Source
r/gis•
calebnf

Merging Georeferenced Rasters [ArcPro]

Esri

So I've got a couple dozen georeferenced building schematics for various buildings all over NYC and I need to create a few different "layers": one for basements, one for grounds, and one for 1st floors. So I want to merge all of the basement layers into one raster and do the same for the other floors.

I used the Merge Rasters function, but that took forever to complete and seems to really slow down ArcPro (like saving takes a while now?). Ultimately, I want to convert them to KML and upload it to Arc Online. I don't need to make any sophisticated calculations with the data, its just for visualization.

My question is whether I'm doing this right or whether there's a better way. I don't typically work with raster files, so I'm not that familiar with the tools. Thanks.

Posted Mar 29, 2023, 12:07 AM UTC

47
techmavengeospatial•

No need for mosaic and merging just create a VRT. use gdalbuildvrt Esri fully supports vrt and treats it as an image (it's XML).

Skip KML very poor format. If you need map tiles create raster map tiles tile package TPKX and get published. If you are looking to share the data also consider GPKG geopackage sqlite database raster map tiles.

6
PostholerGISPostholer.com/portfolio•

Damn, I was gonna say that.

gdalbuildvrt -input_file_list fileList.txt fileList.vrt

then, build your .kml:
ogr2ogr dest.kml fileList.vrt
2
calebnfOP•

This is a bit over my head. I remember using GDAL in an anaconda environment I think back in grad school, but that was almost 10 years ago 😳.

Do I just need to install it on a standard python shell?

2
techmavengeospatial•

Best install is via OSGEO4W setup tool https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/ If you've got QGIS DESKTOP It also comes with it. Don't need to use python can call the exe command line tools directly.

2
calebnfOP•

Thanks, I’ll give it a shot!

1
paul_h_s•

the vrt way is good.
If you stay in an ESRI Enviroment a Mosaic Dataset should also work:
https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/imagery/mosaic-datasets.htm

3
calebnfOP•

Thanks! Maybe I’ll try this first since I’m much more familiar with the ESRI environment.

1