ArcView 3D Analyst Frequently Asked Questions

The Scene Text sample extension, available for download from the ArcScripts page, provides an example for adding 3D text.

A sample extension called 3D Scene Axes that adds X, Y, and Z axes is available for download from the ArcScripts page.

3D flyby animations are easy to make with 3D Analyst. The Flyby Animation Builder sample extension is available for download from the ArcScripts page.

Operations are limited while the 3D viewer is in rotation mode. You can move the window and navigate in the viewer.

No. The 3D Scene viewer can only display 3D graphics. You may, however, turn the 2D graphics into a shape feature theme and display it in the 3D viewer.

Converting a 2D shape into a 3D shape can be done from the menu selection. Please check menu Theme | Convert to 3D Shapefile...

Converting a 3D shape into a 2D shape can be done using using a script in ArcView 3.x (Note: ArcView 3.0a and ArcView 3.0b do not support shapeM). A sample script is available from the online help under content: sample scripts and extensions | sample scripts | convert 3D feature theme to 2D.

Click the Zoom to Selected button on the viewer and the selected feature will be centered and highlighted.

First, turn on shading on a theme in the scene. Second, add the MultiPatch/PolygonZ graphics. Non-shaded themes (such as lines) and graphics may be loaded afterwards.

You can download more scripts from the ArcScripts page. To list scripts specifically for 3D Analyst, select "3D Analyst" from the "Search by Category" pick list, and then click on the "Go!" button.

OpenGL libraries are included as part of the operating systems on many platforms. Otherwise their run-time versions may be provided at the websites of each platform or operating system vendor.

Unlike a regular ArcView document such as a view, a 3D Scene viewer is an OpenGL window imbedded into an ArcView dialog. Not only can the 3D Scene viewer float outside an ArcView application window, but multiple 3D Scene viewers showing different perspectives can be open at the same time.

Fuzziness is related to a platform dependent maximum texture size limit in OpenGL. You may increase the image resolution up to a point by using the sample script contained in the online help under Content | Extensions | 3D Analyst | Sample scripts and extensions | Sample scripts. The script's title is "Adjust image and grid resolution in a scene" and the script name is "3drasres.ave".

You may be able to increase the image resolution by subdividing the image into smaller tiles before loading them in the 3D viewer.

A view document uses a color palette while a 3D scene document uses true RGB color.

ArcView 3.0a & 3.0b do not support 3D CAD files as 3D objects. Therefore, 3D CAD files are treated as 2D objects. ArcView 3.1 (with 3D Analyst and CAD Reader extensions) supports direct 3D visualization of 3D CAD data.

Sometimes the height (Z) units are significantly different than the underlying X, Y coordinates, and the 3D viewer cannot show the whole feature correctly. The vertical exaggeration factor can be adjusted using the calculate button in the 3D scene property dialog, or it can be manually adjusted.

The TIN legend does not get updated automatically after the Z factor is changed. To redefine the TIN legend, use the legend editor to change feature category ranges. The TIN features should reappear in the viewer.

The file management system allows a maximum of 128 channels opened simultaneously. Since a TIN may keep 8-12 files open, only 10-16 different TINs can be opened at the same time.

This is a known problem in ArcView 3.0b, but has been fixed in ArcView 3.1.

After you copy and paste data between ArcView documents, the data still exists in the clipboard buffer. Try copying other data you don't want to overwrite using the same copy and paste procedure to clear the old data from the clipboard. You can also clear the clipboard buffer by issuing an Avenue request.

3D Analyst relies on some JPEG Image Support functions and so it is automatically loaded when 3D Analyst is loaded. JPEG Image Support is unloaded when you unload 3D Analyst.

For point and line features, color and size can be changed. For polygons, color can be changed. One method of displaying complex symbols is to display the symbols in a view and then add the view as an image to a 3D Scene.

Viewer snapshot and viewer display treat graphics differently. Saving an image from a viewer does not go through the graphics card, while displaying features in a 3D viewer does use a graphics card in most cases.

In order for the Esc key to work, the cursor needs to be in the active viewer display window.

A ShapeZ is usually referred to as a 3D shape because it contains extra built-in geometry of Z (height) in addition to X and Y. ShapeZ is a subclass of shapeM (shape with measures), which is a subclass of a regular 2D shape. ShapeZ can also be used in core ArcView 3.1 without the 3D Analyst extension.

There are two kinds of OpenGL drivers supplied with the graphics card:

1. Mini Client Driver (MCD): MicroSoft® implements lighting and transformation, and leaves the rasterization implementation to the graphics hardware vendor
2. Installable Client Driver (ICD): lighting, transformation and rasterization are implemented by the graphics hardware vendor.

OpenGL graphics cards with ICD offer significant 3D display performance compared to cards with MCD. Therefore, cards with ICD are recommended for 3D Analyst .

3D Analyst runs on OpenGL version 1.0 or later.

Please refer to the 3D Accelerator Graphics Card Page.