Webinar Q&A - Discover Your Data’s Depth: Applications of ArcGIS Bathymetry

[AngeliqueSamaro]

On June 20, 2023, the ArcGIS Bathymetry product team organized a webinar where the team showcased a diverse range of applications of ArcGIS Bathymetry. Attendees learned about using time series bathymetric Inland Electronic Navigational Charts (bIENCs) and creating custom bathymetric surfaces. This document outlines questions asked during the webinar and answers from our product experts. 

Questions and Answers: 

What is ArcGIS Bathymetry and where can I learn more about it? 

ArcGIS Bathymetry simplifies managing, analyzing, and sharing bathymetric data, empowering organizations to make better decisions faster. It extends ArcGIS Pro with tools and workflows for exploring and modeling bathymetric data and its metadata in a GIS environment. After users collect and process their raw data, ArcGIS Bathymetry catalogs finalized data products in the Bathymetric Information System (BIS) database. 

Did you encounter any difficulties in incorporating BAG files generated from HYPACK to your BIS?  

We (ArcGIS Bathymetry team) had some issues that led us to get Hypack to revise their BAG metadata inputs, after which it went more smoothly. We encourage you to watch the Hypack videos in the storymap. 

What is a "constant raster layer"? 

A constant raster is a raster where every cell has the same value. In the case study demonstrated during the webinar, the value was 15 because the required depth in Zona2 was 15 meters. 

How was this custom symbology created for volume? 

Custom symbology was not used for volume. The symbology used was the default from the Cut Fill tool. 

How do I load the data from Hypack? 

We encourage you to watch the Hypack videos in this storymap to learn how HYPACK data were transformed into input data for ArcGIS Pro. 

What tool did you use to plot the multiple channel profiles you showed in the demo? Is that part of the Bathymetry tools? 

We used the ArcGIS Pro chart tool on the dataset once we had created multidimensional information for it using depth and time (our data had a survey date field). 

Is this ArcGIS Bathymetry extension to ArcGIS Pro free or is there an additional cost involved? 

ArcGIS Bathymetry is an extension to ArcGIS Pro. You can contact your Esri account manager or distributor (if you are located outside the United States) for more information. Or send us an email at maritime@esri.com and we can connect you with them. 

Does the web app need to be used to create the query model? 

This is true for ArcGIS Pro at 3.1 (current version). At version 3.2 of ArcGIS Pro (scheduled to release in late October/early November) the tools for sorting and filtering, and creating the rule and model files will be available in ArcGIS Pro and you will not need the web app. 

How do we use this tool together with QINSy? 

Once you have corrected and cleaned your QPD files, export your survey results as XYZ, LAS, GeoTiffs or BAGs from QPS software to import in ArcGIS Pro. 

Is this web app available already and how can I access it? 

Yes. The web application was released with ArcGIS Bathymetry 3.1 in February. The Web App is delivered with the installer files for ArcGIS Bathymetry. You will get that from the location where you download your licensed installer files. For most organizations, that is on your MyEsri site. 

What special skills or knowledge is required to set up the widgets? Enterprise? ArcGIS Online?  

It depends on how complex your infrastructure is. If you are using SDE and are deploying to a server that hosts IIS-based applications, you would need skills in your DBMS type as well as a good knowledge of your server infrastructure. However, ArcGIS Bathymetry can also be as simple as running a FGDB BIS from a desktop computer that can publish to a server machine, and a server machine running Node JS. 

Does the Bathy Web App require all data to be in one BIS Catalog Dataset or can the data be in multiple BISs? 

The Web App is reading a mosaic dataset published as an image service. It might be possible to manually piece together a mosaic dataset using data from different BISs. However, because the mosaic dataset is using a specialized Bathymetry Raster Type, the BISs would have to share the same schema. 

ArcGIS Pro can read traditional BAG files, but NOAA now publishes their hydrographic data as "Variable Resolution" BAGS (the VR acronym in the file name indicates these). How do I get ArcGIS to use these files? It only displays the lowest resolution band of the raster and not the higher resolution bands. 

The VR BAG contravenes the accepted format of a raster being a regularly spaced grid. Because the VR cells are irregular, raster and statistics tools cannot work with them. Those who want to use them in ArcGIS Pro either accept the coarsest resolution (as you have noted) or use a telescoping and blending method for them to convert the VR BAG to a GeoTiff. We encourage you to look at NOAA HSTB's GitHub repository at https://github.com/noaa-ocs-hydrography/drivers/blob/main/HSTB/drivers/bag.py that provides a Python script to do that. 

It was stated at the beginning of the webinar that there are features that will not be described due to time.  Will there be a future MOOC developed for hands-on training and experience for utilizing ArcGIS Bathymetry? 

ArcGIS Bathymetry is designed to be quick and easy to learn. We encourage you to visit our video page to view a series of short tutorial videos. Contact us if you have outstanding questions not answered in the tutorial videos. 

Can you guide the way to share BIS service and configure ArcGIS Bathymetry web app? 

This workflow is provided in the ArcGIS Bathymetry tutorial videos.  

Resources 

Access the webinar recording here.  

Maximizing Hydrospatial Data for Port Operations storymap.  

Access our demo site to explore featured maps and apps.   

Watch a series of training videos for the ArcGIS Bathymetry extension here.  

Check out our product page for the latest ArcGIS Bathymetry resources.