I am unable to purchase the imagery extension because of the huge cost that doesn't fit in our budget. I have a mosaic dataset already for our users to use in their MXD's but I need to publish this for use in our internal and public web maps. I never had a raster problem before, I have mosaiced and georeferenced large imagery for years but 10.x has made things so difficult it seems. I want ERDAS imagine but that is also much more than our budget as well.
This is imagery is comprised of 4000+ individual Tiff images equal to about 1.25 TB. I am running this on beefed up server machines using ArcCatalog, Python, or ArcPro. I also have been running this locally all contained on the same server.
Here is what I have tried so far (each multiple times with various changes):
1. mosaic in one Tiff image is 0.99 TB before pyramids, with it climbs to 8 TB so I scrapped that. That is just absurd!
2. I tried to mosaic in a File GDB but my configuration keyword never stuck (ESRI says there is no way to tell if a keyword was applied). The image stopped processing at 1 TB even.
3. I tried to mosaic in an Oracle SDE, this crashed as well, tried this various ways using various tools/environment settings)
4. I tried to mosaic again in the Oracle SDE but this time with a JPG compression but JPG doesn't support 4 bands so I used a layer file dropping that 3rd band. I used this successfully with one image but when I try it wit hte 4000+ it crashes about halfway.
5. I tried using ArcGIS Pro from ESRI Tech support advice, this failed the same as every other process
6. I tried multiple variations (from above) in Python scripts that crash asfter a week or 2. Half the state finishes.
I have tried for almost a year now (constantly running something) trying to mosaic this imagery and have failed time and time again. Each time I run this it sits for 2 months minimum running in Arc Catalog, few weeks in ArcPro, and a week or so in Python. I have tried everything short of a raster catalog. I am going to be trying with the free opensource QGIS today or tomorrow and then I am throwing my hands up and using a raster catalog. ESRI support (multiple calls) has not offered me anything useful other than a sales pitch for the imagery extension that I repeatedly state is beyond the means of our budget.
So what is the future for Raster Catalogs? Will they be supported in future versions? Would it be wise to go this route? At the moment it may be my only option. I need to do this every 2-3 years.
Suggestions? comments?