ArcGIS Enterprise - reference implementation
Showcase of capabilities of a Satellite Image Management Solution in ArcGIS Enterprise.
A proof-of-concept implementation of an on-demand satellite imagery management solution was developed and presented to an Australian state government organization using contemporary ArcGIS Enterprise technologies. The requirements of the state Government entity were mainly based around the provision of providing satellite imagery to the general public without the need of physically download the images on the user's hard drive. The original of the satellite images were provided by Planet Labs and it covered the whole area of the State. Since the satellite imagery repository was continuously expanded on a daily basis the client was not prepared to download and store all images within its own infrastructure henceforth a solution had to be presented to overcome these whilst still being available to provide imagery to the general public.
The proposed solution and the implemented proof-of-concept stack consisted of three major components, first a custom-made ArcGIS WebApplicationBuilder widget, which was communicating to PlanetLabs API via a .NET-based proxy-like middleware, secondly a series of Python-based execution routines bundled and deployed in a server environment as an ArcGIS-toolbox and thirdly a publicly available, time enabled ArcGIS Image service, which was hosted on the client's architecture.
Custom WebAppBuilder widget hosted and distributed via Portal for ArcGIS
For front-end access a custom-made widget has been developed using ArcGIS for JavaScript. The widget enable users to access the PlanetLabs repository via an also custom-made .NET middleware and the widget then visualized the available footprints of the areain the viewport. The user was also able to turn on and off the ArcGIS Image Service layer hosting the already downloaded images thus being able to see what image was already acquired by other users - these images were in full resolutions whilst the overview from PlanetLabs were low resolution image footprints. Upon selecting an image footprint from the online map the user was able to initiate a download procedures by clicking on a link on the popup.
The distribution of the widget was delivered by the Portal for ArcGIS system - this enabled the business users within the Department to create low-code web applications and deliver this image download system to their target users.
Backend Arcpy routines and user notifications
When a user initiated a download procedure the backend scripts picked up the new workload and by working with PlanetLabs API they downloaded the image product. Then the image product(s) were cloud-optimized and their XML descriptor were dynamically inserted into a ArcGIS Mosaic Dataset, which was used as a fundamental data storage mechanism of the underlying image service. As a final stage of this routine an email was sent to the user with a hyperlink of the ArcGIS Image service REST API pointing to the downloaded, now full resolution satellite image.
Summary
With this methodology the general public was provided with a solid means to acquire high resolution satellite imagery, which then they could view, print or use with their analytical desktop product - yet never physically possess the image.
Due to the nature of the client all products and references are handed back and no working example or solution can be provided.
Our technology stack
