Creating a basemap for dynamic display

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A basemap is a layer in the map that serves as reference data and does not or rarely ever changes. When designed and used correctly in a dynamic display application, basemaps increase performance. Dynamic display applications contain two types of layers, static and dynamic. Static layers are layers that do not implement IDynamicLayer. For these layers, dynamic display uses a tiling scheme to rasterize and cache the layer. The exception to this is when the layer is a raster or a map service.     

When creating a dynamic display application, it is important to eliminate or minimize the number layers that must be rasterized as this process can take time and reduce the performance of your application. Rasters, map service layers, and tile packages (.tpk) make ideal basemaps for dynamic display applications. Dynamic display applications should only contain a basemap and dynamic layers, and should only use other static layers if absolutely necessary.     

Starting at 10.1, basemaps can easily be created by creating tile packages. Tile packages contain a rasterized tile cache of data in your map document and can be opened using the IPackageFile.Unpack method. Refer to the Desktop help system for more information on creating tile packages. 

When designing a basemap, also use scale dependent renderers upon the layers whenever possible. Detailed layers might only be appropriate when zoomed in to a certain scale. For example, having the street network showing at full extent might clutter the map.