About raster data in Spatial Analyst

Available with Spatial Analyst license.

When using ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension for your processing, you will have to use or create raster datasets. A raster is composed of an array of equally sized cells arranged in rows and columns, where each cell contains a value representing information such as elevation, temperature, or land-cover type.

It is important to understand how a raster dataset is represented in ArcGIS and the issues you need to be aware of when using and creating rasters. To get the maximum benefit of the capabilities of Spatial Analyst, you should be familiar with some fundamental aspects of raster data. There is extensive information on raster data available in the Imagery and raster section section of the Data > Data types documentation.

Many raster file formats are supported by ArcGIS.

The shape of raster cells

It is important to note that Spatial Analyst performs operations on square cells only. Thus, the size of each cell, known as its resolution, must be the same in each dimension.

Spatial Analyst operates on square raster cells

Spatial Analyst operations are based on square raster cells (cell width = height).

If you have input raster data in formats that support non-square cells, before the operation is performed, the raster will first be converted to square cells.

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