Mosaic Datasets and Raster Functions: trouble learning

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06-08-2017 10:46 AM
NathanSchlagel
New Contributor II

Hi every one,

I'm having trouble figuring these features out. They've been highly recommended, but I find the normal tools to be easier and usually give up my experimenting. However, I'm getting larger datasets where working in a mosaic dataset (MDS) would be beneficial. I've had a lot of different problems, but the issues I'm having presently pertain to referenced MDSs not synchronizing when I add new raster layers to their source (this includes not updated the image or the applied raster functions), and some raster functions not working in a referenced MDS (I get these to work in the source MDS by rebuilding overviews, which I can't do to the reference). I've been using these ESRI pages primarily (below) with some success, as well as other forum posts and questions, but they either don't explain the workflow in much detail or seem to not address the same issues I'm having.
Create Referenced Mosaic Dataset—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 
Synchronizing a mosaic dataset—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 
Synchronize Mosaic Dataset—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

For example, if I have a MDS for an elevation DEM and a referenced MDS created from it to apply hillshade and I add a new layer to the elevation one it will update with the new layer, but the hillshade won't. If I try using the synchronize tool it throws a 'partial overview' error. 

For the other issue, the statistics function ouputs a grey box that is fixed by building overviews again on the source (elevation in the example), but it won't work this way if I have statistics set up for a referenced MDS.

An obvious fix would be to make separate MDSs for each thing I need to run, but this seems overly redundant. If the functions are being applied to the same set of DEMs it makes more sense to have the source DMS be the elevation layers, and referenced layers be the applied functions to make hillshade, slope, standard deviation, etc. 

Another possibility I've seen and tried to apply is I'm missing something in the Function Chain, but in my experimenting so far I've mostly been doing one step things (like slope and hillshade); though I have gotten some more complicated chains to work, they run into the same issue as the first question above, where they don't update with new layers if I add any to the source MDS.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
I'm not sure where to ask these questions either; apologies if I put it in the wrong group.
Cheers,
Nate

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