1-Bit TIFs Greatly Lose Resolution after Building Pyramids in ArcCatalog 10, SP1

[RossBrewer]

When I build pyramids on some 1-Bit TIF images - created from scanned orthophotos taken in 1983, the resulting TIFs draw in the preview panel, and in ArcMap, with an unusable loss in resolution (please see the attached before/after screenshots).

I have tried adjusting the compression formats and cell sizes in the Environment Settings within the Build Pyramid dialogue box, but no luck.  Also, when I deleted the RRD files from within Windows Explorer (with the intentions of simply rebuilding the pyramids in ArcCatalog), the TIFs strangely previewed with the poor resolution before I even recreated the new RRD files; and continued to keep that low resolution after recreating the new pyramids? 

Any ideas?

Ross Brewer
rbrewer@mariettaga.gov
770-794-5549

[TimothyHales · Accepted solution]

Hi Ross,

If you look at you image with the overviews you will notice that the colors are inverted.  This is a known issue with ArcGIS 10 with how to pyramids are built by using the Nearest resampling technique (default).  You can fix this by rebuilding the pyramids using the Build Pyramid tool and setting the Raster Storage Environment setting to use Bilinear as the resampling technique. 

-Timothy

[RossBrewer]

Thanks for responding, Timothy.

Well, I had read that in a blog or forum post and thought that I had tried changing the resampling to bilinear; but at the time, it didn't work.  I just now tried changing the resampling to bilinear and changed no other settings, and it worked perfectly.  I must have previously been troubleshooting too many variables at once and continued to see a resolution loss...

Thank you very much for the assistance!