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World Imagery basemap - higher DPI for exports

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09-17-2015 06:59 AM
Status: Open
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BuckDwyer
Deactivated User

Hi,

We use aerial imagery basemaps quite often in ArcMap and would love to take advantage of ESRI's World Imagery service layer but we can't due to poor quality.  I've learned that when we export, even if we're telling the export a to be a PNG at 300 DPI, the ESRI service layer is at 96 DPI.  This makes it unusable for us as we export to print a large majority of our materials.  I understand the desire to have a 96 DPI service layer for desktop & web viewing only but ESRI should offer an additional service that is at a higher DPI for customers who export for printing.  Can this please be considered?  I'll gladly share examples and do anything I can to help.

Thanks,
Buck

1 Comment
JochenSchubert

For a long time I have been struggling with blurry basemaps when making map figures in ArcGIS Pro. Even at close up scales of 1:10k, the aerial/satellite imagery that otherwise looks sharp in a map window is exported grainy and blurry from the layout window. I thought this issue was only related to Esri basemaps, but it's the same when using Google's imagery.

Creating sharp and clear map graphics should be a priority for a GIS software, and right now this is very hard to do with cloud based basemaps in ArcPro.

In comparison QGIS does this easily in a few clicks. The first image shows how QGIS exports Google's satellite basemap at 1:15k scale. The second image is the best I can do with ArcPro, and this is after optimizing all the export and display settings.

savannah_15k_300dpi_QGIS.jpg

Savannah_15k_300dpi_100Quality_ArcPro_AntAliasingBest_HardwareAntAliasing_DX12.jpg

I find the quality of the ArcMap graphic unacceptable, and scientific journals would reject the quality of this imagery in their publications.

Please please Esri, add the ability to export sharp basempas from your software products and save your customer base a lot of time tinkering around with map production. We will be so grateful!