Select to view content in your preferred language

Mosaicking is taking days, literally

1369
3
Jump to solution
10-30-2012 04:46 AM
michaelcollins1
Frequent Contributor
Mosaicking has been running for 2 days now in ArcCatalog.

I have 25 tiff files ranging from 1 to 3 gigs each. I created a raster dataset, ESRI grid (I have lowly ArcView, so mosaic dataset isn't available to me). I selected building pyramids (level -1), bilinear sampling, colour matching based on statistics, and default on everything else. I don't have background processing enabled, but the progress window doesn't display. Clicking on the ArcCatalog window causes is to grey out with a (not responding) message, but it's still working away as the target raster size keeps growing

I'm wondering if it's normal to take days. The data is on a USB2 hard drive (no choice in that).

My machine specs are:
CPU  Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz 
CPU Speed  2.7 GHz Performance Rated at: 8.78 GHz 
RAM  24 GB 
Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit 
Video Card  Quadro 4000
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
JeffreySwain
Esri Regular Contributor
Unless you are creating an unmanaged raster catalog, it will probably take that long.  Another aspect to consider is to look at the uncompressed size, which may be more than the size you see in Windows Explorer.  So processing time of days to create a raster of
`50 Gigs would be correct and may be more depending on network performance. 

What you are experiencing is the reason why the mosaic datasets were created, the finer the resolution, the more immense the dataset, the more the processing time with legacy processes.  Since the mosaic dataset doesn't import the rasters and only generates overviews, the import time is shorter.  The other caveat is to consider the performance of the newly created mosaic compared to a mosaic dataset.  <stepping off soap box>

View solution in original post

0 Kudos
3 Replies
JeffreySwain
Esri Regular Contributor
Unless you are creating an unmanaged raster catalog, it will probably take that long.  Another aspect to consider is to look at the uncompressed size, which may be more than the size you see in Windows Explorer.  So processing time of days to create a raster of
`50 Gigs would be correct and may be more depending on network performance. 

What you are experiencing is the reason why the mosaic datasets were created, the finer the resolution, the more immense the dataset, the more the processing time with legacy processes.  Since the mosaic dataset doesn't import the rasters and only generates overviews, the import time is shorter.  The other caveat is to consider the performance of the newly created mosaic compared to a mosaic dataset.  <stepping off soap box>
0 Kudos
michaelcollins1
Frequent Contributor
Ok, thanks. I only have a basic license so I don't have access to creating mosaic datasets, only raster datasets. I'll just have to wait a couple of days,

thanks
0 Kudos
michaelcollins1
Frequent Contributor
It took 53 hours.
0 Kudos