Build Multidimensional Info correct variable/dimension fields

Question

Hello, GIS grad student here, I am trying to create a Space Time cube for the melting of glaciers over time and I am stuck.

I have a shapefile for 10 different polygons of glacier boundaries starting from 1957-2021. The attribute table has the date and area of the glacier at the time of measurement. I exported each polygon as an individual layer and converted all 10 features to rasters. I then joined the attributes of the glaciers to each raster. I then created a mosaic dataset (kept the default settings minus 1 bit pixel depth) and added all 10 rasters to my mosaic. I get a black polygon here with the outline of the square footprint. From here I added two fields to my footprint attribute table, the year, and area, and populated it accordingly. I now want to build the multidimensional info correctly and cannot figure out how to populate the "Build Multidimensional Info" tool correctly to display the change in area per year. Can I get help on how I should populate the variable and dimension fields? My variable here is area, and dimension is year (I think). Note the variable field only gives a few options to choose from (like Name, Tag, URIhash fields), I jsut don't know how to populate these fields correctly. Thanks.

MartineInMissoula · Answer

I'm experiencing a similar problem: I have 3 rasters (rather coarse) representing  subsurface geology. They're very basic and the cell values contain a value in meters. They do not have attribute tables. I have created a mosaic dataset and added them as elevation rasters. Now I'd like to use the "Build Multidimentional Info" tool to convert them into a multidimentional raster mosaic, the aim here is to eventually create a voxel layer to bring into my web scene since those do not support custom elevation surfaces. I'm however. My mosaic footprint's attribute table only contains the generic Raster, Name, MinPS, MaxPS, GroupName(Empty), ProductName(empty), Raster Type iD, UriHash, etc. fields. I've tried to calculate the ProductName to 'Height' to use as a variable, but that didn't work, and I have no idea what to put in there for Dimension. Any help would be surely appreciated!

Juan_FernandoMartinez · Answer

In the mosaic dataset, you have to add a new field (column) with the date field format type (https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.1/help/mapping/time/supported-field-formats.htm). Once you create that field, each raster (row) in your mosaic dataset needs to have a time stamp assigned. You can then go into the mosaic properties and assign that field as the time field. After this, you can use the Build Multidimensional Info tool and you should be able to pick the time field that you created