Geographic server technology now makes it possible to better integrate imagery into the core of the GIS. This technology was demonstrated at the 2008 ESRI UC Plenary Session. Presenters Peter Becker and Mark Romero gave examples of how people in Germany are using ArcGIS Server to tightly integrate imagery within a complete GIS. The capabilities of this integration were showcased in two examples, the Bavarian Forest Service and the Hamburg Fire Department.

The first example showed how the Bavarian Forest Service served 2 ½ TB of imagery to their 3,000 users. This included color and infrared imagery and raster datasets such as rasterized LIDAR. They showed image services returning terrain height values into ArcMap, slope and aspect maps, and a shaded relief rendering of the surface model that displayed the tree canopy details.

An image service created by subtracting the terrain model from the surface model enabled the direct measurement of tree heights. These different image services used the server's processing ability to generate multiple products from a single data source, without the requirement to pre-generate the image products.

 

Imagery integrated into GIS enables users to include data rasters in ArcMap to display tree canopy details.

In a demonstration of the workflow, presenters showed how to update the color image service using an IKONOS satellite image, which was quickly added to the existing service and re-published. The orthorectification, pansharpening, and mosaicking was performed on-the-fly. The same imagery was then published as a 4-band OGC WCS service and accessed by ITT-VIS's ENVI image analysis application. The presenter showed how a wizard could extract images of areas with un-healthy trees and then return the images directly into ArcMap.

The second set of examples was based in Hamburg. The presenter showed how Image Server technology was able to orthorectify Pictometry's oblique imagery and display this within ArcMap. The application enabled users to see in 3D different sides of buildings and make height measurements.

The last example was about how the Hamburg Fire Department uses image archives for risk analysis of unexploded World War II bombs. They have created an image service that contains many georeferenced reconnaissance images that were taken during missions flown more than 60 years ago. The tools then enabled the analyst, for any area, to look through the photographs taken at different times and digitize the location of all craters that indicated bombing activity.

 

Hamburg Fire Department combined imagery and GIS to create this risk analysis of areas in the city where unexploded WWII bombs remain a threat.

The image server technology enabled fast access and review of this temporal data. They also showed how the swipe tool could be used to make comparisons between the historical imagery that was dynamically mosaicked together and new color ortho-imagery. The new color-imagery used was actually streamed over the Internet from an image server located in Germany that was dynamically mosaicking the imagery together from the original source imagery.

SWWII aerial photos of Hamburg were digitized for GIS mosaicking project. A swipe tool compares landscapes of past and present eras.

The presentation effectively demonstrated how imagery can be dynamically processed, mosaicked, and served to any client through image services. The tight integration of imagery with GIS technology improves workflows for collection, management, and production tasks. Users can then exploit the richness of this integrated imagery.

Learn more about how integrated server-based GIS can help you get connected at ESRI's ArcGIS Server Website.