Common Questions

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is an extension to ArcGIS for Desktop that allows you to serve and use your bathymetric data for a variety of needs such as creating a single composite bathymetric surface on the fly and visualizing multiple surfaces in one frame of reference. The extension also helps you control your hydrographic survey footprints to identify data holdings and see gaps quickly.

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is used by several different types of people across many industries and sciences. Data managers, hydrographers, GIS analysts, ocean scientists, and surveyors across ports, ocean science, hydrographic offices, maritime defense, and offshore energy will take advantage of this technology.

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry requires at least the ArcGIS for Desktop Standard license level.

The ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry bundle includes:

• ArcGIS for Desktop Standard
• ArcGIS 3D Analyst Extension
• ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry supports workflows, integration with complementary applications, and the ability to generate image and map services within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). When ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is implemented as part of an enterprise GIS along with other applications and systems, this is considered a Bathymetric Information System (BIS).

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is optimized to work with gridded surfaces with metadata. There are a variety of ways to model point data into gridded surfaces with ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry and Esri Partner technology.

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is built for users such as you. As part of the ArcGIS system, this software includes standard tools for digitization of existing data as well as new tools for working with gridded surfaces generated in the open source Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG) format used in the hydrographic survey industry. If you would like to combine data into BAGs, Esri recommends using tools provided by QPS Fledermaus.

No, ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry provides the gateway to displaying your bathymetric data with the all the capabilities of mosaic datasets, including image-serving possibilities and many on-the-fly raster functions.

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry is not a storage mechanism for raster data. All the data in your holdings will continue to remain where they were located originally. ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry only references your data. One implication is that your bathymetry database will not require much storage space as it does not actually contain any raster data.

ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry builds an index of your raster data holdings. The actual data files will remain as-is; ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry only makes it easy to quickly find the data you want based on spatial extent, metadata values, or both. Think of the BIS as a jukebox or CD catalog – neither modifies or alters the LPs or CDs in any way. Without either, you could still use your music collection but it would be a laborious task to sift through just to find that one song. Likewise, the BIS makes it easy to select that one raster dataset from terabytes' worth data.

There are just a few things to keep in mind before including data in your BIS:

1. Only raster data, specifically Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG) files, can be added to the BIS at this time. Support for other data formats will be made available in future releases.
2. Make sure all your data is located on a network share before you include it in the BIS. Keep in mind, once you add it to the BIS you must not move it to another location as there is no way for the BIS to track the new location.
3. Anyone else in your organization who will access the BIS must also be provided access to the network storage that stores the raster datasets.

The BIS allows you to extract data in raster or vector (point) formats. You can select data by using a spatial extent to narrow down to the exact datasets you are interested in. You may also query against metadata values to return the datasets you want. Once you have selected the datasets, you may then compose a surface (raster) which you could use to export sampled points.

You may enter any number of metadata fields to describe your data holdings. You may enter your organization's data catalog directly into the BIS and browse or filter your data all conveniently within ArcMap thus greatly enhancing your productivity.

Yes, you can plug any of the bathymetry geoprocessing tools into either a stand-alone Python script or utilize them within the ArcGIS for Desktop ArcPy window.

Yes, you can organize your data using collections (like folders or groups) and by using your own custom metadata for organizing the data. This will allow you to easily search and find data.

Yes, date queries can be performed on your bathymetric data as well as other types of queries such as 'like' or 'exact' queries on text and range queries on numerical data. These queries are all provided in a very intuitive way in the customizable BIS user interface.

BAG or Bathymetric Attributed Grid is a standardized raster format designed specifically for bathymetry that maintains both depth and uncertainty of the surface. The BAG does not only store depth and uncertainty it maintains metadata specific the hydrographic survey, hydrographer certification, tracking list of golden soundings, among additional supporting information. It is the latter that certifies the BAG dataset as a navigable surface and depth values from the BAG can be used to support navigating safely at sea. The ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry extension has the ability to read this information and present it to the end user in a searchable manner.

Yes, content created from the ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry extension can be shared through the intranet or Internet. Since the ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry extension is a component within ArcGIS for Desktop, any surfaces or data resulting can be distributed either through simple file share or with the use of ArcGIS for Server. ArcGIS for Server supports OGC-compliant web services and can assist in the distribution of content to both thin and thick clients.