ArcGIS is a scalable 3D system of record that allows you to create, store, manage, and share 3D content across a variety of devices. With ArcGIS, you can generate 3D content from existing data sources, such as 2D data, lidar, imagery or leveraging procedural rules. Accessing ready-to-use content is available through ArcGIS itself and Esri partners. 3D content is handled through several layer types that reference a 3D data source which can be local or on the web.
The following layer types are available to store and manage your 3D data across the ArcGIS system.
| Layer type | When to use | Example |
|---|---|---|
A layer that supports fast visualization of the elevation data at many levels of detail from local to global scale. | Use to add elevation to your 3D scene. You can create a web elevation layer to share on the web. |  |
A type of layer that represents geographic features as individual objects. Feature layers support point, line, polygon, multipatch and 3D object types. | Drape point, line, and polygon features on the surface or use symbology to create 3D features. Multipatch and 3D object feature layer should be used to store and manage complex 3D geometries including textures and material properties. |  |
A type of layer that is optimized for displaying large amounts of 3D data at different levels of detail. Scene layers support point, mesh, point cloud, voxel, building and 3D object types. | Use a scene layer when you want to optimize visualizing large amounts of 3D content across desktop, web, and mobile clients. |  |
3D layer representing mesh or 3D object types. | Use a 3D tiles layer when you want to visualize large global 3D content. |  |
The scene layer is the recommended layer type when working with large amounts of 3D data across the ArcGIS system. Several types of scene layers are available, tailored to various 3D data sources.
| Scene layer type | Example |
|---|---|
Represent objects such as buildings that are explicitly modeled in three dimensions with support for advanced materials and textures. |  |
Displays large amounts of point data symbolized by 3D symbols such as all trees of a county. |  |
Supports the display of multi level-of-detail reality meshes. |  |
Provides fast display of large volumes of symbolized and filtered point cloud data. |  |
Allows effective visualization and filtering of 3D building models derived from building information models (BIM) |  |
Support the display, sharing, and analysis of multidimensional spatial and temporal information in a 3D volumetric visualization. |  |
Considerations
Point, building, and 3D object scene layer types can have an associated feature layer. Point scene layers are derived from point data, and 3D object and building scene layers are derived from multipatch data or a 3D object feature layer. When sharing scene layers to ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Online, with the caching on server option set a point, building, or 3D object scene layer with an associated feature layer is created. Through this association, you can use additional capabilities on the web scene layer such as querying statistics dynamically or editing attributes and geometry.
Application specific layer types such as the KML layer and the LAS dataset layer in ArcGIS Pro need to be converted to a feature layer or a scene layer to share the layer across the ArcGIS system.