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.

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.

Refer to FAQ for troubleshooting data loading issues.

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