Remove the aerials from USGS topos?

Question

I think the USGS thought integrating aerials into their topos would be helpful and created a few that look like the image below, unfortunately. When this topo layer draws, I see a 'pure topo' layer draw first, then the (unwanted) aerial draws over it. Is there a way to remove the aerial portion and liberate the topo underneath? Thank you,

MErikReedAugusta · Answer

I dug into the Living Atlas entry for that basemap a little more: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=99cd5fbd98934028802b4f797c4b1732

It looks like this was built collaboratively between at least ESRI and USGS, and using maps sourced from National Geographic, National Park Service, and USGS.

I did a little spelunking and was able to find the NatGeo TOPO! series, which is serving up quadrangle trail maps from USGS.  I grabbed a set of maps from roughly the area in your screenshot*, and it served up an Index map from the "USGS 100K Map Series" that matches your desired symbology and a set of individual maps from the "USGS 7.5' Map Series".

Based on this, I think you're going to want to source the 1:100,000 Topo from USGS (You can use the topoBuilder application for this) for your desired area, and then just import it like it was a data layer, and drag it to the bottom of your contents pane.  Should get you the basemap you want.

*NOTE: In case that NatGeo link is dynamically served and doesn't work for anyone else, here are screenshots of the header & footer from the index page:

MErikReedAugusta · Answer

I looked at this area in AGOL Map Viewer (and later, in ArcPro), and I don't think it's actually an Aerial, technically—or at least not exclusively.

That looks like aerials may have been used to help inform and/or import the vegetation into the map, but otherwise it looks like a high-saturation, full-color, vector map.

The reason you're getting that weird tiling behavior is because the darker map was only produced at a large scale and a limited coverage area.  The white-background map was produced at a smaller scale, and with a wider coverage.  As you zoom in, the mosaic is natively switching between the two where available.  If you've never encountered this before, it's likely you were just working in an area and/or zoom where the darker map wasn't available.

As far as "fixing" the problem, you have two options, that I can see:

* Source the relevant Topo Map(s) directly from USGS, instead of using the Basemap function in ArcGIS to read from the Living Atlas version.  Then import them like you would any other raster data layer.* I'm rusty on USGS Topos, but I think that might be the 7.5-Minute Topo that you're trying to get to display.  Don't quote me on that one, though.  This is incorrect; see below.

* Use a different basemap.  You appear to be using "USA Topo Maps".  "USGS National Map" doesn't have this issue, but it does have different symbology and called-out features.

There's also the "Reference Scale" setting in ArcPro that I expected to possibly work, but the basemap seems to ignore it.  There's probably something you could dive into somewhere in the settings of the layer and/or your ArcPro instance, but that's beyond my personal experience with the software.

RandyMcGregor_BMcD · Answer

If it were possible to make this whole area look like the upper left quadrant, that would be wonderful.