Currently I'm tasked with publishing an image service from drone imagery and I've been trying to learn more about managing the mosaic dataset object, and also understand if I'm publishing the best image service possible (overall purpose is to serve custom basemaps at street-level scale).
I'm using an Arc Image Server to publish the image service, which is then used to create a custom basemap item in AGOL.
Here's a breakdown -
Here's how the image service configured currently -
Any general guidance or feedback would be helpful and appreciated. I feel like there's a lot I could improve on here to get the best image service. Thank you.
Hello Keon,
Interesting thing I see here is that your RPAS team is having to notify of the new drone imagery before you do all the work. I was interested to know if they knew about the capability to publish directly from Site Scan to ArcGIS Enterprise. This capbility has recently been introduced this year and allows Site Scan to communicate directly with your ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS online sites. All your SIte Scan data, not just the Orthomosaic can be published to ArcGIS Enterprise. Full details on this are found in the Publishing from Site Scan to to ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Entrprise Blog
Hopefgully this helps
Gordon
Thanks Gordon. We will look into publishing directly from Site Scan. I am still interested if there any recommendations or documented workflows/scripts for handling large mosaic datasets after add/delete rasters.
Keon
This won't immediately answer your specific questions but the single best resource for questions about "What is recommended?" is our Imagery Workflows site at http://esriurl.com/ImageryWorkflows. Specific sections I would recommend are the overview topic of Image Management starting at https://doc.arcgis.com/en/imagery/workflows/best-practices/what-are-best-practices.htm (continue with the rest of the section on Image Management) and this specific discussion addressing a multi-year case which applies to your issue of adding/maintaining a service with multiple projects: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/imagery/workflows/resources/managing-preprocessed-orthophotos.htm
You'll also want to look at specific advice for ensuring efficient access to imagery stored in the cloud - see https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/projects/connect-to-cloud-stores.htm and https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/create-cloud-storage-connect...
Note that this may have performance delays if your server is not in the cloud and in the same region as the data storage.
You'll also want to consider how best to manage your overviews, specifically, it would be best for performance if those are stored locally on the server vs. writing them out to cloud storage. They'll presumably need to be rebuilt each time you add new data to your composite service.
One other tidbit is that your orthomosaics should not need statistics to be calculated. If you set the MD property to "preprocessed" that tells the software that the image histogram should already be optimized (no brightness/contrast stretch necessary to adjust the display). If that proves to be untrue (eg. in shadow areas?) you can also configure your image service to enable "DRA" (dynamic range adjustment) which will change brightness/contrast dynamically based on what's currently on screen.
I know that's a lot to digest 🙂
Let us know if you have more questions
Cody B.
p.s. I should have noted that Gordon's advice for publishing directly from Site Scan can be a very easy workflow - but just be aware it creates a new image service for each dataset, and does not yet support "Add new imagery to existing service". Since you want/need to maintain a single image service with all collections, that method of publishing directly from SIte Scan may be very helpful for initial QC but you'll want to continue along your current lines of managing multiple projects in a single master mosaic dataset.