Raster Catalog Path Issues

[PatrickFischer1]

Hello,

I am running into the problem of my raster catalogs being unsourced when we do our yearly archive. Basically this is what it looks like for our data path before we archive it:

X:\Product\Data.gdb\Raster_Catalog

when we archive it, it looks like this:

X:\Product\Archived_Products\FY2012\Product\Data.gdb\Raster_Catalog

Is there a way to make raster catalog paths relative similar to what you can do with an MXD? I've been recreating the Raster Catalogs as needed, however it becomes quite time consuming and tedious when you have to do 200 differen't catalogs at once. I have tried the Repair tool and it doesn't seem to be what i'm looking for. Any ideas?

[JakeSkinner]

Hi Patrick,

What version of ArcGIS are you using?

Does the imagery reside in the same folder as the file geodatabase the raster catalog resides in?

You stated that you tried the 'Repair Raster Catalog Paths' tool.  Are you receiving any errors when you execute this tool?

[PatrickFischer1]

Hi there,

I'm using Version 10.0

The raw data resides in a seperate folder. Here's basically how it goes.

X:\Product\Data\Raster\CADRG\TLM50K....rpf folder and all the rpf data.

the geodatabase sits here:

X:\Product\Data.gdb\Raster_Catalog

so if i were able to use relative paths it wouldn't matter as the entire product folder is archived, however everything after that stays the same.

The repair tool just doesn't seem to work in the way i want it to, i have found it actually takes longer to run that than recreate the entire catalog again.

[JakeSkinner]

Hi Patrick,

I don't believe there is a way to store relative paths for a raster catalog.  Since you are rebuilding the raster catalogs, I would recommend building a Mosaic Dataset rather than a raster catalog.  Mosaic Datasets perform much faster than raster catalogs, and provide additional capabilities such as applying functions.  Also, you can repair broken data paths easier with a mosaic dataset.

[PatrickFischer1]

That tool is what i'm looking for except for one thing. I use Raster Catalogs so i can have unmanaged catalogs, if i used managed catalogs i wouldn't have this problem unfortunatly. Unless i misread the tool in the help menu i don't think is going to solve my issue.

[JakeSkinner]

Mosaic Datasets are similar to unmanaged raster catalogs.  Only the paths of the rasters are loaded into the dataset, not the images themselves.  I would recommend creating a mosaic dataset and compare it to your raster catalog.  The mosaic dataset will perform much faster.

[PatrickFischer1]

Alright, sounds good, i'll give it a shot and see how it goes. Thanks for the help.