topic Re: Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels

David_Brooks — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 08:50:22 GMT

Can I get some advice on what im seeing here?

Below is a continuous raster with hillshade applied.

On the right is a 5m terrain dataset

On the left was a 50m terrain dataset that's resampled to 5m (with nearest neighbour interpolation) and was mosaiced with the one on the right to make a single tif raster.

Hillshade has been applied using an ArcGIS Pro rasterfunction.

There are some strange effects going on around the edges of pixels in the left hand data.

For clarity, if I change the resampling interpolation to bilinear, it smooths the pixels within each 50m group (100 pixel squares), and the strange effect goes away, but the 50m group of pixels is visible in the hillshade (indicating that the effectiveness of bilinear interpolation isn't quite perfect at smoothing).

If i change the resampling technique to cubic interpolation, the smoothing appears to be more continuous, but you see some strange gridding artefacts in the hillshade again, different to the nearest neighbour example.

Question to the raster pros out there, any thoughts?

PS: i've dropped these datasets into QGIS and Global mapper too, and the same hillshade effects are there too.

Re: Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels

DanPatterson — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 09:06:40 GMT

Did you see the help topic on this?

Cell size and resampling in analysis—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Re: Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels

JayantaPoddar — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 09:20:31 GMT

It's never a good idea to resample your data to a higher resolution, by 100 times. So, what you are basically seeing, are the hundred 5 meter pixels coming out of each 50 meter pixel.

The best approach that I can think of is

1. Convert the 50 meter Raster to points

2. Interpolate the Points to create 5 meter Raster dataset. Topo to Raster (Input Feature Data would be a Point Elevation)

Define the Snap Raster parameter (original 5 meter Raster) in Tool Environment.

Re: Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels

David_Brooks — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 18:45:59 GMT

That's a great way to resolve the issue. I know it's sub-optimal to resample a raster in this way, but i need to have a composite dataset to work with at the smaller resolution. raster to points to raster seems spot on. Would you suggest IDW interpolation or something else?

Re: Strange hillshade edge effects around pixels

JayantaPoddar — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 18:54:48 GMT

Topo to Raster should work fine here. But, you are free to test a few more interpolation techniques.