Composing surfaces by adding filtered bathymetry and applying sorting and display rules (Bathymetry Solution)

After you have searched and filtered your bathymetry data in the Explore Bathymetry window, you can use it to create a surface through the Compose Surface window, where you can sort and order the dataset display based on collection, extended, and internal metadata fields. This is necessary when you need to show the best available data for a particular area. For example, if you have 10 BAG datasets managed within your BIS geodatabase and three have a pixel resolution of 1 meter, and the rest have a resolution of 5 meters, you could configure a display rule that places the 1-meter datasets on top of the 5-meter datasets when all 10 are being displayed. In this case, if any of the seven 5-meter datasets overlapped with any of the 1-meter datasets, you would know that the higher-resolution datasets would be displayed on top of the lower-resolution dataset. This approach gives you the ability to determine a display hierarchy for your bathymetry data.

When your data is organized the way you want, you can generate a preview of the datasets organized and displayed as a mosaic dataset, within ArcMap’s data view. From there, you can adjust the color ramp, perform surface analysis with the geoprocessing framework, or display it with other applicable data layers.

Steps:

1. Start ArcMap.
2. On the main menu, click Customize > Toolbars > Bathymetry.
3. Click the Compose Surface button on the Bathymetry toolbar.

   The Compose Surface window appears.
4. Click the Add Datasets From Explore Bathymetry Window button located at the top of the Compose Surface window.

   The filtered bathymetry is added to the Filtered Datasets list in the Compose Surface window. Files at the top of the list take display priority when generating a preview.

5. Select a dataset from the list.
6. Click the up arrows and down arrows to adjust the dataset display order.

   The up and down arrows located at the bottom left of the filtered datasets move the datasets one position up or down in the list. The up and down arrows located at the bottom right of the filtered datasets move a dataset to the top of the list or to the bottom of the list.

7. Optionally, click Remove Selected to remove the selected item from the list.
   Tip:

   You can select multiple items to remove using the SHIFT and CTRL keys.

8. Click the Attribute drop-down arrow at the top of the Surface rules section.
9. Choose one of the metadata attributes you want to use to sort the datasets.

   Metadata attributes populate the Rule cell next to your new rule.

10. Click the Rule cell next to the Attribute drop-down list.

    The Priority dialog box appears. You can order the values for each rule in a decreasing level of priority in the Priority dialog box.

11. Use the up and down arrows to adjust the priority value level.
12. Click OK.
13. Click Apply Rules.
    Note:

    The rules will be applied automatically if you do not manually move BAG datasets within the datasets list the first time you add rules.

14. Repeat steps 8 through 13 to add additional sorting rules.
    Tip:

    You can remove all the rules you have configured by clicking Clear Rules. If you have loaded a rule file into the Compose Surface dialog box and click Clear Rules, the rule file will not be modified unless you also click Save Rules.

15. Click the Preview button to generate a preview of the ordered surface.

    A mosaic dataset containing all sorting and display rules is added to the table of contents in ArcMap.

    Note:

    The mosaic dataset generated by the Preview tool has approximate values calculated for the Min, Max, Mean, and Standard Deviation raster statistics fields and should not be used for analysis. In addition, the preview also has a Stretch Type parameter of the Stretch function configured for Minimum-Maximum, which will include all pixel values, even outliers. If you need to generate precise statistics or exclude outlying pixel values, it is highly recommended that you use the Calculate Statistics tool and configure the Stretch function parameters to meet your requirements.