Building a 3D image
1. Tutorials (see "Using ArcView 3D Analyst" ArcView 3D Analyst; 3D Surface Creation, Visualization, and Analysis)
Tutorial 1 is good for illustrating (find these under C:\ESRI\AV_GIS30\AVTUTOR\3D):
- 3d scene
- how to rotate with the mouse left hand button
- how to zoom with the right hand button
- how 3D scene viewer is independent of other parts of ArcView and sometimes has to be physically moved to reveal things hidden behind it
- can automatically rotate scenes (need to physically move this to find STOP button, otherwise use Esc)
- how to identify information about objects in a scene
- how to use select features to both find out information about a series of selected locations or find location for specifically desired data (who owns property on east side of street versus where does Mr. Brown own buildings.)
Tutorial 5 good for final project (only try if you are very intuitive, there will be little assistance)
Nicely links surface to water table with wells creating the linkage
2. Building a TIN
- Preliminary step: First copy the dem data folder from J:\GEO\GEO_data\WWU\CanyonLake\DEM to your c:/temp/your-new-filename (sometimes you have to try copying this more then once because it doesn't always transfer properly).
- Open a blank new project in ArcView, then under the File menu select Extensions and check 3d analyst and spatial analyst
- In the project window click on new icon 3d scenes after scrolling down below scripts
- Click open 3d scenes, if you wish you can then immediately change the background color with menu item 3d scenes then properties, find background color and change it.
- Add theme using the + sign, be sure to set the Data Source Type to GRID. The Canyon Lake dem is in a GRID file in the dem folder that you saved in step 1 under the file name clcdem.
- The result when displayed will appear as a 2-dimensional image.
- Make clcdem the active file, then under the Theme menu choose convert GRID to TIN, choose a location to save the results and accept the default z value tolerance.
- Load your resulting 3d scene to the viewer by checking the box.
- Using 3d scenes and properties menu item to experiment with, change the background color, sun angle and azimuth, and vertical exaggeration...
- By double clicking on the colors in the table of contents and bringing up the Tin Legend Editor under the Faces and edit choices, change the display colors and other legend items.
- Printing of output can be done as a viewer "screen dump", just use the File -- Print menu item or by going to menu item 3d scene and save as image (I usually use a jpeg). When saving this image first set the drive (c: is what I am suggesting here), then the directory, finally change the file name -- BUT BE VERY CAREFUL THAT YOU DON'T ERASE THE .jpg EXTENSION AT THE END OF THE FILE NAME OR IT WON'T PROPERLY LOAD.
- This image can later be added to View window in the normal part of ArcView from which a Layout can be produced and printed. If you have saved your 3d image as a jpeg make sure that you turn on the Jpeg Extension before trying to add this image theme to a View window.