topic Default drawing order when loading a raster catalog in ArcMap in Data Management Questions

Default drawing order when loading a raster catalog in ArcMap

CarolaEklund1 — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 16:45:20 GMT

Hello -

My issue may sound trivial, but when adding a raster catalog (stored in a file gdb) to an mxd, it seems to load on top of the polygon layers that are already there rather than below them (as would be expected for image/raster data).
- Almost as if ArcMap interprets it as a �??polygon�?? layer.
I know, I can easily drag the layer down in the table of contents. Thing is, we have users that load raster catalogs via a button on a customized drop down menu - to make it as easy as possibe for them. Usually they are not that GIS/ArcMap savvy and oftentimes get startled by the described behavior and don�??t know how or don�??t remember that the drawing order can easily be changed.

My question: shouldn�??t any type of image data automatically/by default load underneath any polygon layer in the table of contents? And more importantly: is there a way to change this behavior? Maybe some settings someplace? (I�??m working in ArcGIS 10.0 SP5)

Thanks for any tips/insights!

Re: Default drawing order when loading a raster catalog in ArcMap

JakeSkinner — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:28:05 GMT

Hi Carola,

I would recommend using a Mosaic Dataset rather than a raster catalog. Mosaic Datasets perform much faster than raster catalogs, and you have additional benefits such as on-the-fly processing. Also, when adding a mosaic dataset to an ArcMap session, it is added to the bottom of the table of contents.

Re: Default drawing order when loading a raster catalog in ArcMap

CarolaEklund1 — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:02:07 GMT

Thanks for getting back with me, Jake. This image data is being shared with several agencies in our region. I did not create the raster catalog nor the gdb it's stored in and don't have rights/permissions to make any changes either - so I'm 'stuck' with what I got. ... just thought there might be a way to 'tweak' the default drawing order and I had just been missing something here. ..I will check what the reasoning behind creating a raster catalog rather than a mosaic dataset was and if it could be considered changing the format.