Elevation

Elevation can help with 3D visualizations by creating relief in your 3D scene. Elevation surfaces define height values across the extent of a map or scene. Other layers are usually draped on top of the elevation. In most cases, data for an elevation layer comes from an elevation service. Currently, only single tiled elevation layer is supported in the LERC format.

The following types of source URL can be used to add an elevation layer and create relief in your ArcGIS Map:

Item page URL
Elevation service URL

Elevation tiles can also access data from LERC encoded tile packages stored locally.

A tile package is a single .tpk (or .tpkx) file containing tiles, and you can share the file as you would with any file. Compared with .tpk files, .tpkx files provide better performance on network shares and cloud store directories. The spatial reference of the elevation should match with the basemap and image tile layers. See Spatial references for more information about coordinate systems.

Tip

You can use the Terrain 3D elevation layer URL from Esri as a global elevation layer source.
You can find curated, up-to-date, ready-to-use image tile services on ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
You can also find image tile services that are publicly shared or shared by your own organization on ArcGIS Online. Refer to the ArcGIS Online documentation to learn more about searching in ArcGIS Online.
You can filter the search result on ArcGIS Living Atlas and ArcGIS Online by using advanced search. To filter elevation layers, use the following search condition: type:"Image Service" AND typekeywords:"Elevation 3d Layer". All elevation layers have this icon .
You can share web elevation layers in ArcGIS Pro.
You can create a tile package for a web elevation layer in ArcGIS Pro to create a LERC encoded map tile package for the elevation source.

Set elevation

Click on the Elevation tab, and select the Default Elevation or select Custom Elevation to set a custom elevation source in the panel.

The Default Elevation is Terrain 3D from ArcGIS Online and its spatial reference is Web Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere).

To use a .tpk or .tpkx file package as an elevation source, click on ··· to select the local file package.
When none of the two options are selected, no elevation relief will be created.
To use a private hosted elevation layer, select the matching configuration from the Authentication drop-down list. For more information about using private content, see ArcGIS identity.

Set elevation with ArcGISMapElevation and use ArcGISImageElevationSource for the tiled elevation layer.

You can find the sample code to set elevation with a layer service URL in the SampleAPIMapCreator.cs file. The sample script file is in:

Assets/Samples/ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unity/1.1.0/All Samples/Scripts/APISample

Refer to FAQ for troubleshooting data loading issues.

ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unity

Elevation

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