For optimal visualization performance of large amounts of data, caching is often necessary. 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 layer.
You may want to use cached web layers, such as vector tile layers or scene layers, to provide fast read access to the data. For example, you want to create a scene showing all buildings in a city to share publicly. In this case, you may not update the data often. To keep the 3D layers up to date without allowing edits to individual features, you can replace the layers. Any web scene containing a replaced layer automatically shows the updated information.
Workflows
You can replace a web layer created from a cached service. For example, when you upload and publish a scene layer package (SLPK) or use the cache on client option when you share from ArcGIS Pro, you create a scene layer. You can use the scene layer tools to create a scene layer from updated data as an SLPK and replace the layer with the SLPK in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. You can create scene layer packages in ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS CityEngine. The advantage of creating an SLPK is that you can review the data immediately and upload or replace the scene layer.
If you are working with ArcGIS Enterprise, you can publish the 3D web layer from ready-to-use content i3sREST stored in cloud stores like Amazon S3, Azure Blob stores, Alibaba OSS, or Google Cloud. An alternative to using cloud stores is to use an extracted scene layer package (.eslpk), which you can use in a folder directory of your Enterprise deployment.
The advantage to this is that you don't need to upload the package first and then replace the layer. Instead, you create the 3D content in your cloud storage and point the layer item to the new service.
Considerations
Before sharing 3D data as a scene layer, determine whether the feature-based content will be frequently updated through editing or whether you'll replace the layer periodically. With sensor-based data such as point cloud and integrated mesh, and multidimensional data such as voxel layer, you'll need to replace the layer to update it.
When working with ArcGIS Enterprise, creating ready-to-serve data using i3sREST in a given cloud storage or eslpk in a folder directory allows you to manage the data directly without needing to upload and publish.
Required software
You need ArcGIS Pro to share 3D data as a scene layer or to create an SLPK using geoprocessing. You can use ArcGIS CityEngine to create 3D objects as an SLPK. You can replace web scene layers in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise.
ArcGIS help documentation
The subsections below provide additional information about replacing web layers.
ArcGIS blogs, articles, stories, and technical papers
Supplemental guidance about concepts, software functionality, and workflows: