Landscape Modeler - Overview of the data processing workflow

Landscape Modeler provides access to several layers to use in your modeling tasks, but there may be times where you want to use data that your organization already has.

Landscape Modeler performs a weighted overlay of raster data. Key requirements include the following

At least two data layers
Vector layers that have been rasterized

Beyond these requirements, the data quality must be determined and whether it is suitable for weighted overlay analysis.

The process generally includes the following steps:

General data source preparation

Below are some recommendations for preparing data for use with Landscape Modeler.

Projection

At the beginning of a Landscape Modeler implementation project, the optimum projection to be used for the project should be determined. Usually, an equal area projection specific to the project area works best for natural resource-related applications because it is important that area calculations be as accurate as possible.

All vector data should be rasterized to this projection. As part of this process, the alignment of the pixels should also be considered, so be sure to specify a snap raster in the environment settings. This is especially important if an extent is defined in the environment settings.

The mosaic dataset that will be used as the data container for the application should be set to the optimum projection for the project. Existing raster data does not need to be reprojected unless there is a reason to change the pixel size since the mosaic dataset will handle the reprojection.

Raster pyramids and statistics

It is best practice is to create pyramids and calculate statistics on all raster data, both original raster data and rasterized vectors. Be sure to choose a sampling method that is appropriate to your data.

Format and compression

Although any raster format can be loaded into a mosaic dataset, the preferred format for Landscape Modeler is geoTIFF using the LZW compression method.

3/31/2014