Bathymetry data can be very large and difficult to manage, especially if you view all of the data at the same time. The Explore Bathymetry tool allows you to filter your Bathymetry Information System (BIS) database and display data based on user-defined criteria, such as a dataset's properties or the dataset's collection, extended, and internal metadata. These metadata fields can be customized to include attributes that pertain to your data holdings. The metadata can then be used to filter your datasets to create a custom preview of your Bathymetry Data Index and add it directly to ArcMap.
You can save filter settings to a filter file, which can be applied to other bathymetry data added to the BIS geodatabase. Within the Explore Bathymetry window, you can edit bathymetry metadata, or you can add the filtered bathymetry data directly to the Compose Surface window to sort data and apply display rules.
You can set the following filters in the Explore Bathymetry window:
- Properties filter
- Collection metadata filter
- Extended metadata filter
- Internal metadata filter
Using the filters listed above, you can also create a filter from any combination of inputs in the Explore Bathymetry window. For example, you can filter your datasets based on one criteria only, such as datasets containing a specific percent data coverage; or if you are looking for very specific characteristics in your dataset, you can create a filter based on multiple inputs, such as filtering datasets using every input in the window.