiles play in visualizing data, especially larger feature layers where data is updated regularly. With tiles created automatically, these limitations are no longer applicable.
Note: tiles may take longer to generate at smaller scales. It is dependent on the complexity of your data. The more complex the features, the longer it may take to generate tiles at smaller scales. At scales where tile generation is taking longer than expected, you can choose to build tiles for that scale ahead of time. If the suggested visible range is modified to include additional smaller scales, tiles for these scales are pre-created immediately after publishing.
There are a few considerations when configuring your tile layer:
Stay tuned for more posts about hosted tile layers and managing your hosted data!
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