ArcGIS Image Dedicated is a managed software as a service (SaaS) to manage, serve, process, and analyze imagery and rasters directly from Azure or AWS cloud storage. Esri manages the dedicated servers, compute infrastructure and software ensuring scalability.
ArcGIS Image Dedicated is released quarterly. For the latest discussion on Image Dedicated please check out the Esri Community page on ArcGIS Image Dedicated here.
The following are the key highlights and enhancements of the December 2024 release of ArcGIS Image Dedicated.
Improved User Experience
- The User Interface (UI) is updated to provide a better user experience. The new UI is more intuitive, providing a clearer navigation flow. The UI continues to maintain consistent design elements, such as colors, fonts, and icons creating a unified visual identity. The new UI has adapted a well-guided visual hierarchy with new UI additions like Admin, Resources, Settings. The improved layout groups and places user actions more cohesively, maintaining a clear purpose and providing the user with a smooth navigation experience.
- The Pro Machines are available as part of Processing and Analysis. To improve user accessibility, all the actions that can be performed on the Pro machine are grouped. Click on … seen next to the Pro Machine. The list of actions that can be performed for the Pro Machine are listed.
- All the documentation, toolboxes and other downloadable resources are available as part of Resources.
- The administrative actions like Reports and Account Summary are available as a part of Admin.
- The Data Storage Account is available as a part of Settings.
Pro Machine Enhancements
- ArcGIS Image Dedicated supports ArcGIS Pro 3.4 in addition to the existing versions. Currently, ArcGIS Pro 3.4 is the default version.
- The large, medium and small GPU instances for ArcGIS Pro 3.4 onwards have been upgraded from G4dn to G6 instances in AWS. The G6 instances present the users with 2xhigher graphics performance in comparison to G4dn instances.
- The users can connect to Pro machines with ArcGIS Pro 3.4 and above, using Remote Desktop Gateway. In the earlier versions of ArcGIS Image dedicated, users connected to Pro machines directly through the RDP port 3389. In organizations with strict firewalls, every time the user wants to connect, they may have required their administrator to whitelist the IP address of the Pro machine and enable the RDP port 3389. To enhance security, reliability and connection experience, we recommend connecting to Pro machines with ArcGIS Pro 3.4 and above, using Remote Desktop Gateway. The Remote Desktop Gateway uses HTTPS protocol to encrypt and secure the connection. It encapsulates RDP within HTTPS which uses SSL/TLS to encrypt the connection. The extra layer of security further secures the connection. All the traffic is routed through port 443 (HTTPS), providing encryption and transport over secure ports. With DNS over HTTPS, if the user must request for whitelisting, they need to request for domain whitelisting and not the IP address whitelisting. Domain whitelisting is not a recurring task but a onetime request. Currently the DNS provided is *. imagededicated.esri.com.
Dynamic and Tiled Imagery
- New Dynamic and Tiled Imagery Servers can be created using ArcGIS Server version 11.4.
- Existing Dynamic and Tiled Imagery Servers can be upgraded to ArcGIS Server version 11.4. To upgrade an existing server, users must submit an upgrade request. Click on … for the server that needs an upgrade. From the drop-down list click Upgrade Server Version. Fill the Upgrade Server Request form as prompted, Click Upgrade Server. The ArcGIS Image Dedicated team will set up a server using a defined DNS name and notify the user via email. Within the 7-day trial period the user should test and confirm if the DNS swap should be performed or place a hold due to an identified issue. After the DNS swap, the old server will be deleted.
- Enterprise Geodatabase support is available for Dynamic Imagery Server 11.4 and upwards in Azure environment. The previous versions of Imagery Servers offered only File Geodatabase support. With File Geodatabases, when a large mosaic dataset was used to create an image definition, the time consumed to create a .zmd file was large. In addition, if the size of the image definition is > than 2GB, it is required to copy the image definition to cloud storage and then passed as input to the Create Image Definition GP tool. In Imagery Server version 11.4 onwards, if the mosaic dataset is stored in the RDBMS databases, user passes these mosaic datasets as input to Create Image Definition GP Tool using a .sde file. The image definition will be created and used to create the image services. However, the RDBMS (PostgreSQL) needs to be maintained and managed (in cloud or on-premises) by the user themselves. The user also requires a valid license to enable the geodatabase functionality in the database.
Processing and Analysis
Two Deep Learning GeoProcessing Endpoints Classify Pixels (Beta) and Detect Objects (Beta) are now available to the user. The users can submit deep learning jobs using their own raster dataset sitting in the cloud and deep learning model package (.dlpk). The users get to choose the cloud provider, region, and machine type for their rocessing requirements. There is no need for the user to install deep learning libraries or selecting the GPU machine types when submitting deep learning jobs.
- Classify Pixels (Beta): Runs a trained deep learning model on an input raster or Mosaic Dataset to produce a classified raster, with each valid pixel having an assigned class label.
- Detect Objects (Beta): Runs a trained deep learning model on an input raster to produce a feature class containing the objects it discovers. The features can be bounding boxes or polygons around the objects found or points at the centers of the objects.
Want to learn more?
Check out our resources below to help you get started:
Article Discussion: