topic Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use in .NET Maps SDK Questions

ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

JenniferLink — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 16:26:44 GMT

Hello,

At the Developer Summit this year, I saw that you should now be able to take the ArcGIS Online Basemaps (such as the World Street Map), and export an area of interest to a tile cache that an application can use offline. Does anyone know where I would find this information?

Thanks,

Jen

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

AndySmith — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 16:48:25 GMT

Hi Jennifer,

A number of the Esri basemaps have been optimised for offline use. These can be identified by looking for the "for export" option: http://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=for%20export&t=content&focus=layers

World Street Map: http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=e384f5aa4eb1433c92afff09500b073d

You can then take the basemap offline by creating a tile package: Go offline—Collector for ArcGIS | ArcGIS

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

JenniferLink — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:00:07 GMT

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your quick reply. I see from the link you provided that ESRI included the following documentation...

"This map service is designed to support exporting small volumes of basemap tiles for offline use, according to the access and use constraints below. This map service will enable you to export up to 100,000 tiles in a single request."

Is there a tool available to download these tiles from ArcGIS for Desktop or ArcGIS Pro?

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

AndySmith — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:22:43 GMT

Hi Jennifer,

These basemaps can just be added to your webmap. It can then be opened in Collector and when you select to take it offline, the basemap will also be taken offline (i.e. the tiles will be downloaded - up to 100,000 tiles).

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

BenGrod — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:37:51 GMT

Jennifer,

Andy seems to have correctly provided the relevant links and information to taking Esri basemaps offline with the mobile Collector app. When I read your posts I'm wondering if your intent is take basemaps offline with ArcGIS Desktop or Pro? It's not a common workflow which is why I asked.

Also, on a side note, but possibly relevant. Taking Esri basemap data offline with Collector has a file size limit of 5MB which you can overcome if you create tile packages of your own basemaps.

Good luck,

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

JenniferLink — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 20:09:23 GMT

Hi Ben,

We have created a mobile application based on the ArcGIS Runtime for .NET. Currently we provide offline basemaps to the end user by creating a tile package (.tpk), and side loading this file onto the device. What we would like to do instead is create a tile package based on the ArcGIS Online World Street Map so we do not have to create the symbology ourselves at the different scale levels.

I thought that there might be tools in the latest version of ArcGIS for Desktop or ArcGIS Pro to create these tile packages, similar to the 'Create ArcGIS Runtime Content' tool or the 'Create Tile Package' tools that are both in ArcGIS for Desktop. Currently, it seems you cannot use those tools with ArcGIS Online content.

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

BenGrod — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 22:02:53 GMT

Jennifer, I think an Esri employee might be more suited to answer that question but as I understand it the ArcGIS Online content is not available or accessible to create tile packages against. Through different licensing Esri makes Data and Maps for Server available which is essentially the data behind some of the AGOL content. You may want to explore that, it is possible to create tile packages off of content hosted on your local ArcGIS Server. Hope this helps and good luck!

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

AndySmith — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 08:41:59 GMT

Hi Jennifer,

The following help page from the Runtime SDK for .NET explains how to "Create a basemap from a tiled service (download a basemap)":

Create an offline map—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET | ArcGIS for Developers

You are able to download it as a tile package (up to 100,000 tiles).

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

JenniferLink — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:42:29 GMT

Hello everyone,

And thanks for all the information you provided, it was very helpful in tracking down the options available to me. To sum up, I was looking for a tool to download ArcGIS Online basemap tiles so that I could side load a tile package (.tpk) file onto an ArcGIS Runtime for .NET application prior to deployment.

I ended up contacting ESRI support, and they confirmed your responses. At this time, there is no tool available to download ArcGIS Online basemap tiles prior to deploying a .NET Runtime application. The tiles must be requested and downloaded directly from the .NET Runtime application.

The following link provides sample code that uses the ExportTileCache class to make the request from the Runtime application. Export Tile Cache | ArcGIS for Developers

Thanks again everyone for your help!

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

SteveFang — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 23:56:52 GMT

Hi Andy,

This 100,000 number is that configurable via ArcGIS Server? I didn't realize the tile package was returning up to 100,000 tiles from the World Street Map service. I got the offline function working but it was missing tiles from the last few zoom levels. Lucky I checked the forum.

Steve

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

DougBrowning — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 20:47:34 GMT

10.1 will let you make a Tile Package of any online layer including ESRI basemaps. I keep a old machine around just for this. I have gone up to a 9 gb tpk with no issues (we use this one unpacked though since it is faster). This was taken out due to "licensing" I heard and was supposed to be put back in at 10.3.1 but it was not.

We use a 3rd party product that lets us use 80+ tpk files and turn them on and off like layers (not just for basemap). It also lets us use a SD Card so we can carry around 30+GB of tpks covering all our area. In testing the sd card was just as fast if not faster than internal. Really hope Collector gets this at some point.

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

AnttiKajanus1 — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 07:59:30 GMT

From my understanding, you can configure the max number of the tiles returned. You can think it similar setting than max rows returned on queries. Just see server documentation for that.

Also remember that when providing large TPK areas to offline applications, you can create application that splits specific extent to multiple tpks and then side load those to the application. In application side, you need to create functionality to load these tpks though but that shouldn't be too involving. This approach also gives better control/update workflow for tiles since you can update only specific regions if needed.

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

JohnDaues1 — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:22:14 GMT

Is there an example for Android comparable to this .net example?

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

AnttiKajanus1 — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:31:54 GMT

Are you looking something like this?

https://developers.arcgis.com/android/sample-code/export-tile-cache/

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

PaulFerro — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 00:03:40 GMT

What is the 3rd party product you are using? Thanks in advance.

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

DougBrowning — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 00:50:51 GMT

Not sure if I can post that here but you have no PM info in your profile so.... It is MobileMap by Mason Bruce & Girard - talk to Kerry Halligan he is the developer (they are a Esri partner and it does use the Esri API).

If you go with it let me know and maybe I can share some of the scripts I use to build all the TPKs each weekend. I have 4 or 5 open Esri bugs on the TPK tools so I can help with the tricks needed.

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

DougBrowning — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:48:33 GMT

Just wanted to post this funny info.

Survey123 is now allowing you to use any TPK or tile cache from a SD Card. So one group in Esri says no while another says sure! Imagine if we could ever get the different groups in Esri to talk to each other.......

See the bold and underline below. I tested it and it works - just pointed it to the directory of TPKs I already have on my SD Card. My large imagery TPK is a bit slow but Survey123 said it should find unzipped ones also (which is what we do for speed in our other app) - it does not so I am asking them on that.

--------------

Whats new in this release

Survey123 now supports the use of offline basemaps. These basemaps must be of the Esri file type of tile package and web mercator projection. Tile packages can be created using ArcGIS Desktop or ArcGIS Pro.

Note:Currently there are many manual steps required to use basemaps in your survey. It is expected that a more streamlined process will be added, but we wanted to make the functionality available as soon as possible. This topic will be updated as the user experience of including basemaps in your survey, evolves.

Create a map tile package

You can create a map tile package using ArcGIS Desktop or Pro. Once created you can copy it directly to your device for use in Survey123 or share it in ArcGIS for others to use.

To create a map tile package:

Launch ArcGIS Pro. < li>Open an existing map or create a new map. Ensure your map has a suitable name and description. To edit these, right click the map in the table of contents, and choose properties.

In Toolbox, choose the Create Map Tile Package tool and enter the input map name and the output file name.

Input map name and output file name are the minimum requirements for this tool. You can optionally enter other properties.

Run the Create Map Tile Package tool.

A new .tpk will be created in your chosen output location. To use this file in Survey123 you can upload it to ArcGIS to share with others, or manually copy it to your device. Copy your tile package directly to your device

If you do not have internet connectivity or are unable to connect to ArcGIS, you can copy your tile package directly to your device, or use it from an external storage card.

To copy your tile package directly to your device:

Connect to your device If you are using an iOS device, you will need to use iTunes.

Copy you .tpk to your ~\ArcGIS\My Surveys\Maps folder. For example, on Windows this would be C:\Users\UserName\ArcGIS\My Surveys\Maps.

If you already had Survey123 open before copying, restart Survey123.

To use your tile package from an external storage card:

Copy your tile package to your storage card and place the card in your device.

Launch Survey123 on your device and on the My Surveys menu, choose Settings .

Nominate an additional Map Library Folder that represents your storage card. The default path of ~/ArcGIS/My Surveys/Maps will already be shown. You can add additional paths by - Typing the additional path directly into the edit box (use a semi colon to separate paths). - Use the folder browser to select an additional path. Any path selected will be appended to your Map Library Folder.

When you next open a survey that has the map append property set to true, tile packages on your storage card will be appended to the list of available basemaps

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

RenatoSalvaleon — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:51:30 GMT

@Andy Smith, in Portal for ArcGIS, what action actually downloads the tiles from this URL https://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer to our Portal's server with this URL: https://gisportal.ourdomain.com/portal/home/item.html?id=someGUIDitemID12345678

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

RenatoSalvaleon — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:54:54 GMT

I saw this link - Example: Prepare Esri basemaps for use in offline workflows—Portal for ArcGIS (10.3 and 10.3.1) | ArcGIS for Server . Is this it? Is there an easier way ?

Re: ArcGIS Online Basemaps: Creating a Tile Cache for Offline Use

DougBrowning — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 19:01:41 GMT

Just found out that ArcPro 1.2 will now allow creating TPKs of web services including Esri basemaps. I just tested a small section so not sure the limits yet. Hopefully this was on purpose and does not get shut down. Not the easiest thing to use but it makes them quickly.

10.4 does still not work.