Remotely sensed data is essential for understanding changes on the ground, supporting urban planning, and making informed decisions. From satellite imagery to lidar and raster datasets, these resources provide valuable insights that help organizations better understand their surroundings.

However, managing large volumes of imagery and extracting useful information can be time-consuming, resource-intensive, and technically demanding. ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online offers a simpler way to host, analyze, and share imagery and raster data without the need to manage additional infrastructure.

Here are three ways it can help GIS teams work more efficiently.

1. Make Imagery More Accessible

Imagery is often stored on hard drives or local systems, making it difficult for teams to access, search, analyze, and share. Traditional imagery management systems can also require significant investment in infrastructure and technical expertise.

With ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, organizations can host their imagery directly in ArcGIS Online, making it easier for internal teams and external stakeholders to access and use the latest data.

The platform also handles tasks such as converting data to the required map projections and managing metadata behind the scenes, reducing the technical workload for GIS teams.

By making imagery more accessible, organizations can improve collaboration and help more people use geospatial data to support their work.

2. Automate Repetitive Imagery Analysis Tasks

As imagery becomes easier to collect, organizations can monitor changes on the ground more frequently. However, manually extracting features from every new imagery collection can slow down GIS teams.

ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online helps streamline these workflows through pretrained deep learning models available in ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.

GIS analysts can use these models to extract building footprints, classify land cover, detect objects, and support change detection. Instead of manually identifying every feature, analysts can select the appropriate tool, adjust parameters where necessary, and run the analysis.

For example, a city GIS team can use a pretrained building footprint extraction model to identify buildings in newly acquired imagery. The extracted footprints can then be compared with previous data to highlight new construction and other structural changes.

Tasks that previously took days can potentially be completed in minutes, freeing GIS professionals to focus on interpreting results and supporting better decisions.

3. Empower Stakeholders with Self-Service Access to Insights

GIS teams often support multiple departments that depend on spatial information for activities such as property tax assessments, emergency response, and urban planning. When stakeholders need specific analyses, GIS staff may have to interrupt other tasks to produce the required information.

ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online helps address this challenge by allowing teams to publish a single imagery layer and use it to create multiple information products tailored to different needs.

These products can be shared through interactive applications, dashboards, and reports, enabling stakeholders to explore and filter information independently.

For example, emergency response teams can identify road construction sites that may affect their routes, while urban planners can examine areas with limited green spaces to inform planning decisions.

GIS teams can update the underlying imagery layer while stakeholders continue using the information products to explore the data relevant to their work. This reduces repetitive requests and makes geospatial insights more accessible across the organization.

Get More from Your Imagery with ArcGIS Online

Managing imagery and raster data does not have to involve complex infrastructure, repetitive manual work, or constant requests for GIS analysis.

ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online helps organizations make imagery more accessible, automate common analysis tasks, and empower stakeholders to explore information relevant to their needs.

By simplifying these workflows, GIS teams can use their time and resources more effectively while turning remotely sensed data into actionable insights.

Discover how ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online can simplify your imagery workflows.

Explore more: https://go.esri.com/simplify-imagery