Elevation surfaces define the height values in a scene, making them essential for working in 3D. The most common use of an elevation surface is to represent the ground elevation. A global or local scene contains a predefined elevation surface layer, Ground, that cannot be removed. The default elevation source layer for this surface is a web elevation layer, Terrain 3D, provided by Esri.
The following terms are used when working with elevation surfaces:
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
Elevation surface layer | A composite layer that contains one or more elevation source layers. |
Elevation layer | A raster, TIN, or web elevation layer that contributes height values for the elevation surface layer. |
Ground | A predefined elevation surface layer that cannot be removed from a scene. |
Custom elevation surface layer | A composite layer that is added, in addition to the Ground to represent other surfaces such a geologic stratum. |
| Scene Viewer | The default web application for viewing 3D scenes in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise |
You define the elevation surfaces in a 3D scene depending on your goal. If your goal is to share the scene to the web and view it in Scene Viewer, you can only work with the Ground. Scene Viewer does not currently support custom elevation surface layers. If you're using ArcGIS Pro, you can add custom elevation surface layers in addition to the Ground.
Workflows
You cannot create more than one Ground elevation surface layer but you can create more than one custom elevation surface layer. In ArcGIS Pro, you can create a custom elevation surface layer by right-clicking the Elevation Surfaces category and choosing Add Elevation Surface Layer. A 2D map does not contain Ground by default. You can add Ground to a 2D map by choosing a supported elevation source in the Add Elevation Source Layer dialog box.
An elevation surface layer can have more than one elevation source layer, and you can combine different types. Local elevation source layers can be a single-band raster that contains elevation information or a TIN dataset. To work with the elevation layer on the web, you need to share it from ArcGIS Pro to your active portal as a web elevation layer. You can share the scene containing the elevation surface layer, share the layer from the Contents pane or create and publish a tile package.
Any raster dataset that can be added as an elevation source to ArcGIS Pro can be shared as a web elevation layer. This includes raster datasets stored in mosaic datasets, in file formats such as TIFF, DTED, DEM, FLT, HGT, Esri Grid, or CRF with LERC compression, or in geodatabases. Elevation surfaces based on TIN datasets and existing image services cannot be shared as web elevation layers. If your elevation source is a TIN dataset, you will need to convert the TIN dataset to a raster first.
Web elevation layers can supplement the default Terrain3Delevation layer used in web apps with higher-resolution elevation data for your area of interest. You can find examples of web elevation layers on ArcGIS Online by searching for the keyword elevation and filter on elevation layers.
Considerations
ArcGIS Pro supports many types of elevation source layers with different coordinate systems. Scene Viewer supports web elevation layers that have the same coordinate system and tiling scheme as other cached layers in the scene. Web elevation layers that do not have the same coordinate system and tiling scheme of the scene are removed.
Navigating underground and ground color are the only supported elevation surface properties that are maintained from ArcGIS Pro to Scene Viewer.
Required software
To create and publish elevation source layers, you need ArcGIS Pro. To manage TIN datasets, you need ArcGIS Pro with ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension. An ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise account is required to publish and share web elevation layers. Explore the following resources to learn more about bringing point cloud data into ArcGIS.
ArcGIS help documentation
The subsections below provide additional information about elevation surface layers.
See the following ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Online help topics:
ArcGIS blogs, stories and technical papers
Supplemental guidance about concepts, software functionality, and workflows:
Videos
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Online 3D community to connect, collaborate, and share experiences:
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