LERC MRF share as REST/ Imagery service?

[Ravichandran_M_Kaushika]

dear Readers,

using Optimize Rasters function from ESRI, LiDAR img files were converted to LiDAR LERC/MRF format.  our objective was to test, adopt, and streamline the use of LERC/MRF files to take advantage of the inherent benefits of using LERC/MRF files over traditional img files (to begin with LiDAR and then adopt the methods for other formats).

1.  Using default settings of Img --> LERC conversion options for elevation/LiDAR we had generated  MRF files for the desired areas.  we found 26 to 27% savings in disk space - 10 TB to 7.2..

2. Original image files were used to build a raster catalog as a first step towards to publish it.  to start with we had used a single LiDAR collection folder (all collections were arranged by the month and year) - Mar2013 to built a raster catalog.  A 600+ GB LiDAR of imagery when added to a catalog was only 60+ GB. 

Issue at hand:

Q1. How to share LERC/MRF files as a service from an ArcGIS server primarily as a background?

Q2. Downloading LiDAR IMG  or LERC files might secondary objective from these services.

is Any step by step guide to 'publish' MRF data  available?

thanks and regards

Ravi.

[Ravichandran_M_Kaushika]

To add more information - when we created a LERC/MRF files based raster catalog, the size of the generated catalog was larger than the MRF files for Mar2013 folder.  For a similar situation of the img LiDAR files, the catalog was only 10% disk size of the imagery files. regards.