Once the integrated mesh has been added to the scene, you’ll want to navigate in 3D space to view your content from all angles. The controls for accomplishing this are common to all Scene projects, so experienced 3D users should already be ‘good to go’.

Navigation controls

For users not already familiar with Scene projects, there are two primary navigation modes – 'Planar' (the default mode) or 'First Person' navigation. The first of these works well if you're going to be primarily using mouse input to explore the 3D environment. The latter, meanwhile, has similarities to the control systems used in some genres of video game. Which mode you choose is likely going to be down to personal preference rather than functional differences.

To configure the navigation options, a ‘Navigator’ user interface will appear at the bottom-left of the main scene window. This can be toggled on/off, from the view menu, if required. This has two basic states, named ‘Show Heading’ and ‘Show Full Control’, with the latter offering a complete set of on-screen controls and the former being smaller and more limited. Dedicated buttons, at the top of this, facilitate the selection of the ‘Planar’ and ‘First Person’ modes.

Planar navigation

The default Planar navigation mode is primarily intended to offer intuitive mouse-orientated control. The core mouse options are shown in the table below.

Beyond this, additional keyboard controls can be used alongside, with both the arrow keys and ‘W’,’A’,’S’,’D’ also enabled as available alternatives.

First person navigation

‘First Person’ navigation offers a somewhat similar experience to the controls found in many video games. Here, navigation is primarily achieved using the ‘W’,’A’,’S’,’D’ and arrow keys, combined with additional mouse movement to pan left/right and up/down.

Line feature layers can be useful if you want to represent network data on top of your integrated mesh. Transport data is an obvious candidate for this, but other linear features, such as power lines, could also work well. Using line feature layers can be a little more challenging than working with polygons, as they’re prone to unwanted interactions with the base mesh. Both 2D and 3D line feature data can be used for this, albeit via differing methods and results.

Draped lines

Line features can be dragged into the ‘2D Layers’ section of the Contents pane, where they’ll be styled using current Symbology settings and draped over the mesh.

The advantage of draping line features concerns their visibility – they’ll never ‘disappear’ under the mesh. Unfortunately, the downside of this is that the lines may be rendered on top of obstructing features such as trees or bridges. This can look very strange and may not be what you really want. Also, the geometry can become jagged and is prone to looking untidy.

In the example below, 2D road features, from OS Open Zoomstack, have been draped onto an integrated mesh.

In the following example, using the same OS Open Zoomstack data, it can be seen how the line features have been draped across overhanging treetops, which probably isn’t the desired outcome. Also, when viewed from the side, the lines no longer appear to be straight. Obviously, the severity of these problems depends very much on the content represented within the mesh itself.

Representing line features in 3D space

In contrast to the above, dragging road data into the ‘3D Layers’ section will plot line features in 3D space, using their full 3D geometries. Ideally, you’ll want to use true 3D data layer for this, as 2D layers will likely find themselves hidden beneath the mesh.

OS NGD Road Link features are an example of an OS vector product that contains Z values by default and is thus a good candidate for this type of project. Nevertheless, when visualised over an integrated mesh, it may be observed that the lines are prone to cutting through and under the mesh. The extent to which this is desirable will be dependent on individual use cases.

To avoid issues where the line features appear to be passing under the roads, a good solution is simply to move the line features upwards. ArcGIS Pro offers at least two methods to accomplish this.

The simplest solution is to use the ‘Cartographic Offset’ parameter, found in the Elevation pane, to apply a visual z-axis adjustment. Alternatively, should you want to make the transformation permanent, the ‘Adjust 3D Z’ geoprocessing tool can be used. Of course, it’s best to make a copy of your source data before attempting this.

Should you wish to improve the general visibility of the line features, you can use the ‘Buffer 3D’ geoprocessing tool (included in the 3D Analyst extension) to convert the basic line features into something akin to 3D pipes.

Converting 2D features to 3D

Should you not want to drape your 2D data over your mesh, you can avoid this by generating an additional 3D version. There are two primary methods for achieving this.

Firstly, if the layer contains height information within a separate column, you can use this to create true 3D data using the ‘Feature To 3D By Attribute’ geoprocessing tool.

Alternatively, as shown below, height values can be extracted from a separate elevation model, using the ‘Interpolate Shape’ geoprocessing tool (requires the 3D Analyst extension).

Unfortunately, it isn’t currently possible to use an integrated mesh as an input into the Interpolate Shape tool. Instead, you’re limited to just using a standard surface object, which isn’t necessarily what you’re going to want in this context. Hopefully, this is something that will be addressed in a future update.

Perhaps the most straightforward and effective way of enhancing and individualising a 3D integrated mesh is to drape a 2D polygon layer over it.

This is achieved by simply dragging an appropriate polygon layer into the ‘2D Layers’ section of a project that already contains a 3D mesh object. ArcGIS Pro will automatically handle the draping and will also enable its interactivity, upon clicking individual features, by default. You can still style the draped polygons using the standard Symbology interface. When combining polygon layers with an integrated mesh, you’ll likely also want to adjust the layer transparency, so that both sources remain sufficiently visible.

Highlighting key features

A thinly populated (or heavily filtered) polygon layer can be used to achieve an effect that’s analogous to drawing on the mesh with a highlighter pen. This just requires an adjustment to the polygon layer’s symbology (maybe choose a neon-type colour…), along with a suitable layer transparency (try 50%). An example of this is shown below:

Highlighting feature classifications

Rather than highlighting only selected areas of the mesh, another approach is to highlight individual feature classifications using colour/style variations. In the example below, 2D polygons from the OS NGD Land Use Theme have been added to the scene. Using the Symbology tools, these polygons have been styled according to the unique values found with the ‘oslandusetiera’ attribute. A transparency of 50% has also been applied to the entire layer.

Even though draped, these features can still be clicked upon, allowing their individual attributes to be interrogated via a pop-up window.

It’s possible to individually insert custom 3D models into a scene. This is a technique that can potentially combine well with integrated mesh content. One example of this could show a visualisation of a planned building or structure at its intended location. A new ‘3D object’ feature class has been introduced to support this flowline (see 'Introduction to the 3D object feature class' in the ArcGIS Pro documentation), although the long-established ‘multipatch’ format also works. Various standard 3D file formats are supported (.dae, .fbx, .glb, .obj, etc) – any of these can be exported from Blender or other similar modelling tools.

It’s outside the scope of this document to go into detail about this process. However, if you want to explore this further, we recommend this ESRI tutorial on how to import and incorporate 3D models in a scene.

Draping point data

As was the case with polygon and line data, stylised vector point features can be draped on an integrated mesh. An example of this is shown in the image below:

The result of this may or may not be what you intended. As such, it’s often better to use the ‘3D Layers’ section when working with 3D symbols.

3D point data

If you wish to render 3D point data in 3D space, you’re typically going to want to avoid just depicting it as a small dot. Instead, you’ll likely wish to represent it either as a ‘3D symbol’, or as a 2D ‘billboard’ symbol that will automatically rotate to face the scene camera.

3D symbols

A ‘3D symbol’ is a small, usually simple, 3D model that can be rendered at the position of a 3D point. Within its Symbology toolset, ArcGIS Pro has a separate section dedicated to supporting such symbols. However, this is only available when using layers present in the ‘3D Layers’ section of the Contents pane.

As mentioned previously, it’s not currently possible to use the integrated mesh as a source of heights. In the example above, the points were heighted from the ArcGIS Pro default surface, which was far from ideal, as this placed the points below the integrated mesh. To get around this, points were moved upward by 20meters, using the Cartographic Offset property.

2D symbols/billboards

Regular 2D images can still be used as symbols within a 3D scene. The typical way to achieve this is via the ‘billboard’ function, which, when enabled, will ensure that the symbols rotate to always face the scene camera. ArcGIS Pro offers two modes for this – ‘full’ and ‘signpost’ rotation, with the latter locking the rotation to just the Z (upward) axis. Alternatively, ‘billboard’ mode can be turned off entirely, leaving the symbols facing in just one constant direction.

Text labels

You may wish to include text labels within a scene that also contains an integrated mesh. This behaves as just another form of billboard. The challenge, when setting this up, is to choose a label symbology that sufficiently stands out against the background. In this example, the ‘halo’ option, which adds a white rim to the text, greatly helps in keeping the text legible.

ArcGIS Pro provides a suite of animation tools, some of which support the creation of 3D fly-throughs. Of course, an integrated mesh has the potential to serve as an engaging backdrop for such projects.

The authoring of animations is an extensive subject that can’t be adequately addressed in this document. As such, we recommend checking out .

Whilst you might be happy to simply view integrated meshes within ArcGIS Pro, it’s more likely that you’ll want to add additional contextual data, either from standard mapping products or your own project-specific resources. ArcGIS Pro is well-equipped to support this.

Before getting started, should you be new to using the 3D ‘Scene’ mode, it’s important to understand the differences between the ‘2D Layers’ and ‘3D Layers’ sections that are found within the Contents pane of Scene projects. Although their titles initially appear obvious, their actual function isn’t quite what you might expect.

2D/3D Data

All spatial data used with ArcGIS Pro will have a dimensionality – either 2D or 3D. This is exclusively defined by format of geometry column. As such:

• If a feature has only ‘X’ and ‘Y’ ordinates within its geometry, but has a ‘Z’ ordinate included as a separate attribute, then this is still considered to be a ‘2D layer’ by ArcGIS Pro.

• In contrast, if a geometry includes ‘X’, ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ ordinates, but ‘Z’ values are all set to zero, then ArcGIS Pro still treats this as being a 3D layer.

The '2D Layers' section

The ‘2D Layers’ section of the contents pane is used when you wish to drape vector data over a surface (which may be an integrated mesh). This is something that you’d typically wish to accomplish when working with 2D data. However, 3D data dragged into ‘2D Layers’ will be treated as if it were 2D and will thus be draped in the same way.

The '3D Layers' section

The ‘3D Layers’ section of the Contents pane is used when you want to render data in 3D space in accordance with its 3D geometry. In fact, both 3D and 2D layers are accepted here, with 2D layers assigned zero-value ‘Z’ ordinates.

Loading the data

Ordnance survey mesh data is currently available in three streaming formats – ESRI (.SLPK), Cesium 3D Tiles and Skyline (.3DML). ArcGIS Pro supports the first two of these, although the ESRI option is more established and is likely going to be the obvious choice in this context.

Index

The OS 3D Mesh getting started guide is broken down into the following topics:

• Navigation

• Scene lighting

• Adding additional vector data

• Adding 3D line feature layers

• Adding point datasets

• 'Line of sight' analysis

• Adding miscellaneous 3D models

• Animation

Within its 3D Analyst extension, ArcGIS Pro includes a ‘Line of Sight’ geoprocessing tool for calculating visibility between a given viewpoint and target. This tool can treat integrated mesh models as a core source of obstruction objects. As such, this provides a strong use case for working with mesh data.

To use this tool, you will need to create or obtain one, or more, line features. The beginning of each line will represent the viewpoint, with the end point representing the target. These line features, along with all potential obstruction objects, are provided as tool input. Upon completion, new line features will be created. These will be shaded green where the line is visible and red where it is not. An illustration of this is shown below, with icons added to indicate the viewpoint and target vertices of the supplied line feature.

The official documentation for this tool can be found at:

A basic way to improve the overall look of your integrated mesh is to apply scene lighting. This can be enabled using the 'Enable Lighting' button on the ‘Integrated Mesh Layer’ menu. Further lighting variations can be chosen from the Lighting dropdown menu (a full description of these can be found at 3D effects—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation).