Uploaded scanned maps students have drawn

Question

Hi, I'm a teacher in a high school.

I wanted to know if it was possible to scan and upload hand-drawn maps in ArcGIS?  The idea would be for students to use their own maps as basemaps.

The school has a licence for the online version and I have been trying to search for previous answers without much luck.

It would appear that scans can be uploaded but I do not recognise the format, would successful uploading require converting?

Thanks for any advice

EmilyGeo · Answer

As @RussRoberts mentioned, we have been working on supporting a workflow for uploading an image in Map Viewer. The ability to Add a Media Layer was part of our last release in February. You can visit this Blog post: Announcing Media Layer... for more info on how you and your students can get started.

RussRoberts · Answer

We are working on supporting a workflow in Map Viewer where you could have an image and add that directly to the map as a media layer and do some simple adjustments to place it into the map. Nothing would need to be published or referenced to another hosting server. Just an FYI this isn't a full georef workflow. The layer would still be an operational layer and wont be a basemap layer at this initial release.

Its currently available in the JSAPI and we are hoping to have it released in the coming weeks to online in Map Viewer. I would look out for references to Media Layer in the what's new releases for Map Viewer.

https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/layers-medialayer-images/

AndreasHall · Answer

This workflow would need to be carried out using ArcGIS Pro. You can read about georeferencing in Pro, defining the location of the scanned map using map coordinates, here: Overview of georeferencing—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation.

There is also a tutorial on the subject Georeference historical imagery in ArcGIS Pro | Learn ArcGIS

The final step would be to publish the georeferenced scanned map to ArcGIS Online.