Collector with no basemap

[NicolasGIS]

Hello,

We are trying to create a mobile GIS application using Collector mainly to use it offline.

The problem is that we would like to export a wide range of buildings' plans organized as a matrix in an arbitrary reference system.

For this reason, using a basemap is useless.

But it seems like it is mandatory to have a basemap to use Collector for ArcGIS (and ArcGIS Online), isn't it ?

So we tried uploading a cached basemap layer by doing it as light as we could (2 Go) so that it could be stored on an IPAD.

We added the basemap with features layers we are interested in and created the WebMap with offline mode enabled.

The thing is, our matrix is very wide but not high and though you can cached a rectangle of a map in ArcMap, you cannot download a rectangle of a map using Collector : it has to be square. As a consequence, we are ending up with total weight of more than 2000 Go ! Good luck to store that on an IPAD! I guess Collector is caching white background when there is none, as our cache is only 2Go big?!

Has anybody ever faced this problem and came up with a solution?

Thanks in advance,

Nicolas

[PeteCrosier]

It would be nice to have a "no basemap" option and be able to define the projection somewhere else (or take it from your data which is probably in the projection you want).

I thought I was being clever by creating a blank basemap at one very zoomed out scale (e.g. 1:4,000,000) which resulted in a very small tile package that I sideloaded on to the device. But Collector locks the zooming you can do based on the scales in the basemap (I think), so I couldn't zoom in at all.

To allow me to zoom, I created an all-white basemap at various scales but this still resulted in a pretty big tile package (1.7GB of images of nothing).

The idea about not being forced to select a square is nice too. Some of our operational areas are very weird shapes - the 'largest' has a few branches where our pipe network goes and a whole lot of space we're not actually interested in and don't want to take offline.

[NicolasGIS]

In fact with the tpk trick, it is as if you have a "no basemap" option.

Workflow :

1. Publish a map service with a blank basemap. In the caching option, define the scales needed (until 1:20) if good zoom required, and specify "build cache manually after  the service is published".

2. In the DataManagement toolbox/Tile Cache/Export Tile cache, specify the cache directory of the "cached" service (which is empty but contains some config files including the projection).

3. Copy the very light .tpk on your mobile plateforme.

4. Finally, download  features with the tpk as basemap and you will be able to zoom in until the max zoom you defined everywhere in the map !

Worked for me 😃

[PeteCrosier]

Thanks Nicolas, sounds useful!

[TrentReeder]

Nicolas, following your workflow for creating a "no basemap" option, I keep receiving an error that the tile package cannot be created when running the Export Tile Cache gp tool.  I have TILE_PACKAGE selected for the Export Cache As option.  Is that correct?

Reading the results' messages, at each scale it reads "Export worker failed. Tiles may not be present at scale = xx"

Just curious if you had seen these error messages before.  Thanks!

[NicolasGIS]

Trent,

I have the same error message when I use the GP ServerTools/Caching/ExportMapServer Cache but it works with the GP DataManagementTools/TileCache/ExportTileCache.

Have you by any chance tried the wrong one ?

[JoeCeradini]

Hi Nicolas,

I am trying to follow your workflow for publishing a blank map without a cache but, unfortunately, am stuck on step 1.

How do you publish a blank service, and then how can you find that file afterwards in order to use it in Export Tile Cache?

I created a map that has a polygon shapefile in it but no features, but I'm not sure if that is truly blank. Also, I understand how to publish a service to Arc Online, but don't know how I would find that file to use in Export Tile Cache. Hopefully those questions make some sense.

Thanks!

[TimSmith7]

Need a NO BASEMAP option in Collector, too.

[Yann-EricBoyeau]

Hi,

Great news, I tried the 10.4 Beta today and ESRI finally fixed the zoom in problem.

You can now zoom in as much as you want, whatever the level of detail of your basemap or tpk.

[DougMorgenthaler]

Hi Yann-Eric-

Glad you were able to give the Collector 10.4 Beta a spin, and appreciate your feedback.  With 10.4 we will be supporting the ability to zoom in beyond the basemap scales for all three platforms.

-Doug