Opening Images with Advanced Import – Avenza Systems

Advanced Import provides a way to import multiple images that can comprise of different formats and different coordinate systems. Advanced Import has settings to change reference file, source coordinate system, manage color channels, choose DEM schema, adjust image size and extents and mosaic. It is also useful to quickly crop large sized images to a specific geographic extent which may have initially required a long load time.

Click the Advanced Import button on the Geographic Imager panel.

Advanced Import button

Advanced Import Dialog Box

advanced_import_dialogbox

Format

In the Format drop-down list, select an image format (or leave as <Auto detect format>) then click Browse. Alternatively, drag and drop files into the file list. These supported formats are compatible with Advanced Import:

•ArcGIS Online	•ECW	•PCI EASI/PACE
•ArcGIS Online Web Service	•ENVI HDR	•SDTS Transfer
•Web Map Service	•ERDAS IMAGINE Raster	•SGI
•ArcInfo ASCII Grid	•GeoTIFF*/BigTIFF/TIFF (including GeoTIFF DEM)	•SRTM
•ArcInfo Binary Float Grid	•JPEG 2000	•USGS DEM
•ArcInfo Binary Grid	•Military Elevations Data/DTED	•Web Image Formats
•BIL	•MrSID
•BSB	•NITF

* Adobe Photoshop layers are not supported when imported through Advanced Import. Multi-layer GeoTIFF files will be flattened.

Multiple images of varying formats can be imported at a time and are shown in the Image Sources list. Additional information including coordinate system, DEM schema (if applicable), and image dimensions are shown in the list. When a file is selected in the list, it enables or updates the Reference File, Source Coordinate System, Channel Management (if applicable), DEM Schema (if applicable), and Image Extents (if applicable) areas below it. As settings in the dialog box are changed, the Image Sources list will update. To remove a file from the Image Sources list, select it, then click the Remove button.

Double-click an image source to edit its properties.

Remove Background Colour

The Remove Background Colour setting removes a selected background colour from the image source. In the Remove Background dialog box, click the Colour to remove the hyperlink to open the Remove Background dialog box. Select a colour in the preview image or use the quick select colours (white or black). To select a custom colour, click the colour hyperlink. Colour tolerance can also be adjusted to remove more than just the selected colour. Tolerance controls how similar a pixel's colour value must be to the specified colour, in order to make it transparent as well. "Exact" (or tolerance of 0) means only pixels of the specified colour will be removed. By increasing the tolerance, a broader range of pixel colours will be considered (e.g. if 0,0,0 is selected and you have the tolerance increase, 1,1,1 can also be removed).

Remove background only applies to the edge areas of an image (not in the middle of an image)

When imported, the background colour will be removed from the image:

Remove Background is also available when Mosaicking is enabled in Advanced Import. Settings are available to select a colour from an existing document.

remove-background-colour-options

The result of a mosaic with the black background colour removed:

image-no-background-result

Georeferencing

The associated reference file is displayed in this section (e.g. boston-east.tif). To change the reference file, click the reference file hyperlink and browse for a new one. See Specifying a Reference File.

The coordinate system used in the reference file is displayed in this section (e.g. NAD27). To specify a new coordinate system, click the coordinate system hyperlink to open the Specify Source Coordinate system dialog box (see Specifying a Coordinate System). Alternatively, choose a coordinate system from a file or assign a coordinate system from an existing image in the File Import List.

Channel Management

The colour mode is displayed in this section (e.g. RGB Colour - 3 channel). To edit how the colour mode channels are assigned, click the colour mode hyperlink to open the Channel Management dialog box (see Channel Management). Change the Colour Mode in the drop-down list. Click a channel role colour drop-down list to assign that specific channel a new colour. To create image transparency based on a channel, click the according to check box in the Transparency column. These changes are displayed in the list and will be reflected in the Adobe Photoshop Channels panel. For multiple selected files that have the same number of bands and colour mode, the colour mode hyperlink will be enabled to allow for channel management modifications.

channel-management_dialogbox_small

information Channel Management is not available with Web Map Image Formats.

Image Extents, Crop and Resample

The image extents of the selected file are displayed in this area (in pixels). Also displayed are its scale and raw file size. There are two options available here: Crop and Resample. Click the Crop button to open the GeoCrop dialog box to crop the image. Click the Resample button to open the Resample Image dialog box to adjust the size of the image by width/height or a percentage value.

resampleimage

information When a crop is performed on a DEM with Auto-stretched schema type, the DEM schema in the file list will update to specify it as Crop auto-stretched.

information Selecting the extents of a WMS layer are only available at the time when adding the WMS layer to Advanced Import.

DEM Schema

The DEM schema is displayed in this section (e.g. Auto-stretched) and is only applicable to DEM files. To change the schema, click the schema hyperlink to open the Import DEM file dialog box (see DEM Schema). The Import DEM file dialog box provides options to apply a schema (custom, preset or saved) based on the statistics of the raster data set. Use the Combine DEM Schema setting on the main Advanced Import dialog box when importing multiple files that may be of a similar data range or geographic location. This will find the minimum and maximum values of all DEM files and use a broader range than just a single file (indicated in the DEM Schema as Combined.)

Mosaicking

When an image is already open or more than one image is listed in the Advanced Import dialog box, the Mosaic all files to the destination document option will be available. Enable the option and choose the appropriate destination document to mosaic into (either an existing open document or one of the images listed). The destination document changes depending on which listed image is selected. The images will mosaic upon import. The Remove background colour option removes a selected background colour, see below for more information. See more about Mosaic.

advanced_import_mosaic

information It is not recommended to mosaic DEMs with different schemas. Enable the Combine DEM value range in new schema option before mosaicking.

information Mosaic is not available with Basic license.

Layer and Mosaic Options

The layer and mosaic options available in the Advanced Import dialog box are the same as the mosaic options in the Mosaic dialog box. See the Layer Options and Mosaic Options sections.

Advanced Import Notes

information Any image with multiple layers will be flattened. As a result of this, any transparency that exists on layers is lost, however, channels are preserved. To maintain transparency, use the File > Open command instead.

information If you're using a custom DEM schema and use GeoCrop, the cropped result will still use the custom schema. It is recommended to use an Auto-stretched schema when using Geocrop so that the new schema range for the cropped result will be "Crop auto-stretched".

information Image rotation may not be read with some files exported from ArcGIS. The Angle may display as "N/A" (not available) in the Geographic Imager panel.

information When importing data using a Web Map Service, the "Set Background Transparent" option is only a suggestion for the server to create a transparent background. The WMS server may ignore this request, which will result in an opaque background.

information When using drag and drop to add files, any files contained within subfolders will not be added. Only files contained in the parent folder will be added.

Adobe Photoshop saves TIFF images in a way that channel transparency information is not compatible with Geographic Imager. A workaround is to save to BigTIFF because channel transparency information in this format is compatible with Geographic Imager. If required, save it to TIFF since Geographic Imager had previously written the channel transparency correctly.

information Remove Background does not support 32-bit images, or colour modes other than RGB, Greyscale, Lab or CMYK.