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Manage hosted scene layers

Publishing a scene from ArcGIS Pro can create both a scene layer and an associated feature layer. If data in the associated point or multipatch feature layer changes, you can rebuild the scene layer cache to include changes for specific layers or changes from all layers in the feature layer.

Only the owner of the hosted scene layer or the portal administrator can rebuild the cache on the scene layer.

Rebuild the scene layer cache

You (or the administrator) can rebuild all or part of the scene layer cache for specific sublayers after editors make changes in the associated feature layer.

  • For point feature layers edited in the portal, rebuilding the cache incorporates appended features and edits to feature geometry and attributes into the scene cache.
  • For multipatch feature layers edited in the portal, rebuilding the cache incorporates attribute updates and appended features into the scene cache.


To improve drawing performance, edit the scene layer in ArcGIS Pro rather than editing the associated feature layer in Map Viewer. You can also edit geometry for multipatch data when you edit in ArcGIS Pro, which you cannot do in Map Viewer at this time. See Edit a scene layer with associated feature layer in the ArcGIS Pro help for information on editing scene layers.

For example, if the associated feature layer contains points that represent street furniture—such as benches, fountains, and planters—and the locations of some of the benches change, you can rebuild the scene cache to reflect the new position of those benches. Similarly, if some of the benches are rebuilt with a different material, and the style in the scene layer varies depending on material type, rebuild the scene layer to include the new attribute and, therefore, the new style.

Keep the following in mind when deciding whether to update the entire cache or only the parts of the cache affected by changes in the associated feature layer:

  • In most cases, updating a part of the cache takes less time than rebuilding the entire cache. However, scene layer performance may degrade over time if you only rebuild parts of the cache. Eventually, you will need to rebuild the entire cache to optimize cache and, therefore, scene layer performance.
  • If you calculate values in one or more fields in the associated hosted feature layer and the calculation affects all features in the layer, a partial cache update may take more time than a full cache update.

Rebuild the cache

Follow these steps to rebuild the scene layer to incorporate changes from the associated point or multipatch feature layer.

  1. Sign in to the portal as the scene layer owner or an administrator.
  2. Open the item details for the scene layer, click the Settings tab, and scroll down to the Scene Layer Settings section.
  3. Click Manage Cache.
  4. Choose to rebuild the entire cache for the layers you choose in the next step, or rebuild only the portion of the cache, per layer, that has changed since the last time the cache was built.
  5. If you're rebuilding to get changes in specific layers within the feature layer, choose the layers from the list.
  6. Click Rebuild Cache.
  7. Click OK to confirm you want to rebuild the cache.

    The time it takes to rebuild the cache depends on whether you are rebuilding the entire cache or part of the cache, the number of features and attributes in the feature layer, whether the features are points or multipatches, and whether the multipatches include textures.

    To monitor the status of the cache, click Job Status. If the cache fails to rebuild, click the job ID for information about why it failed.