topic Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software in Data Management Questions

Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

TomSavage — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:55:40 GMT

Since upgrading to ArcMap 10.1, my rectified images cannot be used outside of ArcMap.

The system is running Windows 7, 64 bit.

I sometimes have to provide rectified images for clients using other GIS software (MapInfo).

The rectified images appear just fine in ArcMAP but appear as solid black to any other software.
I know there is SP1 being released next month, that I hope fixes this major problem.

Is there a work around for this besides downgrading to 10.0?

Thanks
TS

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

CodyBenkelman — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:34:52 GMT

Tom - can you provide a bit more information?

1) are you outputting TIFF format, and have you tried other formats?
2) are you using any compression?
3) have you tried reading your output images in software other than MapInfo?
4) are the images 8 bit, 16? single, multi band? integer or float?
5) can you upload a small sample for us to examine?

Thanks
Cody B.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

TomSavage — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:14:20 GMT

Tom - can you provide a bit more information?

1) are you outputting TIFF format, and have you tried other formats?
2) are you using any compression?
3) have you tried reading your output images in software other than MapInfo?
4) are the images 8 bit, 16? single, multi band? integer or float?
5) can you upload a small sample for us to examine?

Thanks[ATTACH=CONFIG]17521[/ATTACH]
Cody B.

Cody
I have tried multiple formats and compressions with the same results.
I have tried opening or viewing with graphics programs like Photoshop and Irfanview with the same results.
I have attached sample.zip containing a rectified image from 10.1

The image is fairly low res earth imagery, is visible with ArcMAP, but black with Photoshop.

9.3 or 10.0 did not give me this type of grief.

Thank you in advance
Tom

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

CarlaSolano — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:45:12 GMT

Hello Tom,

I am having the same problem. Did you get it fix?
If you did could you walk me through.

Thanks!

Cody
I have tried multiple formats and compressions with the same results.
I have tried opening or viewing with graphics programs like Photoshop and Irfanview with the same results.
I have attached sample.zip containing a rectified image from 10.1

The image is fairly low res earth imagery, is visible with ArcMAP, but black with Photoshop.

9.3 or 10.0 did not give me this type of grief.

Thank you in advance
Tom

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

TravisLiska — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:33:19 GMT

If anyone figures out a solution please post to this thread. I'm having the same problem and I'm using another computer with 10 on it to get the job done. Is ESRI aware of this problem?

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeffreySwain — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:52:21 GMT

There are too many questions to consider a solution. First and foremost, what is the bit depth of the original raster? What is the size of the raster? What compression? Is there a colormap? There are many considerations and will need specific examples. What it sounds like is the nodata value was not defined and ArcMap promoted the bit depth and then the other programs cannot display the data. Or the color map created cannot be accessed by the other software. However, if you have a specific example, please log a Support Incident to get it tested and logged.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

TravisLiska — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:54:59 GMT

Jeff,

Thanks for your reply. I've come up with a solution that has worked for me. I am working with 8 bit images which are scans of paper maps. I noticed that in the save dialog box for rectifying images there is the "No data as:" field. In version 10 this is automatically blank, but in 10.1 it is automatically populated with the value 256 (for my 8 bit image). This promotes new saved raster to 16 bit, which I believe may be what prevented it from displaying in other software.

To correct this I simply deleted the "NoData as" field and left it blank as it was in 10. I do this each time I save. So far I've been able to see the rectified images in Google Earth and Photoshop. I'm guessing the change in default treatment of No data values in 10.1 is associated with the additional No Data options in environment settings.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeffreySwain — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:04:00 GMT

For you new data, can you confirm that the output is 8 bit? I believe that is more than likely the issue, the promotion to 16 bit.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

TravisLiska — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:43:19 GMT

Yes, the new raster's properties have its pixel depth at 8 bit.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeremyNicoletti — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:38:29 GMT

I encountered the same problem, and I found that the images, once georeferenced, can be exported and the "no data value" set to 0 to fix the issue. (I haven't tried leaving it blank, but I'd assume that works as well)

FYI, my office runs a variety of Arc versions, from 10.1 to 9.3, all on machines running Windows XP.

We had the issue of the older 9.3 machines not being able to load in images georeferenced by 10.1 or 10.0 machines from a network drive.

Thank you for the fix suggestion!

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

ClintonKunhardt — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:02:14 GMT

I was having this issue too -- thanks Travis for the suggestion. Changing NoData from "256" to blank fixed the problem. What's up with that?

BTW, Jeffrey Swain, I checked, and the bit depth had been upgraded to 24... strange!

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion!

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeffreySwain — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 21:04:03 GMT

The promotion is most likely due to the resampling. When the raster is resampled the bit depth is promoted to allow for any change in spatial extent due to projection change or something else. You can see this effect, by clipping a raster with a graphic selected by Data > Export data. When you perform this, there will be a prompt asking you if you would like to promote the bit depth. Say 'No' and it will remain the bit depth of the original. If you say 'Yes' then the exported raster will have the promoted bit depth. Since you said yours is 24 bit, then perhaps the originals were 16 bit? Just a guess. Using the Copy Raster tool to turn it back down to the proper bit depth should work, provided you won't be losing any values in the process.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeremyNicolay — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 08:14:27 GMT

When you are exporting your image in ArcMap, do you keep the default values and just check the "Use Renderer" and the "Force RGB" boxes? I had the same issue and I solved it this way.

Source: 4th step in the ressource page ArcGIS Help 10.1

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

AndrewQuee — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 06:04:16 GMT

I was just helping a client with almost the same issue (8-bit RGB TIFF, saves as rectified black TIFF) and found the same fix, but I was setting 255 as the nodata value. You actually can still use this file, but you have to set RGB stretch to not-None in ArcMap and this doesn't help you at all outside ArcMap.

I didn't get any joy out of changing the environment settings, mostly because I believe they only apply to geoprocessing tools.

My Google-Fu failed. Does anyone know of a way to set the default nodata value in the Georeferencing - Rectify - Save As dialog so that you don't have to reset it for every single rectification?

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JasonBalmut — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 18:39:00 GMT

This issue was really screwing with me in CityEngine 2016.1. I'm glad I found this post.

I can verify that this issue persists in ArcMap 10.3.1 and that setting the 'NoData Value (optional)' setting to 0 when using Clip (raster) is the only way to solve it. It will set the 'Pixel Depth' to 8 Bit and the 'NoData Value' to 0, 0, 0.

Do not set the value to blank! Blank sets the 'Pixel Depth' to 16 Bit and the 'NoData Value' to 256, 256, 256.

You can see the difference in Windows Explorer.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

MichaelAugust — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 20:24:43 GMT

Wow, this just happened to me in 10.6.1. Did you guys really not fix this yet? Such that the default is a blank NoData field? I just wasted 20 min trying to figure this out

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

ChrisZemp — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 18:34:31 GMT

Just happened to me as well. Wasted over an hour testing different export settings and self-trouble-shooting. Entire georeferenced images were exporting as all black, even within ArcMap, and somehow even managing to mess up the control links on the image, e.g. after export, I was left with an all black image that was not in the position of the original georeference, e.g. image shifted 100 ft to the right.

To fix:

Check the boxes: "Use Renderer" and "Force RGB" and set NoData value to 0.

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

AzizTejan-Jalloh — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:36:41 GMT

Thanks Chris !!

and Jeremy of ESRI (for giving us some background to this).

This fixed the problem for me too!. I was doing almost 30 mins of trouble shooting and fortunately I came across this thread. ESRI should make a technical support article for this issue if they have not already done so, especially since people are still having to deal with this after 8 years.

There are many people like us using other 3D Modeliing software packages like Leapfrog 3D and Vulcan etc in conjunction with ESRI products and readily available knowledge of this issue would come in handy.

Thanks again,

Aziz

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JamalNUMAN — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:46:53 GMT

I’m getting black output in ArcGIS Pro as the georeferenced image is saved as per the screenshots below.

What could be the issue here?

is this a bug?

the image is attached

Re: Rectified images from ArcGIS 10.1 appear black in other software

JeffreySwain — Mon, 22 May 2023 14:49:12 GMT

Hey @JamalNUMAN ,

Might be better to start a new one for more visibility, but I think you should be mindful of this setting.

When you save the georeferenced image, in order to catch any changes in the extent often the default is to promote the bit depth of the input image and then assign a new NoData Value. Be sure to review the properties of the image before you save it and make sure that the bit depth and the NoData value matches. For me since it looks like you are using a jpeg, I might convert it to a tif first and then georeference that. Sometimes jpegs can be touchy when georeferencing in my experience.