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Share oriented imagery

Drone2Map supports the sharing of oriented imagery layers to ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. An oriented imagery layer is a feature layer that provides a new way of relating images to the ground and allows for hard to map images such as high oblique drone imagery to be spatially located and viewed in the context of a map or 3D scene.

You can publish an oriented imagery layer to ArcGIS Online or an ArcGIS Enterprise portal either as a lone feature layer or alongside other products within a web map or web scene. The ability to publish an oriented imagery layer with other products allows for the quick generation of an oriented imagery workspace that already contains reference data. This speeds up the process of analyzing the imagery as all the layers can be shared as a web scene to be added to a web app, allowing you to take advantage of the built-in oriented imagery viewer widget.

Note:

When using ArcGIS Enterprise portals, oriented imagery layers can only be created in versions 11.2 or later.

When an oriented imagery layer is added to a web map or web scene, it appears as points that indicate the camera location where each image was acquired. The attributes of the points include the attached images and the key metadata required to visualize the image in the oriented imagery viewer.

Share items

You have the following options for sharing oriented imagery layers, depending on your sharing privileges:

  • Your organization—Sharing with your organization means only members of your organization have access to your item.

  • Groups to which you belong—If you are a member of a group, you can share your item with that group. Sharing with specific groups restricts access to a smaller, more focused set of people.

  • Everyone—Sharing with everyone makes your item public; anybody who has access to the portal website or ArcGIS Online, including anonymous users, can find and use your item, and group owners can include it in their group content.

  • Everyone, your organization, and groups to which you belong—You can share your item with a larger audience (for example, everyone and your organization) and also share it with a specific group. This allows you to categorize your item as especially relevant to a particular group while still making it available to others in your organization.

Publish oriented imagery layers

To publish a project as an oriented imagery layer, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Share tab, in the Share As group, click Feature Layer , Web Map or Web Scene .

  2. Check the oriented imagery layer option.

  3. If adding to a web catalog, check the Add portal item to web catalog check box.

    A web catalog must exist for the project before layers can be added to it. A new web catalog can be created by clicking the Create new web catalog button . For more information on working with catalog datasets, see Use catalog datasets.

  4. Click the Properties tab to set the following properties:

    • Use Product Spatial Reference—Publishes the layer in the spatial reference of the source data. Unchecking this value will publish the layer in Web Mercator.

    • Image Category—Specifies the type of input images that will be used and sets the default properties of the oriented imagery dataset. The default property will be used if the equivalent attribute is not found in the oriented imagery dataset attribute table. You can choose from the following options:

      • Oblique (Recommended)—Images in which the exposure is at an angle to the ground, typically at about 45 degrees so sides of objects can be seen.

      • Nadir—Images in which the exposure is perpendicular to the ground and looking straight down will be used. Only the top of the objects can be seen.

      • Horizontal—Images in which the exposure is parallel to the ground and looking to the horizon will be used.

      • Inspection—Close-up imagery of assets (less than five meters from the camera) will be used.

    • Footprints—Specifies the method that will be used to create the footprint from the following options:

      • One footprint per image—Polygon features will be created from each feature based on camera parameters. Use this option when there are only a few feature points and they are scattered over a large projected area.

      • Merge all image footprints—Individual polygons will be computed and merged into a single polygon feature that is a more optimized footprint for the dataset.

      • Dataset extent as footprints—A footprint will be created based on the extent of the oriented imagery dataset. Use this option when there are many camera points within a small area.

    • Elevation Source—Specifies the elevation source for the dataset from the following options:

      • DEM—The elevation source will be a digital elevation model that is a dynamic image service or a tile image service.

      • Constant Elevation—The elevation source will be a constant ground elevation value for the entire dataset.

    • Elevation Service—Specifies the name of the input digital elevation model. A dynamic image service or a tile image service can be used as the digital elevation model. This parameter is active when the Elevation Source parameter value is specified as DEM.

  5. Click the Details tab to go back and provide a title.

  6. Check any other layers to include as reference data.

  7. Optionally, choose a folder to share your features, type Description text, and update the tags.

  8. Check the appropriate groups for sharing your items.

  9. Click Share.

An oriented imagery feature layer is created in your sharing portal.