Nearmap 4-inch TIFFs appear pixelated after loading into FGDB raster dataset (ArcGIS Pro)

[JuneAcosta]

It took me a while to figure this out, but I finally got tiles cached for our Nearmap imagery that was delivered as TIFFs. This is my first time doing this whole process in ArcGIS Pro, so I’m hoping I’m just missing something obvious.

What I did:

Created a raster dataset in a file geodatabase (FGDB) (accepted all default values)

Loaded ~100 Nearmap TIFFs (4-inch resolution) into the raster dataset(accepted all default values)

The load process took about 1 day and 14 hours to complete

In previous years, I loaded Nearmap imagery into an enterprise geodatabase (EGDB), so this FGDB-based workflow is new for me. We also do not have Image Server, so this imagery will ultimately be used for cached tiles rather than published as an image service.The last time I cached tiles for imagery was in 2017 using ArcMap.

Now that everything is loaded, I’m noticing the imagery looks much more pixelated and not nearly as clear as the original TIFFs. When I view the TIFFs directly, they look great, but once they’re in the raster dataset the quality drops noticeably.

Although imagery processing isn’t really my forte, I have been responsible for caching tiles for the last ~15 years and the default values have always worked!—this is just my first time using Pro for this workflow.

Before I move forward with caching the tiles:

Is there anything I should be checking or changing to preserve image clarity?

Are there specific raster dataset settings, pyramids, resampling methods, pixel type, or compression options I should revisit?

Could the difference between FGDB vs EGDB be contributing to what I’m seeing?

Would a mosaic dataset have been a better choice for this type of 4-inch Nearmap imagery, given that we don’t have Image Server?

Any recommendations would be appreciated. I’d rather fix this now than cache tiles that don’t look great.

[Robert_LeClair]

For this workflow, I would highly recommend creating a mosaic dataset in your file geodatabase as this is the best practice to manage large datasets in ArcGIS Pro.  By creating a raster dataset, and loading the 100+ files into the raster dataset, you're effectively doubling the size of your raster datasets - one in it's native TIFF format and the other in the raster dataset.  Mosaic datasets will reference the TIFF folder, does allow you to create overviews and pyramids and has a host of other properties you can set.  To learn more, you can reference this page - Mosaic datasets—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

[RTPL_AU]

Hi @JuneAcosta 

Robert's right - You can create a mosaic using the tiff files as source. Just don't let IT change a folder name or share path if the mosaic & sources are in different locations.  🤣

There were (emphasis on were....) good Esri resources comparing performance of tiff vs gdb raster data used over network file shares or services with tiff at some point having quite a performance advantage.

That aside and if you don't want to change your workflow, have a look at the rendering settings applied to new images loaded into a map.

Pro seems to sometimes do weird things with the imagery symbology & rendering settings. Check your settings/options and set it to what you want.

Compare what you have for the tiffs vs mosaic in the layer symbology when you have it loaded. It may just be an auto gamma & resampling method difference:

then look at the resampling method used. I prefer to have Cubic on unless I want to see pixels. 
I think by default Nearest Neighbour is used.

Hope this helps.
With no render setting differences the images should look the same unless they somehow got resampled on the way into the fgdb.