Quality of Basemaps

[ErikB]

Hello--When I download a basemap from ArcGIS Online to my map board it looks pixelated and fuzzy. One video tutorials I've seen their basemaps look higher quality. How can I get the basemap to be clearer. Thanks!

[RobertBorchert]

Well it is like watching a commercial for a restaurant.  Especially fast food.  it looks simply amazing and perfect on the commercial.  The reality is something squashed together and ran down a metal chute.

The free base maps are designed around being able to use them online so they generally need to be dummied down, so to speak, so they will work faster and stream quickly.

Generally speaking for in house use your often simply better off acquiring your own base map data.

https://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/

[XingdongZhang]

Hello Eric, 

The app has both vector-based basemaps and raster based basemaps. The raster ones look pixelated when sync into illustrator. The vector ones will give you the best quality. You can try the VectorStreetMap or NaturalEarth basemap in the compilation panel and see the difference.

Thanks,

Xingdong

[ErikBaxstrom]

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. The basemap looks great.