topic Blurry Printing in ArcGIS API for Flex Questions

Blurry Printing

Drew — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:21:19 GMT

I have been working with the new Print Task this week and noticed that the end result is always a little blurry.
I have tested many formats (PDF, PNG32, PNG8, JPG) and changed the DPI (200 & 1000) in the ExportOptions object but nothing seems to make the map crisp.

I also tested the ESRI sample labeled "High Quality Printing" and it also comes back with blurry map images.
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/flex-api/samples/index.html#/High_quality_printing/01nq0000006v000000

Has anyone else experienced this or maybe have a work around?

Thanks,

Drew

Re: Blurry Printing

DasaPaddock — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:19:05 GMT

See this tutorial on how to print from the source vector data instead of cached tiles.
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/#/Tutorial_Basic_high_quality_web_map_printing_exporting_using_arcpy_mapping/0057000000mr000000/

Re: Blurry Printing

Drew — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:08:40 GMT

See this tutorial on how to print from the source vector data instead of cached tiles.
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/#/Tutorial_Basic_high_quality_web_map_printing_exporting_using_arcpy_mapping/0057000000mr000000/

Thanks for the reply Dasa.

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't the new Print GP service flip the Tiled map service to be a Dynamic map service to ensure there is not loss in quality. I assume it's speed but thought I would ask.
Generally most people should be using one Tiled map service in their mapping application and if the printing always results in a blurry base maps (due to scale change) it seems it would be better to render the Tiled service as a Dynamic service on the server side.

Anyways.. I am going to hack around to see what I can get going here with your post.. Thanks again,

Drew

Re: Blurry Printing

DasaPaddock — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:38:49 GMT

Instead of retrieving the tiles and stitching them together, the Print GP will make a /export map request to the service if it's a 10.1 service that has dynamic layers enabled on it. This will result in a new image being created from the data since /export will go to the data in this case. In all other cases, /export stitches the cached tiles together.

Re: Blurry Printing

Drew — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:25:37 GMT

Instead of retrieving the tiles and stitching them together, the Print GP will make a /export map request to the service if it's a 10.1 service that has dynamic layers enabled on it. This will result in a new image being created from the data since /export will go to the data in this case. In all other cases, /export stitches the cached tiles together.

Dasa,
Thanks again for the reply. I was able to get our maps printing at a decent quality by doing the following.

Use a 10.1 service

Enable Dynamic Layers on the 10.1 service

Changing the dpi to 300 in the ExportOptions object

Printing to a standard 8x11 layout

I could have gone the high quality printing way as you suggested in your first post, but my application is mashed up with so many services it would have been a nightmare to manage all the replicated layouts.

Thanks again.

Drew