Is there any way to enable raster models to support thumbnails in the footprint?

Question

Good day, imagery fellows,

Very nice that ENVI Katalog helps imagery users more effectively to manage massive raster images in a file structure, which support the footprint and thumbnails for different applications, in addition to provide all relevant information like the imagery locations and formats over network or locally. For more details, please link to http://www.exelisvis.com/portals/0/pdfs/AGUPoster2-12_EI.pdf and http://www.exelisvis.com/Learn/CodeDetail/TabId/220/ArtMID/904/ArticleID/9839/Katalog---Organize-your-ENVI-data-library.aspx

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It would be necessary that ESRI raster models, including Raster Catalog and Mosaic Dataset, support those features as well, in particular, footprint with �??thumbnails�?? and imagery location (path information over network or locally).

With 10.1, is there any way to enable raster models to do so?

Regards,

larryzhang1 · Answer

...  thumbnails are only compressed RGB rendering of the imagery to which not analysis etc can be performed. They are only used in aspects such as metadata and not drawn directly to the map as one can not apply different enhancements, band combination etc. ...

Thanks Peter.

As part of effective communications with you and raster team, I make more personal comments below:

If thumbnails in ESRI implementation are referred to raster images in Footprint field 'Raster', what we need is different, for sure. Personally, it is worth to further study how to effectively present �??thumbnails within footprints�?? for (the purpose of) raster management, in addition to current implementation of MD in 10.0/10.1.

In practice, when customers use thumbnails within footprint to manage raster images (including major metadata and path info), they have many reasons. For example, they may NOT need 'real' raster images for any analysis or image processing, or just apply those thumbnails (visible, when enabled) within footprint into applications, including web application as map service and Google Earth Enterprise. In this case, the footprints with �??visible�?? thumbnails should be functional, when enabled. Sometimes (if not mostly), customers may require the footprints with thumbnails (visible) to be exported �??as a whole�?? from MD into distinct FGDB for other applications...

With 10.2 or later SP1, anyhow, we hope that those kinds of simple capability will be considered.

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By the way, as one of appreciations (not always complains),  please link to my latest post at http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/84467-LAS-standard-and-ESRI-LAS-Dataset. Certainly, ESRI LAS Dataset is really helpful to deal with 3D images and rasters.

For sure, raster team made huge contributions to this good tool. Thanks

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PS,

In fact, we are also using MD (10.1) to manage �??real�?? raster images (RAW) over network for �??dynamic�?? image processing and analysis, which are remotely conducted by ESRI ArcGIS or ENVI (ENVI for ArcGIS Server, ENVI services engine), but only for small-area non-engineering (high-resolution like GEOEYE) or large-area (low-resolution like LANDSAT) imagery projects.

As talked in other posts, one of the reasons we do this way is that GCPs still couldn't be 'directly' combined into MD, in addition to limitations of color enhancement in MD (plus, the invisible issue of �??thumbnails with footprints�??). In operation, it is not good idea to use the MinPS and MaxPS in MD to control the visibility of raster images at low scales, because of the perfornance concern. Honestly, it is still not practicable and unproductive to completely combine the tools 'Georeferencing' and  �??Image Analysis�?? inside MD 10.1 for imagery processing (maybe, arguable)!

Of course, we have done a large and nationalwide project of SPOT5, which was making use of some good capabilities in MD 10.1, including seamline creation with Edge Detection algorithm. But, all those images are pan-sharpened / color-balanced by Erdas & ER Mapper and spatially rectified by 'Georeferencing', before adding into MD10.1.

PeterBecker · Answer

Larry
There should be not issue creating thumbnails. Note that thumbnails are only compressed RGB rendering of the imagery to which not analysis etc can be performed. They are only used in aspects such as metadata and not drawn directly to the map as one can not apply different enhancements, band combination etc.

If you create a mosaic dataset you can always see the footprints and the mosaic dataset acts as a catalog of all the imagery. The images are displayed based on the MinPS and MaxPS values. (This ensures that by default the system does not try to load too many images). Within ArcGIS for Desktop,  if you select the required images and use �??Lock to Selected Rasters�?? or �??Add Selected Rasters to Map�?? then the images will he displayed at all scales, but still enable different renderings. If you look at the item description of any of the rasters you will see the thumbnail if created.

Within WebMaps the functionality is similar. Again the app can display any of the images along with the footprints but also including the processing. For a typical example see http://landsatlook.usgs.gov/  (This did not require the creation of Thumbnails. Note aspects such as image enhancement work at all scales). Web maps can though also display thumbnails for the imagery included with the metadata.

The Image Search Functionality in 10.2 will enable similar functionality to find images, display footprints etc within ArcMap, by crawling and cataloging the different imagery repositories. This is advantageous for repositories of imagery that are not structured and often used prior to creating more structured mosaic datasets.

larryzhang1 · Answer

Mosaic Dataset do support these features. You can have the system generate thumbnails for all images in a mosaic dataset. The REST APIs enable one to access these and do a wide range of structured queries to return appropriate imagery and footprints. Different applications have been created to make use of this capability.

Thanks for nice reply, Peter

We did try this option (Build Thumbnails in Mosaic Dataset).  For unknown reasons, we couldn�??t get it working as expected, including within MD and image services. Besides, thumbnails in footprint should be visible (in fact, NOT), once MD (without overviews) is served as map service, when needed. 
Note that in 10.2 there is also an image indexing search capability added to ArcGIS Desktop. This enables catalog to search and index images on different local and network drives as well as mosaic datasets and items within mosaic datasets. Through the standard ArcGIS desktop search tools you can then search and find image and raster datasets based on location and a wide range of attributes. The system not only reads the images, but interprets the various metadata such as cloud cover, sun angle etc that are part of the wide range of different metadata standards.

Nice! Looking forward to it.

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Honestly, we are still learning how to effectively use thumbnails with footprints in variant applications, which is mainly for the purposes of raster management, in particular, metadata and path info, when dealing with RPC-based GeoEye, QuickBird, Pleiades and SPOT 6.

So far, it looks that ENVI Katalog presents much easy and more efficient way to do so. (Only issues with ENVI Katalog are: Not RPC-based imagery loading, and NOT Building footprints, at least, by DN - Radiometry).