Flood Simulation Results: Compile Exported Rasters Using Time?

Question

I've run a successful flood simulation in ArcGIS Pro and have exported the rasters. I see that a future release will allow for exporting to CRF to animate through time, but this must be done manually for now. This documentation page says I can create an animation by "compiling the images using time." Can I do this by creating my own CRF or should I use a mosaic dataset? Or, is it as simple as just creating a Pro animation and changing layer visibility? Looking for the best way to recreate the animation I see when Pro is running the simulation. Great new functionality!

gbacon_ffx · Answer

I haven't done the precipitation addition, but I think infiltration rasters are a possibility soon as we have good land cover data.

I think this is the page that got me started on the mosaic dataset for creating a multidimensional raster from a series: Create a multidimensional mosaic dataset from a set of time series images—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation. Until I saw this, I was trying to find a way to combine the flood depth rasters into a .CRF but that may not be possible.

JosephHupy1 · Answer

Thanks. I think you and I are finding the same clues. I found this link: How To: Assign Date and Time to a Mosaic Dataset to Visualize Temporal Change in ArcGIS Pr (esri.com)

I will keep working with this and let you know. I agree this simulator has lots of potential, but working with the results is very limited right now.

I'm also curious if you or anyone else has worked with adding precipitation to existing high water such as raster with flooded river.

I used to do this quite a bit, but am now seeing the methods and approaches are much better, yet complex, than before where it was just simple raster math.

gbacon_ffx · Answer

I'm getting there. I created a mosaic dataset and added the flood depth rasters to it. I added a date field, TimeStamp below, and set the date for the storm I'm modeling (July 8, 2019 from 8-9 am) using the raster suffix to get the 5 minute intervals. I used the Build Multidimensional Info tool to make this a multidimensional raster. You can see the multidimensional tab and time slider are activated and I can publish this as an image service. Not as cool as watching the water move in the Pro simulation, but close.

Something in the documentation tipped me off to this workflow, but I can't seem to find it again. If you find alternatives, please share!