topic Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

AndrewNiederhauser1 — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 20:49:55 GMT

I have created the same LODs for my basemap that ESRI Imagery uses. While both the ESRI Imagery basemap and my basemap have LODs for 1:70.53 scale, there are no tiles that have been created for those scales in either service. The ESRI Imagery service shows pixelated tiles from previous, smaller scales but my basemap just shows a grey background. Is there a reason that the ESRI basemaps show pixelated tiles further zoomed in while my basemaps are simply grey? For example, my basemap has LODs for 1:70 and 1:140 but the largest scale tiles were created for was at 1:1128. When I zoom in to 1:70 in ArcGIS Online or WAB DE the background is grey. Even though the ESRI Imagery hasn't been tiled at 1:70, the tiles from the 1:1128 LOD show up, albeit pixelated.

I did notice that when printing at a scale larger scale via ArcGIS Online or WAB DE my basemaps do show pixelated tiles from the smaller scales when in the actual app the background is grey.

Any ideas what is going on here?

Thanks,

Andrew

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

JakeSkinner — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:21:40 GMT

Hi Andrew,

Are you using a Tiled Layer hosted in ArcGIS Online, or are you using an ArcGIS Server cached service? If the latter, do you have the option to create tiles on demand checked?

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

AndrewNiederhauser1 — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:35:49 GMT

Hi Jake,

We're using ArcGIS for Server 10.3.1 cached map services. I do not have the "Create tiles on demand" checked. Idea being that smaller scales (LODs 1-19) are fully tiled then as users access the larger scales, tiles are generated on-demand? Is this how ESRI Imagery is setup?

Are new tiles were being generated at these larger scales (1:70) or are the tiles being shown at this scale actually tiles from a smaller scale (1:1128 say) and they were just coming through as pixelated at 1:70....that would actually be great

I'm somewhat concerned about this approach with users creating too many tiles on-demand and utilizing server resources but perhaps that's the tradeoff.

Thanks

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

RyanKelso — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 22:36:29 GMT

It would be so nice to be able to dynamically resample your highest level of detail so the images don't simply disappear. That's really the way it should work, it has been that way forever in the desktop applications.

It flies in the face of logic that ESRI would actually generate tiles all the way up to 1:70 for their imagery and topo services, given the processing, storage requirements, and the fact that most places aren't adding any actual additional detail. But it sure seems like they did. I couldn't find a definitive answer. If they are being generated on demand, that server is cranking them out extremely quickly.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

AndrewNiederhauser1 — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:33:04 GMT

Jake Skinner

I turned on the Create tiles on demand option but this increased my server utilization significantly. When I use the ESRI basemaps, it doesn't seem like tiles are being generated on the fly. Can you confirm? Any thoughts to the questions I posted above?

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

JakeSkinner — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:38:28 GMT

I just tested this myself, and the option to 'Create Tiles on Demand' did not provide a solution to this issue. I'll see if I can find any additional information to see if this is possible without caching to the larger scales.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

MikeMinami — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 22:39:04 GMT

Esri's basemap servers have a "special" ability to generate tiles where none exist by resampling tiles that do exist. This feature will eventually become part of ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Online. However, there is no timeline set as of now. I have made note of this thread and hopefully we can add this feature sooner rather than later...

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

RyanKelso — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 22:52:29 GMT

Hey Mike, thank you so much for this reply. Your post provides the clear answer that could not be found when I was digging around for a solution to this issue. Judging by the number of threads/posts/blogs that I came across related to this issue, I think there would be a lot of happy people if a feature like you describe were implemented into ArcGIS Server/Online.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

AndrewNiederhauser1 — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 23:31:58 GMT

Thanks Mike.

Good info. The functionality you describe would be much appreciated.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

GeoNZ — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:56:01 GMT

Mike- Is there any update to this? I see the original blog post announcing cache resampling was made in 2014 and your post is a year old now too.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

MikeMinami — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:22:23 GMT

There has been no work done to resample tiles, as far as I know. But that's not to say there hasn't been work done on improving tile layers in ArcGIS Online. Some new features will be delivered in the upcoming release of ArcGIS Online currently scheduled for release just before the User's Conference 2017.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

RyanKelso — Sat, 11 Mar 2017 00:06:19 GMT

Andrew Niederhauser‌ Andrew Francis‌

When I first started setting up my cached map services, I tried to figure out this tile resampling issue. I eventually ran into this thread, figured it's a dead end. I recently came across another resource that indicated map service resampling had been implemented already. Sure enough, I fiddled around with it and it does work.

To get tile resampling to work:

1) I'm running ArcGIS Server 10.3 (don't know if it works with previous versions)

2) Edit the cached map service in the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory, then add "resampling": "true" to the service properties

3) Change the max scale to include the scales I want to have resampled

That's pretty much it. The tile resampling works in the ArcGIS Online map viewer, including my Web AppBuilder app. Doing a quick test, it did not work in a simple JavaScript API map viewer, so I don't know if that's possible or what it would take to get it working.

These links helped me get it working:

ArcGIS REST API (See: New at 10.3)

ENH-000096542: Users cannot zoom beyond their highest resolution ti..

Tiled image in ArcGIS Online does not let me zoom in far

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

Jack_Zhang — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 12:25:18 GMT

Hi Ryan, the "resamping":"true" worked on our 10.5 ArcGIS Server, however I got a lot 404 errors caused by blankTile=false in the requests, and seems i'm not alone (see this post https://community.esri.com/thread/191959-arcgis-server-allowing-tile-resampling ) I'm wondering if you and others here if you got the same error and whether there's a way to fix it. thanks.

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

RyanKelso — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:35:34 GMT

Hey Jack. I do get the same thing... an ugly developer console full of 404s for every resampled tile. I don't like it. I try not to look. Since the feature technically works fine despite the errors, I haven't dedicated any resources to finding a fix... if one even exists. If you find anything, please let us know!

Re: Why do ESRI Basemaps show pixelated tiles at LODs 20-23 but my services don't

Jack_Zhang — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 05:59:00 GMT

Hi Ryan, thanks for update, I'm with you (try not to look the console....), not sure whether it's the version of ArcGIS Server or different behaviors on AGO vs ArcGIS Server, as the World Topo Map, Street Map etc. from ESRI allows resample to 1:71 without using the keyword of "Resampling" and there's no 404 error....