3D viewshed

What is viewshed analysis?

A viewshed analysis is type of visibility analysis that calculates and displays the visibility (either visible or obstructed) of 3D elements in a scene from an observer's perspective. A viewshed is calculated from an observer point, which can be a point location, a camera, or a geoelement. You may also provide additional properties such as heading and pitch to set the exact perspective of the observer.

Viewshed analysis has practical applications in urban planning, military science, and many other fields.

A popular use of viewshed analysis is to determine the optimal placement of towers. Companies perform viewshed analysis when planning the location of new cell towers in order to maximize their service coverage. Additionally, the United States Forest Service previously performed viewshed analysis when planning the locations of fire observation towers, though the use of such towers has since been discontinued.

Other real-world use cases for viewshed analysis include the following:

• Maximizing visibility of a new public park or monument.
• Minimizing visibility of landfills, parking lots, and oil rigs.
• Planning the route of hiking trails to create scenic views.

Types of viewshed operations

Operation	Description	Example
LocationViewshed(Point)	Performs viewshed analysis from a point location anywhere in space.
LocationViewshed(Camera)	Performs viewshed analysis from the perspective of a Camera.
GeoElementViewshed	Performs viewshed analysis from a GeoElement in a scene.

How to perform a viewshed analysis

Client-side viewshed analysis can be performed using any of the ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Native Apps. ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript can perform and display server-side viewshed analyses by making a request to an ArcGIS Server Geoprocessing service.

The general steps for performing a viewshed analysis with ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Native Apps are as follows:

1. Create a scene view and set its extent to the desired location.

2. Create a point, camera, or geoelement to serve as an observer point.

3. Create a Viewshed for your type of observer and set the necessary properties.

4. Add the Viewshed to a new AnalysisOverlay.

5. Add the AnalysisOverlay to the scene view to display the results.

Code examples

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private void CreateViewshed(MapPoint location)
{
    var viewshed = new LocationViewshed(
        location: location,
        heading: 0,
        pitch: 90,
        horizontalAngle: 360,
        verticalAngle: 180,
        minDistance: 10,
        maxDistance: 500
    );
    _analysisOverlay.Analyses.Add(viewshed);
}

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private void CreateViewshed(Camera observerCamera)
{
    var viewshed = new LocationViewshed(
        camera: observerCamera,
        minDistance: 10,
        maxDistance: 500
    );
    _analysisOverlay.Analyses.Add(viewshed);
}

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private void CreateViewshed(GeoElement geoElement)
{
    var viewshed = new GeoElementViewshed(
        geoElement: geoElement,
        horizontalAngle: 90,
        verticalAngle: 40,
        minDistance: 1,
        maxDistance: 250,
        headingOffset: 0,
        pitchOffset: 0
    );
    _analysisOverlay.Analyses.Add(viewshed);
}

Tutorials

Display a viewshed

Perform and display a viewshed analysis in a 3D scene.

Display a line of sight

Perform and display a line of sight analysis in a 3D scene.

Measure a distance in 3D

Evaluate the horizontal, vertical, and direct distances between two points in a 3D scene.

API support

Tool support

Tools