Raster rendering behavior

ArcGIS Pro displays your raster data with the most appropriate renderer according to the raster properties (such as number of bands, source type, pixel type, and statistics) and metadata that is available. You can control the default rendering in the Options window by changing the settings on the Raster and Imagery > Appearance tab.

You can interactively choose different rendering methods based on your display and analysis needs once the raster data is added to the display. You can change these methods on the Appearance tab or in the Symbology pane. To preserve the rendering properties you've set, you can save a layer file (*.lyrx).

All raster datasets and mosaic datasets include a Source Type property, such as elevation or thematic, that describes the data. This property affects how the data is rendered. For example, for elevation, the default resampling method is bilinear and the default stretch is minimum-maximum. For thematic, nearest neighbor resampling is used with a standard deviation stretch. If the value is Processed, no stretch is applied.

Render raster products

Raster products are designed to make adding imagery from specific sensors or data providers to your map simpler because each raster product has a unique set of enhancements and band combinations to provide an optimal view of your data. The stretch, band combinations, and necessary functions are added to enhance the layer to modify the display. However, as with any other layer, you can modify these functions once they are added to the map.

Each raster product has a default template. This is typically Multispectral. Therefore, if you don't expand the raster product to choose a different template, this default is used.

Learn more about raster products

Render single-band datasets

When a single-band raster dataset is drawn, the rules for determining the default renderer are as follows:

  • If your dataset includes a color map, it is displayed with the Colormap renderer using the colors stored in the color map. If your data includes an attribute table with red, green, and blue values, it is used as the color map and takes priority over any color map file that may exist.
  • If your dataset contains 1-bit data and the dataset does not include pyramids, the Unique Values renderer is used with 0 set to white and 1 set to black. When 1-bit data includes pyramids, the Stretched renderer is used. Pyramid files for 1-bit data are created as 8-bit grayscale to achieve improved display when viewing the raster at its full extent.
  • If your dataset contains 25 or fewer unique values, the Unique Values renderer is used with random colors assigned to the values.
  • If your dataset includes an internally stored custom stretch, the Stretched renderer is used with a color ramp from black to white.
  • If your dataset includes statistics, the Stretched renderer is used with a color ramp from black to white, using the most appropriate stretch type for the data. If there are no statistics stored with your dataset, they are sampled from the dataset and the Stretched renderer is applied; however, these statistics are only used for the display and are not stored with the dataset.

Render multiband datasets

When a multiband raster dataset is drawn, the default uses the RGB composite renderer. If the data includes wavelength information, it is displayed with the red, green, and blue bands; otherwise, it uses the default band combination on the Raster and Imagery > Appearance tab of the Options window. If your dataset does not include statistics, they are sampled from the dataset and the RGB composite renderer is applied; however, these statistics are only used for the display and are not stored with the dataset.

Render mosaic datasets

A mosaic dataset is a data model in the geodatabase used to manage a collection of raster datasets (images) stored as a catalog and viewed as a mosaicked image. When you add a mosaic dataset to ArcGIS Pro, it is added as a mosaic layer that appears in the Contents pane as a special group layer with a minimum of three layers: Boundary, Footprint, and Image.

The Image layer is used to control the rendering of the mosaicked image of the mosaic dataset. You can edit the symbology on the Appearance tab or in the Symbology pane. Modifications you make to the Image layer properties do not affect the mosaic dataset—only how it is rendered at the time you are viewing it.

Learn more about the Mosaic layer

Render alpha bands

An alpha band acts as a transparency mask, providing a transparency value for each pixel. An alpha band can be specified for multiple-band raster datasets rendered with the RGB renderer.

By default, the alpha band is set to None.

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