Tour the Basemap Factory
Esri's Vector Basemaps are made up of over a billion features representing the world’s built and natural environments.
Many basemap styles reference the same underlying features.
The Basemap Factory
adds or updates the features when real world changes are made.
Inside the factory two concurrent assembly lines are at work, the input process and the update cycle.
We will follow a typical update through the assembly lines and into the live basemap.
The Input Process
begins with an authoritative source contributing layers containing updated features.
Many contributions make their way through the input process simultaneously.
Data Pull
The team downloads the layers and begins processing a contribution of parks and trees.
Evaluation
The team evaluates the contributed layers against the existing basemap content.
Since the contribution contains more features and improved geometry, it will simply replace the existing content.
Evaluation Map
Contributor Review
A draft map is shared with the contributor for review.
Draft Preview Map
Integration
The layers are integrated with the basemap database, concluding the input process.
The basemap database acts as the storage warehouse for all of the basemap features and connects the two assembly lines.
The updated features will wait in the basemap database until the next update cycle begins.
The Update Cycle
uses the database to refresh the live basemap content every three weeks.
Database Copy
The entire basemap database, including our example contribution, is copied at the beginning of the cycle.
Indexing
The database copy is indexed according to feature density.
Packaging
Vector tiles are generated from the database copy using the index and then packaged.
Publishing
The vector tile package is published, updating the live basemaps without interruption.
After the update the basemap is enhanced by new features.
Note the new park and tree features from the example contribution in comparison with the previous basemap.
