High resolution data updates to Living Atlas World Elevation layers and tools

[BernSzukalski]

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides foundation elevation layers and tools to support analysis and visualization across the ArcGIS system. These layers get updated quarterly with high resolution elevation data from federal agencies, open sources, and community maps program. World elevation layers have been updated with many high-resolution elevation datasets.

For more information on these updates, see High resolution data updates to Living Atlas World Elevation layers and tools.

Visit the ArcGIS Living Atlas home page to learn about what's new and how to use content. See the ArcGIS Living Atlas blog for more blog articles that help you get the most out of Living Atlas.

[mrmark]

Sometime within the last few months these no longer work in analyses. I have a project for a class I teach that uses Extract multi values to points for a small number of points and they have historically used the elevation, slope, and aspect processing templates. Now we all just get error 001268 that the Living Atlas layers are invalid. All signed in, all subscribers with credits. 

[RajinderNagi]

Hi @mrmark , There have not been any changes to elevation layers since October. The last update was for data and shouldn't affect any functionality. I am wondering if you have updated the ArcGIS Desktop software that might have caused the issue? 

Since you are using Extract multi values to points, you can use our ready-to-use Summarize Elevation tool (In ArcGIS Pro, Analysis - Ready To Use Tools - Summarize Elevation). This can provide elevation values along with slope and aspect. https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/ready-to-use/summarize-elevation.htm

Hope this helps!

[mrmark]

Thanks for your response @RajinderNagi 

Digging into it a bit it turns out it is exactly what I thought, unfortunately there is no way for an end user to fix it, and until Esri fixes it, the terrain service is mostly useless. 

1. As stated, the Extract Multi Values to Points tool happily accepts the Terrain layer(s) as Input Rasters, but then fails after running for a while with the useless 001268 error (says it is an invalid layer, but nothing else).
   
   
2. Using the Extract Values to Points tool however immediately says the layer is invalid when attempting to add it as the Input Raster. It also confirms my suspicion of why. The pop-up from hovering over the little red X says that the Terrain image service limit is 5000 x 5000.
   1. The reason I suspected this is because the way I got the data I needed before was by exporting the various Terrain layers to my local geodatabase. It initially balked at exporting what I thought was a small area claiming that it couldn't do more than 5000 x 5000, but I able to tell ArcGIS Pro I didn't need pixels of 0.25 meters. Setting it to 10 meters gave me all the data I needed.
      
      
3. Unfortunately there is no setting for either of the Extract Values tools that allow using something other than the maximum resolution (.25 meter). 
   
   
4. You suggested using the Summarize Elevation tool, but despite having a method of choosing the resolution of the elevation model, it still fails.  
   1. It has a simple dropdown to select DEM elevation other than "Finest" so I thought it would be perfect. I set it at 10 and 
   2. First run, can't have over 1000 points*
      1. Select 999 and run with those
         • * why limit operations to BOTH 5000x5000 pixel area AND less than 1000 points? If you are extracting values to points, who cares how big the pixels are. Why not just limit to 1000 features? It would solve many problems.
   3. Multiple (5) Python errors and failure
      1. many re-runs with different number of features, different DEM resolution (10, 24, & 30) all fail with 000539: Error message from Python
         1. Looks like a failure with the Calculate part of the script

So far it is still much easier to just download the DEM of areas I need and create my own slope and aspect layers than to use the esri services.

[RajinderNagi]

@mrmark ,

The limits are there due to licensing restrictions and to enable fair use of the services and make sure someone intentionallyor unintentionally not run something which overwhelm the systems and effect other users hitting the system.

Summarize Elevation has 1000 features limit and it's documented in the tools help page, which is accessible from the "?" symbol within the tool itself. It clearly states.

"The maximum number of input features is 1,000. If more than 1,000 input features are provided, the tool will return an error and will not execute." 

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/2.9/tool-reference/ready-to-use/summarize-elevation.htm

Note that 5000 rows x 5000 cols limit is for Terrain image service and NOT for Summarize Elevation.

Can you provide reproducible case If your input features are less than 1000 and it's still not working?

On the other hand, Terrain image service is a multi-source, multiresolution service with default pixel size of 0.25m, which is based on finest data within it. For analysis, you would need to use Make Image Server Layer tool where one can define resolution, extents (less than 5000 x 5000) etc. to create a temp layer, which then can be used in other tools.

Here is UC tech workshop covering analysis with Pro at mark 12:30 - 26:00. https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/t/1_ofro14se

Hope this helps!