Weighted Overlay Tool Performance

WengNg — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:39:02 GMT

Hi,

I've got a question around the performance of the Weighted Overlay tool. I've got about 15 rasters to process in a File Geodatabase in a performant network drive and a fairly beefy instance.

Every time I add all of the rasters into the tool, it begins to calculate something - presumably values within the rasters. This takes a fairly long time and when I try to modify the percentages, it does more calculations. Depending on the size of the rasters, I can sometimes end up waiting for hours just for the tool to load before even running it.

There is something inefficient about how the tool operates. Upon digging further using Diagnostic monitor, I found that for every raster (if I add it one at a time), it loops through the entire Geodatabase and data to perform something called "Geodatabase.Table.OpenDataset" several time for each raster.

Found it odd that it does that. Can anyone clarify what it is actually doing and how to avoid it?

Re: Weighted Overlay Tool Performance

DanPatterson — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:36:32 GMT

Weighted Overlay (Spatial Analyst)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

All integer rasters I assume. same cell size and extent and snap raster? areal extent will obviously affect performance

How Weighted Overlay works—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Are the common preference schemes done ahead of time?

topic Re: Weighted Overlay Tool Performance in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Weighted Overlay Tool Performance

Re: Weighted Overlay Tool Performance