Create Suitability Overlays

Suitability overlays are coarse, high-level classifications of terrain for movement and cover. They are not a final product but are made to do initial site selection assessment. Further analysis, and mensuration, will be done later on in the planning process in much more detail, usually with high resolution imagery.

There are 5 overlays you will create as part of this exercise:

Cover from flat trajectory weapons
Concealment from aerial detection
Suitable Helicopter Landing Zones
Suitable Drop Zones
Suitable off-road movement

Setting up the map document and data

You will use ArcMap and the MAoT suitability tools to build these overlays and publish them to Server. Before you can create the overlays you must set up the map document and input data.

Open Create Suitability Overlays.mxd from the template location\Military Aspects of Terrain Template\Maps folder.
Select Customize > Extensions.
Check Spatial Analyst.
Click Close.

Note

This checks out an ArcGIS Spatial Analyst license from your license manager. If you receive an error stating that the license is not available you must contact your system administrator to resolve the problem before you continue.
Select Geoprocessing > Geoprocessing Options.
Check Overwrite the outputs of geoprocessing operations.
This option allows you to overwrite output features that already exist. When you open a geoprocessing tool the output will give you a warning, not an error, if the output file already exists.

For this template the Overwrite option is primarily used to overwrite intermediate datasets created during geoprocessing operations.
Click OK.
Select Geoprocessing > Environments.
Expand Workspace.
Set Current Workspace to template location\Military Aspects of Terrain Template\Maps\OperationsGDB.gdb.
This sets the default output location for any GP tools you run.
Set Scratch Workspace to template location\Military Aspects of Terrain Template\Maps\Toolbox\scratch\scratch.gdb.
Any intermediate data created by a geoprocessing tool is created here. This keeps it separate from your results, though all intermediate data is deleted after processing completes successfully.
Click OK.
Click the red exclamation mark next to the Elevation Service layer..
A Set Data Source window appears.
Browse to the Elevation image service on Land Ops User>\BattlefieldEnv\Elevation.
Click Add.
The link should be repaired and the red exclamation should be gone. For more information search for repairing broken links in the ArcGIS 10.1 Help.
You may need to repeat steps 13 through 15 for the Slope and Combined Vegetation Coverage layers. You created the Combined Vegetation Coverage in the installation and setup section of the help. The Slope image service can also be found at Land Ops User\BattlefieldEnv\Slope.
Select File > Save As to save the map document to a new location and with a new name. Do not choose the Save option as this will save back to the original Create Suitability Overlays.mxd.

Creating the overlays

Now that the map document and data are set up you will run the geoprocessing tools that build the individual suitability overlays. Each of these tools uses similar inputs: an Area of Interest, elevation image service, and vegetation layers (these two were set in the previous section).

Open Concealment From Aerial Detection from the Cover and Concealment toolset.
1. Select an Area of Interest. You can either choose an existing layer with the drop down arrow, or you can draw a polygon using the Area of Interest tool below the layer drop down.
2. Make sure Combined Vegetation Coverage is set to Combined Vegetation Coverage.
  This layer was created when you installed and setup the template.
3. Next to Output Concealment Features browse to the MAOT geodatabase connection\LandOps\Data\MAoT\MAOT.sde connection you used in the template setup and type Concealment.
  When you click out of the Output Concealment Features parameter the path should resolve itself to the MAOT.sde geodatabase. It should look something like MAOT geodatabase connection\LandOps\Data\MAoT\MAOT.sde\MAOT.DBO.Concealment
  
  While this output is shared to an enterprise geodatabase, you are able to send the data to a local file geodatabase that is included with the MAoT template, where the path would look like this: template location\Military Aspects of Terrain Template\Maps\OperationGDB.gdb\Concealment
4. Click OK.
  The tool will process vegetation data into concealment features. A new Concealment layer will be added to the map.
Next run Cover From Flat Trajectory Weapons the same way you ran Concealment.
1. Select a similar Area of Interest.
2. Select the Combined Vegetation Coverage you created earlier.
3. Select Land Ops User\BattlefieldEnv\Slope for the Slope Service.
4. Set the output to the MAOT geodatabase connection>\LandOps\Data\MAoT\MAOT.sde\MAOT.DBO.Cover.
5. Click OK.
This tool adds a Cover layer to your map showing areas that offer protection.
Then run Suitable HLZs to produce a layer of suitable helicopter landing zones (HLZ). You will run this the same way you did the Concealment and Cover tools. Set your output to be MAOT geodatabase connection\SuitableHLZ.
A layer showing suitable HLZ areas is added to the map.
Run Suitable Drop Zones next. Here set the output to be MAOT geodatabase connection\SuitableDropZones.
The Suitable Drop Zones layer is added to the map showing areas where troops or material might be delivered by parachute.
Next you will run off-road mobility tools. These estimate a maximum speed for off-road travel for various vehicle types. You have two tools to choose from; FM 5-33 CCM and Raster Off-road mobility. These tools that are similar in inputs but differ in workflow, processing time, and output. It is highly likely that you will run these tools more than one time, to produce results for different vehicle types under different conditions (dry/wet soils, minimum/maximum vegetation). Make sure that each time you run the tools that the output is sent to MAOT geodatabase connection and that the output datasets are named differently so you can distinguish between them in the map's table of contents or legend. Before you run these tools you should familiarize yourself with them by reading through the tool help.
Select File > Save.
You should be saving to the new map document you made in the last step of the previous section.

Publishing the overlays

Now that you've created the overlays you will publish them as a combined map service and then reference it on the ArcGIS for Defense - Land Operations server's portal. In this section you will share the overlays you created as one single map service called Terrain Suitability Overlays.

Select File > Map Document Properties.
1. Type Terrain Suitability Overlays for the map document Title.
2. Change the Summary and Description to suit the layers included, date and currency of data, and the purpose for your unit.
3. Type an Author and if necessary Credits.
4. Click OK.
  These are important information when you are sharing data. This information is passed onto the service and will be used by others to search for and evaluate your data.
Before you publish you'll need to remove a few layers that should not be published with the overlays.
1. Select Combined Vegetation Coverage, Slope, Elevation Service, and Bing Maps Aerial (this is the basemap).
2. Right-click and select Remove.
  The map should now ONLY contain the suitability tool result layers you created in the previous section.
Select File > Save.
Select File > Share As > Service.
1. Select Publish a service and click Next.
2. Under Choose a connection, select the Land Ops Publisher connection from GIS Servers that you created in the template setup.
3. Check that the Service name is TerrainSuitabilityOverlays. There should not be any spaces in the name.
4. Click Next.
5. Select BattlefieldEnv next to Use existing folder and click Continue. Service Editor dialog opens.
6. Click Analyze to check the document's readiness to publish. The analysis results show in the Prepare window in ArcMap. Any Errors must be resolved before you publish and Warnings should be reviewed. You can continue if there are no Errors.
7. Click Publish.

The service is now published. You should open a new ArcMap session and try to add the service to test.

Saving the results as Layer Packages

You also have the option of sharing your results as layer packages. Layer packages allow you to take a data layer, or group layers, and consolidate them into a single file. This LPK file can be emailed, posted to a file server, or posted to an ArcGIS Portal, like the ArcGIS for Defense: Land Operations portal.

Right-click on the overlay layer to share.
Select Create Layer Package.
Layer Package window opens.
Select Item Description in the left pane.
Item Description properties appear in the right pane.
Fill in the required parameters: Summary and Tags. Description should be filled in.
Select Layer Package in the left pane.
Layer Package properties appear in the right pane.

The service is now published. You should open a new ArcMap session and try to add the service to test.

Select a packaging option:
- Choose Upload package to my ArcGIS Online account to save the package to ArcGIS Online or to the Land Ops portal.
- Choose Save package to file to save the package to an LPK file, to email or store on a file server. This file can also be uploaded to ArcGIS Online or the Land Ops portal at a later time.
Select Analyze in the Layer Package toolbar.
The Prepare window appears in ArcMap. This shows a list of Errors, Warnings and Messages. You must fix the Errors before the layer package can be created. Warnings should be checked to see if they should be fixed.
Click Share.
When the packaging is done you will see a dialog saying it is finished.
Close ArcMap.

These overlays are ready for the battalion's intelligence and planning staff to use for further assessment and analysis.

For further information on processes used in the exercise: