Disable antialiasing in the PDF To TIFF tool

[JLezik]

It's great improvement that since ArcGIS Pro 2.9, project options settings on the display tab (which includes antialiasing settings) are honored when exporting map (https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/control-antialiasing-for-export-to-tiff-pdf-in/idi-p/...), as was suggested in the idea "Control antialiasing for export to tiff/pdf in arcpy.mp".

However, when using the tool PDF To TIFF (using PDF which was previously correctly generated in ArcGIS Pro), there is antialiasing always enabled, regardless to the project options settings.

It's very important for us to have the possibility to turn off antialiasing in the PDF To TIFF tool, since we need to have only discrete colours in the resulting tiff (which is then used for further processing).

Thanks,

Jakub

[JeremyWright]

Jakub,

There is no antialiasing applied in PDF to TIFF - as you noted it is applied when the PDF is exported _from_ ArcGIS Pro.  If you consume a PDF exported from Pro that contains rasterized content that has anti-aliasing, it can only be consumed as it is already written and produce a PDF at the requested DPI.

I would suggest posting examples of the artifacts you're trying to avoid, here, so we perhaps can get some better clarity on what you are trying to achieve, or perhaps if the behavior you're reporting is actually a _BUG_ in the PDF to TIFF tool?

Regards,

Jeremy W.

[JLezik]

Hello Jeremy,

on the images below is visible what happens when I run the tool. On the left image is PDF generated in ArcGIS, where vector layers are preserved as vectors, so there is no antialiasing. But when I use it as an input into the PDF To TIFF tool, the output has antialiasing, as can be seen on the right image.

The project options settings, where I have disabled hardware antialiasing, are not honored in this case. So I think there would be useful some extra checkbox in the tool dialog, which would explicitly control the antialiasing.

Thanks,

Jakub

[JeremyWright]

thanks for clarifying, Jakub.  Let me correspond with the responsible team - this does appear to be some AA applied here which is unexpected.  can you verify that AA and hardware antialiasing are both disabled in display options when you add the TIFF to Pro again?

[JLezik]

Yes, I have both options disabled. On the image below is zoomed the end of the purple line from my previous post, this time only red-band. Labels represent the pixel values of the red-band. So it seems that the problem isn't with display of the raster, but the TIFF itself is already antialiased. 

[JeremyWright]

@JLezik curiouser and curiouser!  I've contacted the developer of this tool to find out if there is something internally that may be adding this smoothing when creating the TIFF.  I'll let you know what we find.

[JeremyWright]

@JLezik FYI I have logged a BUG issue and the layout team has assigned it to a developer for investigation in a future release.