Query pixel value of a raster within a Raster Catalog

[JimHall]

I have built a raster catalog to hold about 70 rasters of flood plains in a study area.  But when you use the catalog you loose the ability to get the cell value in arcmap.  Is there a work around for this?

Earlier quests for an answer were found here.

http://forums.esri.com/thread.asp?t=296594&f=986&c=93

[JieZhang]

Hi Jim,

I assume you meant identifying the pixel value of certain raster dataset in a raster catalog?

There is a workaround for that. You can

1. Go to ArcCatalog, select your raster catalog in Catalog Tree view;
2. Activate the Contents tab on the right to see each individual rasters in the raster catalog;
3. Drag and drop the raster dataset you want to identify to ArcMap;
4. Then it will be displayed as a layer with the name of <your catalog name>\Raster.OBJECTID=<number>, you can use the identify tool to check the cell size just like normal raster dataset.

However if you in ArcGIS 10, it is better to use mosaic dataset to manage your images. Mosaic dataset support identify cell size on the "image" layer of it.

Hope it helps.

[JimHall]

Thanks for your reply Jie.

Yes, I can load all the rasters and identify them; this makes the catalog useless.  I have created a raster dataset instead; which is the solution for me.  I was hoping to take advantage of the display properties of the catalog but this wont kill our work flow.  

I look forward to trying out 10 soon.

[PeterNguyen]

Hi Jim,

I assume you meant identifying the pixel value of certain raster dataset in a raster catalog?

There is a workaround for that. You can

1. Go to ArcCatalog, select your raster catalog in Catalog Tree view;
2. Activate the Contents tab on the right to see each individual rasters in the raster catalog;
3. Drag and drop the raster dataset you want to identify to ArcMap;
4. Then it will be displayed as a layer with the name of <your catalog name>\Raster.OBJECTID=<number>, you can use the identify tool to check the cell size just like normal raster dataset.

However if you in ArcGIS 10, it is better to use mosaic dataset to manage your images. Mosaic dataset support identify cell size on the "image" layer of it.

Hope it helps.

I'm also looking for a solution to identify a pixel value from a raster in a raster catalog. Jie's solution defeats the whole purpose of having a raster catalog in the first place.

[LEANDROFREITAS]

Hi there,

I've found a similar problem while working on temporal data (http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/23758-Raster-Catalog-and-geop.-tools?p=78011#post78011).

Is there any workaround for this without making the Raster Catalog useless??
Basically, I'm not able to use individual rasters as input of any geoprocessing tool.
The more rasters stored in catalog, the bigger the need to automatizate data statistics, profile extraction, etc.
I've even received a suggestion of converting all my data into NetCDF. This is not the best solution apparently, but could work for some cases.

Looking foward!!

Leo, Brazil.