Mosaic to New Raster

[KatyWichman]

I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong?  If someone can tell me if I'm using the right tools, then maybe I can follow up with the issues I have been running into.  I have two rasters and I want to combine them into one because I want to run some hydrology tools and I don't want to do it twice to both rasters.  Should I be creating a new raster dataset (blank) and using the mosaic to new raster tool to piece them together?

When I open the mosaic to new raster tool I'm not really sure how to populate the fields.  Does the pixel depth populate the cell size and pixel type?  And when I am naming my new raster dataset, I'm not sure which extension to use (bil. vs. bip vs. tif)

See attached screenshot.  Thanks for any advice!

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Katy

options

Mosaic To New Raster—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop 

or 

Mosaic—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop 

The mosaic allows you to combine 2 or more together... of course this means that you would experiment on copies of your originals to ensure you get it right.

Also, you should know the formats of the two and it is always best to make any changes before hand so you are in full control of the process.  For instance, if they are different cell size, you should resample one, so that you have inputs with the appropriate cell size.

Of course, some of the things you should do manually (so you are in full control) are done quasi- automagically!  You would know what was done during the process just to check.

The more you know about what you have, the better your results.

Don't take shortcuts or think that a tool that involves fewer steps is the best tool to use.

Experiment for yourself, just to be sure

[KatyWichman]

So I decided to try this out and I'm not getting an output that I want.  Below are the two screen shots of what I did.  1st I created a new mosiac dataset in catalog.  I chose the parameters that I did because the metadata of the rasters indicated such.  2nd I added the rasters to the empty mosaic set as a folder.  And the last screen shot is the output I got.  I don't see any raster anymore?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

apparently someone didn't like my suggestions so I will let the others that viewed the thread to weigh in with their advice

[KatyWichman]

Sorry I didn't find your suggestions helpful.  I had already tried those tools before posting my original question with no success and after trying again I got the previous result.  

[KatyWichman · Accepted solution]

The solution to this issue after following the previous steps is to run the "Build Overviews" tool.  This gave me the result I needed.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

strange.. I haven't needed to build overviews unless I was missing tiles