Latest Contributions by EmilyWindahl

Content contributed by @RandallRebello  With the release of ArcGIS Online in October 2023, some users of Oriented Imagery Classic have noticed their 360-degree imagery displayed incorrectly in the oriented imagery widget for Experience Builder. This happened because the widget started utilizing roll and pitch parameters that were previously being ignored for 360 images. Using these values results in more flexibility for Oriented Imagery Classic users to define pitch and roll for 360 images, but changed how existing catalogs displayed 360 images in some cases. The solution is for users to edit oriented imagery catalogs that are displaying incorrectly to include correct roll and pitch values. In October 2023, Oriented Imagery Classic changed how it handles 360 images in oriented imagery catalogs in the Experience Builder widget. If an oriented imagery catalog’s feature service contains a CamOri field, nothing has changed; the CamOri parameters (which define the most accurate orientation available in the oriented imagery schema) will be used to visualize the images. However, before the October release, if no CamOri field was included, the Oriented Imagery Classic API assumed that the CamPitch and CamRoll values of 360 images were always 90 and 0, respectively. For 360 images, CamPitch and CamRoll parameters provided in the attribute table or in the oriented imagery catalog properties were ignored. With the October release, the CamPitch and CamRoll fields (in either the attribute table or the oriented imagery catalog properties) are now utilized to visualize 360 images. If you had values in these fields that were different from the Oriented Imagery Classic defaults, it may have changed how your 360 images are displayed. If your 360 images are suddenly displaying incorrectly, the oriented imagery catalog should be revised to correct the pitch and roll of the images. To get the same rotations as before, you can set CamPitch to 90 and CamRoll to 0 in the attribute table of the oriented imagery catalog’s feature service or in the oriented imagery catalog’s properties. (Note the order in which orientation parameters are applied: if a CamOri string is available, that will be used to define the images orientation. If no CamOri string is available, the CamPitch and CamRoll values in the attribute table will be used. Finally, if the CamPitch and CamRoll fields are not present in the attribute table, the default CamPitch and CamRoll values defined in the oriented imagery catalog properties will be used.) Before making any corrections, we recommend backing up existing CamPitch and CamRoll values to new, unused fields in the attribute table, so you’re able to recover them if needed. Note that editing your data to use the correct pitch and roll values will fix the issue in Experience Builder, and will not cause issues in the Pro add-in or Oriented Imagery Explorer app. Correcting your data will also prevent the same issue from occurring in the Pro add-in and the Explorer app in the next release. Currently, the Oriented Imagery add-in for ArcGIS Pro and the Oriented Imagery Explorer app are not affected—they are using the default CamPitch and CamRoll values of 90 and 0, respectively. However, with the next release of Oriented Imagery Classic, all Oriented Imagery Classic clients will utilize the CamPitch and CamRoll fields when displaying 360 images (if no CamOri string is provided). For reference, it’s useful to understand how the oriented imagery catalog schema defines camera pitch and camera roll. Camera pitch starts at nadir (pointing straight down)—this is defined as 0 degrees. This pitch increases as the camera rotates counter-clockwise around the X axis, meaning the pitch is 90 degrees when the camera is pointed to and level with the horizon. Think of this as holding your phone and taking a picture of your feet (pitch = 0 degrees). Then rotate your phone up 90 degrees to take a picture pointing at the horizon in front of you (pitch = 90 degrees). For camera roll, in this example, because the phone screen is parallel with your body, and the top of the frame is parallel to the ground, camera roll is 0 degrees. If you tilt the phone to the left 45 degrees (still pointing at the horizon), the camera roll would be 45. If you continue to have issues with this, or need additional support, you can contact OrientedImagery@esri.com. ... View more

We're integrating oriented imagery directly into ArcGIS foundational products! With the new oriented imagery capability of ArcGIS, you can expand the range of imagery sources and perspectives in your GIS to better inform decision-making and provide situational awareness. With the October release of ArcGIS Online, check out the new oriented imagery layer and oriented imagery widget in the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript, and support for visualizing oriented imagery (including the oriented imagery viewer!) built in to Map Viewer. The ArcGIS Pro 3.2 release will include the ability to manage and visualize oriented imagery directly within Pro, plus the option to publish oriented imagery layers to ArcGIS Online (and ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2). More key features will be introduced throughout 2024. Read the blog to learn more about the integrated oriented imagery capability. If you're already an Oriented Imagery Classic user, check out the FAQ to see what the plan is for the legacy version of oriented imagery. ... View more

In the spring of 2021, Esri will introduce new Landsat image services comprised of Landsat 8, Collection 2 Level-2 imagery released by the USGS in December 2020. These new services will not only include all the quality improvements of Collection 2, but also provide users with atmospherically corrected and analysis ready imagery with the additional upgrade from Level-1 to Level-2 products. The original plan was to retire the existing services, but it turns out we will not be retiring the existing services, after all. We will continue to support and update all existing Landsat Level-1 image services in addition to publishing the new Level-2 service. For more details, check out Introducing Landsat Collection 2. ... View more

Users of the Oriented Imagery Catalog Management Tools in ArcGIS Pro 2.5 may have encountered a crash when browsing for an Oriented Imagery Catalog (OIC) as input in any of the tools in the Oriented Imagery Catalog toolbox.    This bug will be fixed in the next release of ArcGIS Pro, but there is a workaround in the meantime. To avoid the crash, don't click the Browse folder icon to navigate to your OIC. Instead of browsing to the file, you should copy the path to the OIC file and paste it into the input field of the GP tool. To do this in Windows: Open Windows File Explorer. Browse to the OIC file. (If you’ve created this in your project’s geodatabase, the OIC file will be located by default at C:\Users\[username]\Documents\ArcGIS\Projects\[Project Name]\[OIC name].) Select the OIC file, then click Copy Path. (You may have to remove any quotation marks around the file path.)     4. In ArcGIS Pro, paste the path into the Input Oriented Imagery field of the GP tool. ... View more

Given the growing number of people using commercial drones these days, a common question is: “What do I do with all this imagery?” The simple answer is that it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you just want to share the imagery as-is, and aren’t worried about making sure it’s georeferenced to be an accurate depiction of the ground, Oriented Imagery is probably your answer. If you’re capturing video, Full Motion Video in the Image Analyst extension for ArcGIS Pro is your best bet. Ultimately, though, many users plan to turn the single frame images acquired by drones into authoritative mapping products—orthorectified mosaics, digital surface models (DSMs), digital terrain models (DTMs), 3D point clouds, or 3D textured meshes. Esri has three possible solutions for producing authoritative mapping products from drone imagery, each targeted for different users— (1) Drone2Map for ArcGIS, (2) the ortho mapping capability of ArcGIS Pro Advanced, and (3) the Ortho Maker app included with ArcGIS Enterprise. Read on to get an overview of all three solutions, and to figure out which one is best for your application. Drone2Map for ArcGIS For individual GIS users, Drone2Map is an easy-to-use, standalone app that supports a complete drone-processing workflow. Drone2Map includes guided templates for creating orthorectified mosaics and digital elevation models. It’s also the only ArcGIS product that creates 3D products from drone imagery, including RGB point clouds and 3D textured meshes. Once you’ve processed your imagery, it’s easy to share the final products—2D web maps and 3D web scenes can be easily published on ArcGIS Online with a single step. ArcGIS Desktop isn’t required to run Drone2Map, but products created with Drone2Map are Desktop-compatible. That’s important, because it gives you the option to use ArcGIS Pro as an image management solution, or to serve your imagery products as dynamic image services using ArcGIS Image Server. Ortho mapping capability of ArcGIS Pro Advanced For GIS professionals, the ortho mapping capability of ArcGIS Pro Advanced enables you to create orthomosaics and digital elevation models from drone images (as well as from modern aerial imagery, historical film, and satellite data) in the familiar ArcGIS Desktop environment. There are added benefits to processing your drone imagery in ArcGIS Pro. For users with very large imagery collections, Pro’s image management capabilities are especially valuable. Managing drone imagery using mosaic datasets makes it easy to query images and metadata, mosaic your imagery, and build footprints. Image management and processing workflows in ArcGIS Pro can also be automated using Python or Model Builder. Finally, sharing your imagery is straightforward. While you can publish your products to ArcGIS Online, you can also use ArcGIS Pro in conjunction with ArcGIS Image Server to publish drone products as dynamic image services.   Ortho Maker app in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.1+ For ArcGIS Enterprise users, the Ortho Maker app offers a solution for organizations with multiple users who want simple, web-based workflows to create orthomosaics and DEMs from drone imagery.   Ortho Maker provides an easy-to-use web interface for uploading drone imagery and managing the ortho mapping workflow, while behind the scenes it uses the distributed processing and storage capability of Enterprise and ArcGIS Image Server to quickly process even very large collections of drone imagery. (That also means it requires ArcGIS Image Server configured for raster analysis.) The ArcGIS API for Python can be used to automate the ortho mapping process. Sharing Ortho Maker products is virtually automatic—they become imagery layer items accessible in your Enterprise portal, easily shared with users throughout your organization. What do typical users say? Next steps Now that you have a better idea which solution makes sense for your application, it’s time to take one for a test drive. Drone2Map offers a free 15-day trial, plus a hands-on Learn lesson to get started. You can try ArcGIS Pro Advanced free for 21 days, and read more about getting started with ortho mapping for drone imagery.  For users with Enterprise 10.6.1+ and raster analysis enabled, Ortho Maker is included—find out how to get started.  Other Enterprise users should contact their administrator to see about getting access. If you still have questions, contact Esri for more product information. ... View more