No idea what I'm doing. Trying to load CIB data

[BrettYoakum]

I was told "Hey we need a CGA.. build it". So I looked at Northrup Grumman's CGA software list as a start, a few days and an Excedrin bottle later, I have ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Engine, ArcGIS server for microsoft sql (express). Military Analyst, and Military Extensions (and a few MS patches to allow me to actually install some of the software). I also have three 2TB drives with all this NGA mapping data on it; CIB, DTED, and some others. If we load one of the CIB directories, all we get is a wire mesh and no maps. We're stuck. If this has been covered before and beaten to death, I apologize, I don't even know what to search for to hit relevant results. "How to load CIB files" Doesn't seem to give me much. It is possible that I'm missing software or following the wrong procedure, so hopefully some of you knowledgeable users can help point me in the right direction.

[EricRice]

Hi Brett,

Did you make a raster catalog or a mosaic dataset to store the CIB?  In either case, you probably just need to zoom in to see the data.  This is a really good starting point for working with CIB in version 10.0.

Imagery Basemap Template

"The Imagery template and the walk-through exercise in the accompanying "Using the Imagery template" document are designed to teach you how to add military imagery data in CIB format to mosaic datasets using ESRI recommended practices. Mosaic datasets are new at version 10 of ArcGIS and are the recommended data type for storing CIB data in ArcGIS."

Getting Started with the Imagery Template PDF

For working with DTED I recommend this 3 part series.

Managing Elevation Data

See also:
Data management for military data
Creating and adding military data to mosaic datasets

Regards,
Eric

[BrettYoakum]

I made a raster catalog, and I zoomed all the way in and still did not see anything. I also set "Wireframe Display" to "Do not display wireframe at all"

We are bound by our customer to use version 9.3.1. Do those links still apply?

[BrettYoakum]

I used the wrong database type. I need an SDE database. Another problem solved. Now on to the next.. I can publish a map, but I don't know where it gets it's levels of detail from. Any Ideas?

[EricRice]

Brett,

Those links are pretty much all related to ArcGIS 10.0.  For CIB in 9.3.1 you should make an MA (military analyst) Catalog that resides in a File Geodatabase.  ArcSDE MA Catalogs will take some time to build because you're actually loading everything in the database vs referencing it from its location on disk (known as unmanaged). Depending on the amount your loading it may work or may not.  Esri recommends File Geodatabase, unless you actually have a CGA, which comes with custom data loading tools to get around some of the issues with loading massive MA catalogs into SDE in 9.3.1. 

Here are some links to get you started.

An overview of data management
Military Analyst RPF catalogs

Please make sure you're loading the data to the FGDB MA catalog using UNC paths rather than a mapped drive letter.

For the level of detail comment -  This often refers to creating cache at different scales. e.g. creating a cached map service.  For CIB and MA catalogs though, I would interpret this to mean what product within the MA catalog is most appropriate to display given the current map scale (level of detail) - This the software just handles for you but only if its in a MA catalog.

Regards,
Eric

[BrettYoakum]

Well, I'm supposed to make a CGA. Is there any way to get those custom data loading tools?

[EricRice]

Hi Brett,

I am pretty sure those tools come from Northrop Grumman. In reviewing the CGA software list I see the following:

Northrop Grumman�??s Geospatial Management
and Provisioning Suite (GMPS)
      - Content management tools
      - Data provisioning

Have you considered just buying a CGA?  It will save you a lot of time and effort.

Regards,
Eric

[BrettYoakum]

Our customer purchases our hardware, and we asked for one, but they denied our request. We only need a small subset of the map to test against, but even that is proving to be quite difficult as there really isn't a clear concise set of instructions and where one CD balloons up to close to 3 gb; I'm starting to understand the $140k price tag for a CGA.

[ChrisLatko]

I wonder if there is a public demo CGA server about on the interwebs. I found the Harvard CGA and got excited... but the acronym stands for the wrong thing..

[EricRice]

Brett,

If you only need (at first) to make a subset roughly 3GB in size you can do that certainly without the aforementioned  'content management tools' from Northrop.  Create an empty MA catalog in your SDE instance.  Set the type to RPF.  Right click on it and choose the load option.  Point to one CD worth of CIB after you copy it from the CD to the local drive.  This will be a managed catalog so it will be loading all the images to your database which will take some time.    I would encourage you to play around with using FGDB at first since it is not actually loading the data, but referencing it from its location on disc.  In this way, you'll get the feel for the workflow and loading process.  When loading in a FDGB I strongly urge you to not use mapped drives like C:\, but rather use UNC paths to the data.  Otherwise when someone else connects to the MA catalog and they don't have the data stored on their machine in C:\ they won't see anything.  You pretty much have to use UNC unless your going to be the only one viewing the catalog locally.

Eric