Skip To Content ArcGIS for Developers Sign In Dashboard

Build a new scene

Scenes are the fundamental document type used for persistence and sharing of 3D content across the ArcGIS platform. To learn about opening scenes from ArcGIS Online and Portal, see Display a scene. This guide describes how to create a new scene programmatically, add content, and display the scene in your app.

The data you visualize in your 3D app is defined by the scene class. The types of data you can display in a scene include:

  • Basemaps, which can be draped over surface layers. A surface layer contains elevation information. Other layer types can also be used as a basemap; there are no special restrictions for basemaps in scenes.
  • Operational layers, which can include feature layers or scene layers. Scene layers represent built and natural 3D content such as buildings, trees, valleys, and mountains and can be accessed as scene services or local scene layer packages.
  • Surface layers, which define the elevation information of the 3D visualization. A surface layer can come in many forms, for example, local raster data such as a DEM or DTED or from an ArcGIS image service.
To learn more about the types of layers that can be used in scenes, see Layer types described. To learn more about the content that can be used in maps and scenes, see Layers and tables.

Add a scene layer from a service or package

  1. Create a scene that contains a basemap and a scene layer, either from a service or a local package.

    // create a new scene with a topographic basemap
    var myScene = new Scene(Basemap.CreateTopographic());
    // create a scene layer to display (3D) buildings
    var dddBuildingsLayer = new ArcGISSceneLayer(new System.Uri(""));
    // add the scene layer to the scene

    You can also define a scene and its layers using XAML, as shown in the following example.

    <esriUI:SceneView x:Name="MySceneView">
                    <mapping:ArcGISTiledLayer Name="Topographic" Source=""/>
            <mapping:ArcGISSceneLayer Name="BuildingsLayer" Source=""/>

  2. To display the scene, assign it to a scene view that you create.

    MySceneView.Scene = sceneBerlin;

  3. Run the project and it should resemble the following image. You can use your mouse to pan and zoom around the scene. For more information on navigating the scene, see the Navigate a scene view topic.
  4. You may want to set the camera (set an initial viewing position) or add graphics.
Buildings from a scene layer

Add a 3D surface (terrain)

Add a surface layer to a scene with a basemap for 3D visualization in your app.

  1. Create a scene and assign it to a scene view.

    // create a new scene with a topographic basemap
    var myScene = new Scene(Basemap.CreateTopographic());
    // add the new scene to the scene view
    MySceneView.Scene = myScene;

  2. Add an elevation surface and apply it to the scene.

    // create an elevation source
    var elevationSource = new ArcGISTiledElevationSource(new System.Uri(""));
    // create a surface and add the elevation surface
    var sceneSurface = new Surface();
    // apply the surface to the scene
    MySceneView.Scene.BaseSurface = sceneSurface;

You can use your mouse to pan and zoom around the scene. For more information on navigating the scene, see the Built-in navigation section of the "Navigate a scene view" topic.

Subsurface navigation

The camera can be navigated below the surface when the surface has been enabled to allow subsurface navigation. To allow the camera to move below the surface set the surface's navigation constraint to None. If you wish to keep the camera above the surface set the surface's navigation constraint to Stay Above, the default value.

The opacity property of the surface object allows users to see objects both above and below the surface. Opacity has a multiplicative effect on the opacity of each of the base layers and the background grid.

Set the camera

The position you view the scene from is defined by a Camera. Define the following properties when you create a new camera:

  • 3D location—Latitude, longitude, and altitude
  • Heading—Direction the camera is pointing
  • Pitch—Up and down angle of camera

For example, to point the camera to toward the Snowdon mountainside, as shown in the following code snippet and image, use these values:

  • For 3D location, use 53.06 latitude, -4.04 longitude, 1289 metres above sea level
  • For heading, use 295 degrees
  • For pitch, use 71 degrees

var snowdonCamera = new Camera(53.06, -4.04, 1289, 295, 71, 0);

Surface elevation applied to a scene

Now you have a new camera you can apply to your scene view. You can apply it immediately using SetViewpointCamera as shown in the code below, or the camera can be animated to the new position using one of the asynchronous methods.


Create a scene layer package and local elevation source

ArcGIS Pro allows you to  create a scene layer package using a geoprocessing tool. You can add this local scene layer package ( .slpk) as a scene layer  ( ArcGISSceneLayer) to your ArcGIS Runtime app and add it to a Scene. To display the scene layer package, create a new scene layer with a URL pointing to a local scene layer package.

To take this scene layer offline your app can define an elevation surface by consuming local raster datasets on the client. The following formats are supported for creating a local elevation source:

  • CIB1, 5, 10
  • DTED0, 1, 2
  • GeoTIFF
  • HFA
  • HRE
  • IMG
  • JPEG
  • JPEG 2000
  • NITF
  • PNG
  • RPF
  • SRTM1, 2

Related topics