A cut and fill analysis can provide significant value in various applications that involve terrain modification, such as during construction projects. It can accurately estimate the quantities of earth that need to be excavated or filled, facilitating efficient planning, cost estimation, and project management.
For example, it can be used to estimate the amount of material needed to build road embankments, assess the volume of soil involved flattening a plot of land, measure the fill volume of potential reservoirs, or calculate the cut volume of dirt and debris removal.
To perform a cut and fill analysis in ArcGIS, you typically need access to a 3D representation of the surface. The surface can be based on raster, TIN, or point cloud data, such as a LAS dataset. When doing an interactive cut and fill analysis, you can use a cut and fill polygon to determine the visible volumetric displacement required to level the ground of a location. They are calculated against the currently displayed ground surface.
Workflows
You can do an interactive cut-and-fill analysis or use the geoprocessing tools in 3D Analyst extension in ArcGIS Pro to calculate volumes for earthworks.
Interactive cut and fill analysis
The interactive cut and fill tool in ArcGIS Pro allows you to determine the visible volumetric displacement required to level the ground of a location. It uses cut and fill polygons, which are calculated against the currently displayed ground surface. The cut and fill location can be interactively moved through the view.
The cut and fill object renders by default in green the areas that must be filled and in pink the areas where ground needs to be removed. You can modify these colors on the Properties tab.
The analytical results displayed by the tool are temporary and not saved with the project or included in map packages, for example. However, their cut volume, fill volume, net volume, cut area, fill area, minimum z-value, and maximum z-value can be exported as polygon feature classes for further use.
Cut and fill analysis
The results produced by interactive cut and fill tool are visual. As analyses are evaluated, results are rendered in the scene view for display only. This is ideal for use cases that require interactive and visual evaluation of results that change frequently. If you require the displayed analytical results as data, consider using the Cut Fill geoprocessing tool or the Surface Volume geoprocessing tool. The Cut Fill geoprocessing tool can calculate the difference between two elevation surfaces that can both vary across space. The Surface Volume geoprocessing tool calculates the difference between an elevation surface and a reference plane.
When the Cut Fill operation is performed, by default, a specialized symbology is applied to the layer that highlights the locations net loss, gain, and unchanged areas.
Surface difference
Similar to the cut and fill analysis, you can also calculate the surface difference between surfaces using LAS or TIN datasets to determine where one surface is above, below, or the same as the other surface. In construction projects, the use of TIN base surfaces is common to ensure high accuracy of the surface. The output is a polygon layer with specific attribute values for volume and area and whether they are above or below as the reference plane.
Considerations
The interactive cut and fill tool uses the data currently displayed in the scene view to perform the analysis and then quickly draws the result. Because the data in the scene view changes when zooming in and out showing the current levels of detail based on the distance of the camera to the surface, the analysis results may change as you interact with the scene view. Also, remember that the analytical results are derived from the elevation units set for the scene. For example, to view the result in meter, the scenes elevation unit must be set to meter in the scene general properties.
Required software
ArcGIS Pro offers an interactive cut and fill tool. You will need ArcGIS Pro with 3D Analyst or Spatial Analyst to persist the cut and fill results in a geodatabase. An ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise account is required to publish and share the analysis layers as a 3D scene service across your organization.
The subsections below provide additional information about performing a cut and fill analysis in ArcGIS.
ArcGIS help documentation
Reference material for ArcGIS products:
- How Cut Fill works in ArcGIS Pro
- Cut Fill tool in ArcGIS Pro
- Surface Volume tool in ArcGIS Pro
- Surface Difference tool in ArcGIS Pro
- Exploratory analysis tools in ArcGIS Pro
- Interactive cut and fill basics
- Update interactive cut and fill properties in ArcGIS Pro
- Exploratory analysis workflows in ArcGIS Pro
- 3D Analyst extension in ArcGIS Pro
Videos
Esri-produced videos that clarify and demonstrate concepts, software functionality, and workflows:
Tutorials
Guided, hands-on lessons based on real-world problems:
Esri Training
Authoritative learning resources focusing on key ArcGIS skills:
Esri community
Online places for the Esri community to connect, collaborate, and share experiences:
- Ask the 3D community questions.