The disappearance of the raster catalog in ArcGIS Pro

[Louis-PhilippeRodier]

Hey there.

Am I the only one that was using the Raster Catalog to bypass the mosaic features in ArcGIS? Used to work fine under ArcGIS Pro and it got the axe in the latest versions. Sure, it still works great in ArcMAP, which is next to get cut. Kind of angry at ESRI when the only answer you get is "Upgrade your license plan from a basic to a standard". Big gap in annual fees for a simple function, don't you think! Standard as more analysis tools, sure, but we don't usually need those.

Any thoughts? Anyone else got affected?

[Robert_LeClair]

Louis - as you know, Raster Catalogs are not supported in ArcGIS Pro and the solution is to migrate to a mosaic dataset.  This requires a standard license as you know. I do not have a workaround for you with regard to Desktop licensing but the ArcMap 10.7 deprecation schedule has it on Mature Support until Feb 2025 so ArcMap is not going anywhere - you can continue to use it for many years to come.  The official retirement date for ArcMap 10.7 is March 1, 2025.  I do not know if there will be an ArcMap 10.8/11 as that's up to the Development folks.  I see you added an idea to ArcGIS Ideas so that's a good start for the user community certainly.  Not the most help I know but additional information for you.

[Louis-PhilippeRodier]

Thanks Mr. LeClair for the reply. The problem is that in ArcGIS Pro, I don't know a work around for that option and it just vanish between two versions. I really think Esri as stopped supporting us there and that's what should be revised on their part.

[DuncanHornby]

Louis (and Robert LeClair),

No you are not the only person who is using Raster Catalogs! I work with people who are still using ArcMap 9.2, we even teach it as a way of displaying aerial photos. Yes Mosaic Datasets are much better but they are tied to a higher license level so not everyone has access to them. It is disappointing to hear ArcPro has yet again dropped another useful format. I can't even beginning to tell you how disruptive not supporting MS Access databases is... 

[Louis-PhilippeRodier]

We also lost something great when Esri stop using the Access databases. It was easy on all sides, we use to do forms on MS Access and use the database in ArcMap with the Raster dataset. I guess it's then end of an era.

[Louis-PhilippeRodier]

Have you seen this thread!?

https://my.esri.com/#/support/bugs/ENH-000105388 

Someone is working for us! Go suscribe and make sure to follow! This thread is not over!

[FrédéricMillet]

Salut Louis-Philippe,
Only you can see and follow a thread attached to your account in My.Esri. 

Fred 

[NeilFordyce]

Raster catalogs are so sweet and fast. Just a minute or so to make a catalog in python for 178 aerial photos and to then visualise them in place. Tell me how I will do that in PRO without shelling out $A millions for a license for Standard.

[TomMagdaleno]

It seems like a way to get you to buy image server.  

[AnnaRiling1]

I only recently discovered raster catalog as a really efficient way to display historical aerial photos and topos in a data driven pages series. Increasingly, I'm having to use both Pro and ArcMap for projects to get around limitations in each, and this is no exception. I would love to see raster catalog supported in Pro at the basic license level.

[NeilFordyce]

After 28 years of using ESRI software this sort of thing is enough to make me give up. The old Raster catalogs with .dbf base were so easy and so fast. I can't believe that this sort of code object cannot be taken forward.. I bet QGIS will deal with them.. I had to use QGIS the other day to convert a large contour dataset to dxf for a consultant because ArcGIS 10.6 and 10.8 couldn't cope and crashed.