dear Readers,
thank you for taking the time to help me.
till recently we had analog imagery captured, geo-rectified and served as a map service on ArcGIS server. For the last couple of years, we have started using image service for the images with a separate metadata map service based on what the end users wanted to see about the image.
Before the collection begins, a vector file (shape of file geodatabase) given to vendors to collect imagery. Imagery would be collected digitally moving forward with all fiducial information.
Among the information the users currently care about are the actual date of collection, batch (FY2017 or FY2018 etc), quad name (or DOQQ), and the contract areas unique ID.
To get an idea about these, I was closely looking at the Multi-year imagery by Bozeman GIS (Bozeman GIS)
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b57b656dc5824edcbb40b02f7acad893
The multi-year imagery service when viewed in ArcGIS Pro had attribute tables that would be present while creating a mosaic dataset. Along with the 'default' columns from the software, there were collection date and other user-defined columns. these columns were not present when viewed in 'ArcGIS Map Viewer' .
Imagery collected by our agency might be over 10TB as tiff and close to 4 or 6 TB in MRF. There are an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 raw picture files or contract areas that need to be studied. This is an annual effort for different parts of the country as determined by the business and legal needs.
Questions:
1. Should we get 1 mosaic dataset per year or break 1 years image files into many states or region mosaic datasets? if we break the image collection by state/ can we get a national single mosaic dataset to be served as a service?
conversely, what is the upper limit of mosaic datasets?
2. As indicated before the end users might be interested in seeing certain attributes of the collected image - is it a desirable practice to add 2 or more columns as done by Bozeman GIS in the above service?
or create a metadata map server with 'envelope'/ footprint of the images from the mosaic dataset --> SDE --> ArcGIS map document --> map server. An approx. max of 12,000 vector records with a few attributes a year would be created - this layer/service is not worrisome to us.
3. Does ESRI recommend 1 mosaic dataset with (or without) metadata columns per year or have a single mosaic dataset for many years with updating the dataset with a year tag for the each of ~5 TB MRF files/year?
If people consume the above data in an application and when the application goes to production, there has to be a conscious effort/time spent to ensure the data is 'consistent' with previous years 'style'. That should be planned up front.
We are thinking out loud and trying to 'adopt' industry's best practices as we move forward for increased efficiency.
thanks for your time again.
regards
Ravi Kaushika.