For optimal performance of 3D layers, caching is necessary to reduce computation of 3D data at run time and on ArcGIS clients. A scene layer is optimized for displaying large amounts of 3D data in a scene. You can display the following data types in a scene layer: 3D object, building, integrated mesh, point, point cloud, and voxel layers.
3D layers may have different sizes and complexities that influence visualization performance.
Workflows
When working with texture data, set the Create compressed textures option when sharing from ArcGIS Pro. If you are creating scene layers by uploading and publishing a scene layer package (SLPK), choose Mobile for Texture Optimization. This assures that you are creating textures with basis compression for optimal performance of textured data. This may increase the size of the published 3D data but also improves performance.
Point scene layer can reference web styles provided by Esri. These web styles often include well-performing symbols with level of detail.
When publishing a web scene that includes scene layers review the required symbology so you only use visualization options that are required for the scene. For example, only add edges if it will improve the appearance of buildings, since adding edges uses additional computation on ArcGIS clients.
In i3s 1.7, improved performance was introduced. You can update scene layers to take advantage of this improvement. You can recreate a 3D layer as a scene layer in ArcGIS Pro and replace existing scene layers in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise. Scene layers with associated feature layers must be republished to create a new version of a scene layer.
Considerations
Keep the following in mind when assessing layer performance.
Symbology
If you are representing points, the 3D symbol that you use influences the performance of the layer. For example, if you use the tree models provided by Esri, the symbols have multiple levels of detail. If you are viewing the trees from far away, a symbol with a simpler geometry is used than when zoomed close to the feature where the most complex model is drawn. This means more trees can be drawn when viewing the scene from a distance without affecting performance.
When working with 3D object scene layers, you can apply additional symbol properties such as edges or tinting. Since these properties must be applied by clients and are not cached with the 3D layer, performance of the layer will be slower than without the additional symbol properties. Other properties, such as visual variables, may require additional computation on ArcGIS clients.
Transparency
A common visualization technique that is used to represent thematic information is transparency. For example, you can apply transparency to 3D objects to emphasize uncertainty based on a given value. In other cases, transparency may be required. For example, a window should be semitransparent, allowing the viewer to look inside a building.
The transparency information is part of the cached scene layer. If you apply transparency after the layer is created, becomes a layer symbology and may require additional computation on ArcGIS clients.
Textures
A 3D object without texture uses less resources then a textured object. Review your authoring goals to determine whether textures are required. If you are including textured 3D data, using the right texture compression is a good practice. Scene layers support a variety of compressed texture formats including basis universal. Using texture compression, the data itself may be larger, but the performance improvement for web and mobile clients may outweigh the initial cost of publishing a larger scene layer.
Amount and complexity of geometry
The more features that need to be represented and the more complex the features, the more important it is to cache the data for optimal performance. You can create a scene layer with an associated feature layer for points, 3D objects, and building scene layers combining the fast drawing performance of the scene layer with the editing and query capabilities of the feature layer.
Required software
You need ArcGIS Pro to share 3D data as a scene layer or to create a SLPK using geoprocessing tools.
You can use ArcGIS CityEngine to create 3D objects as a SLPK.
ArcGIS help documentation
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