Caching

For sharing simple background imagery (mentioned above regarding use case B), individual source mosaic datasets may be processed to create a raster tile cache. The Standard Workflow includes a discussion of the advantages of cached imagery, and the optional workflows to create it.

The raster tile cache has the advantages of being a simple format (easily usable by browsers and mobile devices) and exhibiting fast performance, but it is important to understand the limitations:

• Cached imagery is limited to 8 bits per pixel and 3 bands.
• Cached imagery has only one image in any location. If your data collections include multiple years, you could create and serve a separate raster tile cache for each year (although this complete workflow recommends a dynamic image service instead of a cache).
• Cached imagery does not automatically retain any image metadata, so a user attempting Identify on a raster tile cache will get no information (such as date of image). If you want to retain and share this metadata, see the Esri Live Training Seminar: Sharing Cached Imagery in ArcGIS.

View the Tile Cache toolset for a description of the built-in tile cache tools in ArcGIS.

Additional tools for creating and sharing a raster tile cache, including creating a feature class containing metadata (which can be associated with the cache to enable user query), are available.