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Style layers in the canvas

ArcGIS Excalibur makes it easy to style imagery and video so you can highlight what matters most in your analysis. Using built-in rendering tools, you can adjust contrast, brightness, and gamma, apply dynamic range adjustments, and switch between different band combinations for multispectral imagery. These styling capabilities help you quickly optimize visual clarity and extract meaningful insights from your imagery and video.

Change the layer styling

Users can enhance visualization and analysis by styling imagery layers and video layers directly within the canvas. Excalibur provides dynamic rendering options that allow users to adjust band combinations, apply different renderers, and fine-tune display settings. These tools help bring out specific features in the imagery and video whether you are highlighting vegetation health, identifying change over time, or improving visual clarity. The option to style a layer will only be available on ArcGIS Imagery Layers, ArcGIS Tiled Imagery Layers, and ArcGIS Video Layers.

Styling imagery layers

Imagery layers can be styled with different processing templates and styling methods. The available options for these inputs will differ based on the layer type you are styling, whether it is an ArcGIS Imagery Layer or ArcGIS Tiled Imagery Layer.

  • Processing Template—Dynamic imagery layers that are generated from image services are often created with one or more custom processing templates. Processing templates are preset display settings or raster function chains associated with imagery layers. The processing template selected will affect the available styling methods. For tiled imagery layers, processing templates cannot be added to the imagery layer, so this list will only contain a processing template called None.

  • Styling Method—You can style imagery layers in several ways depending on the type of data in the layer and what you want to highlight. When you are styling an imagery layer, only the options that are applicable to the layer are available in the Styling Method dropdown. For example, you can display multispectral or multiband imagery using a three-band red, green, and blue (RGB) color composite, but elevation data does not have this display option.

At this release, the only styling methods that will have editable inputs are Stretch, RGB, and Classify. Other styling methods that are selected use default values and can still be applied to imagery. These styling methods include Unique Values, Shaded Relief, Colormap, Vector fields, Flow, and Preset styling methods.

For styling using the editable methods such as Stretch, RGB, or Classify, see the sections below.

Apply a stretch

To apply a Stretch styling method, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Layer Style .

  4. Select a Processing Template.

  5. Select Stretch in the Styling Method drop-down.

  6. Click the Type drop-down menu and choose one of the following options:

    • None—No additional image enhancements are performed.

    • Minimum and Maximum—Display the entire range of values in the image. Edit the values in the statistics table to make additional changes as needed. These are available only when the Dynamic range adjustment toggle button is disabled.

    • Percent Clip—Set a range of values to display, and exclude the highest and lowest pixel values from the stretch. Use the two text boxes to edit the upper and lower percentages.

    • Standard Deviation—Display values between a specified number of standard deviations.

  7. Optionally, do any of the following:

    • Select the Band to use with the stretch.

    • Choose a different color ramp under Color Scheme.

    • If using the Minimum maximum or Percent clip stretch types, type the minimum and maximum pixel values. This updates the stretch values in the display.

    • If using the Standard deviation stretch type, specify the number of standard deviations to display values between.

  8. Click Done when you are finished customizing your style, or click Cancel to go back to exit the panel without saving your choices.

Style using RGB

To style multi-band imagery data using the RGB styling method, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Layer Style .

  4. Select a Processing Template.

  5. Select RGB in the Styling Method drop-down.

  6. Select the bands to display in the red, green, and blue channels.

  7. Optionally, select a stretch type to be applied. Default values will be applied for each type.

  8. Click Done when you are finished customizing your style, or click Cancel to go back to exit the panel without saving your choices.

Classify values

To style imagery data using the Classify styling method, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Layer Style .

  4. Select a Processing Template.

  5. Select Classify in the Styling Method drop-down.

  6. Select the classification method to use to classify pixels from the Method drop-down menu. Choose one of the following:

    • Natural Breaks—The class breaks are determined statistically by finding adjacent feature pairs between which there is a relatively large difference in data value.

    • Equal Interval—The range of cell values is divided into equally sized classes in which you specify the number of classes.

    • Quantile—Each class contains an equal number of cells.

    • Defined Interval—Specify an interval to divide the range of cell values, and the number of classes will be automatically calculated.

  7. Optionally, do any of the following:

    • Specify the Number of Classes as the number of groups for classifying .

    • Choose a different color ramp under Color Scheme.

    • For defined interval, specify an Interval to divide the range of cell values.

  8. Click Done when you are finished, or click Cancel to exit without saving your changes.

Learn more about styling imagery and different styling methods.

Styling a video layer

To change the styling of the video telemetry in the Map panel, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Layer Style .

  4. Change the sensor symbol style to any of the following:

    • Video Camera

    • Drone

    • Airplane

    • Simple Symbol

  5. Change the Trail Path Style and Sight Line Style to any of the following:

    • Dot

    • Dash

    • Dash-dot

    • Long Dash

    • Long Dash-Dot

    • Solid

  6. Make any changes to the telemetry color by selecting one of the available colors in the picker.

  7. If you click Update video layer graphics in the video player and choose the Frame option, this will play the draped video in the frame in the Map panel. You can change the opacity of video layer graphics by adjusting the slider in the Layer Style panel.

  8. Click Done when you are finished customizing your style, or click Cancel to exit without saving your changes.

Change the appearance of a layer

You can change the appearance of a layer to better support your analysis and visualization needs. Through the Layers List options, users can modify resampling methods, compression, gamma, and dynamic range adjustment for visual customization on imagery layers. Users can also adjust settings like brightness, contrast, and saturation on video layers. The option to change the layer appearance will only be available on ArcGIS Imagery Layers, ArcGIS Tiled Imagery Layers, and ArcGIS Video Layers.

Adjusting appearance for imagery layers

To change the appearance of a layer, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Appearance . The available options will differ based on the layer type you are using and the styling method that is currently applied to the layer. For ArcGIS Imagery Layers and ArcGIS Tiled Imagery Layers, you may see the following inputs:

    • Resampling Method—Defines how pixel values are recalculated when raster data is transformed. Available options are:

      • Nearest Neighbor—Assigns the value of the closest original pixel to the new pixel.

      • Bilinear—Calculates the new value using a weighted average of the four nearest pixels.

      • Cubic Convolution—Uses the 16 nearest pixels to calculate a new value.

      • Majority—Assigns each output pixel the value that appears most frequently.

    • Compression—Can be adjusted to improve rendering performance.

    • Gamma—Controls mid-tone brightness. Helps reveal details in shadows or highlights.

    • Dynamic Range Adjustment—Automatically stretches pixel values based on what is currently visible.

  4. Adjust these inputs as needed and click Done when you are finished, or click Cancel to exit without saving your changes.

Adjusting appearance for video layers

To change the appearance of a layer, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Appearance .

  4. Adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Hue sliders.

  5. Optionally, toggle Grayscale and Invert Colors on or off.

  6. Click Done when you are finished, or click Cancel to exit without saving your changes.

Change the image order of an imagery layer

Image services contain one or more images that are mosaicked on the fly and behave like a single image when you browse the service. The Image Order panel can help determine the image order and how to resolve overlapping areas. This specifically becomes useful when there are multiple images over the same area.

To change the image order of an imagery layer, do the following:

  1. Click Layers .

    The Layers list appears with all available layers currently in the canvas.

  2. Click Options .

  3. Click Image Order .

  4. Update the display priority of your choice using the following options. Choose one of the following:

    • By Attribute—Orders imagery based on values of a numeric or date attribute.

    • Closest to Center—Orders image centers closest in distance to the center of the screen display on top.

    • Closest to Nadir—Images with their nadir point closest in distance to the center of the screen are displayed on top.

    • None—No ordering rules are applied. The images are ordered as provided in the imagery service.

    • Northwest—Orders images based on the center of each image's distance to the northwest corner of the collection of all images in the layer.

  5. Choose Ascending or Descending to sort the list of images.

  6. Click Done to apply changes.