Explore a scene

In this tutorial, you'll work with a 3D scene, which is a method used to display and explore three-dimensional data. You'll open an existing 3D scene and learn how to navigate it in Scene Viewer, a dedicated web app for visualizing geospatial data in 3D. You'll also apply a 3D basemap to enhance the scene, perform measurements, adjust the time of day to display shadows, and change the weather for the scene. Finally, you'll search for your hometown or other locations to continue exploring.

This tutorial is the first in the series Get started with Scene Viewer.

This tutorial was last tested on May 14, 2025.

Requirements

• This tutorial does not require an ArcGIS account or other software.

Explore a scene

Navigate a scene

You can view 3D web scenes using the Scene Viewer app. In Scene Viewer, you can start from scratch with a an empty scene or you can open existing scenes that others have saved and published to ArcGIS Online. In ArcGIS Online, you can share items with the organization or publicly. If a scene is shared publicly, like the one you'll explore, you can open it without signing in. You'll open an existing scene and explore different areas of the world.

1. Open a scene of places around the world.

   

   The scene appears and displays the entire globe. At the bottom, there are three slide thumbnails of places around the world, including the one you are looking at now. Slides contain a specific viewpoint and the state of a scene, such as which layers are visible, and the time of day. Slides are created by the author of a scene, to make it easy for viewers to browse to places of interest. Slides provide a quick way to revisit saved viewpoints in a scene.

2. Point to each slide to see the title.

   

3. Click the Swiss Alps slide.

   

   The scene navigates to show an area in the Swiss Alps. Elevation is automatically present in 3D scenes and elevate the Alps to give this impressive view of Matterhorn.

4. Click the Washington DC slide.

   The scene navigates to Washington, D.C.

   

   There is a difference in the detail and terrain when you view an area that is mostly flat compared to the mountainous view from the Swiss Alps.

   Navigation using slides is a quick way to see saved extents, but you can also navigate through a scene using zoom and pan tools. You'll practice using some of these tools while viewing Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps.

5. Return to the Swiss Alps slide.
6. On the toolbar in the upper-left corner of the scene, click the Zoom in button.

   

   The scene zooms closer to the mountain.

   

   The scene becomes more detailed the closer you get. You can similarly click the Zoom out button to zoom out.

   Note:

   You can also zoom in or out using the mouse scroll wheel.

7. Drag the scene with the left mouse button to pan.
8. Drag the scene with the right mouse button to rotate it.

   Note:

   You can change the mouse controls for panning and rotating. Under the Zoom in and Zoom out buttons, click the Toggle to pan or rotate in 3D button. Doing so switches the controls, so the left mouse button rotates and the right mouse button pans. You can switch the controls back to the default by clicking the button again.

   You can quickly orient the scene to the north by clicking the Reset map orientation button.

9. On the toolbar, click the Reset map orientation button.

   

   The scene reorients itself to north. You can also navigate a scene using keyboard shortcuts.

10. Click the scene and press the P key on the keyboard.

    

    The view changes to look down onto the scene.

11. On the toolbar, click the Initial view button.

    

    The scene returns to its original viewpoint showing the globe.

Work with basemaps

Basemaps provide context and orientation for maps and scenes. Depending on the intent of a scene, you may want to highlight topography, streets, imagery, or have a simple background to add focus to the data. In Scene Viewer, you can change the basemap from the default to many other options to enhance the aesthetics and experience of the scene. Next, you'll explore the basemap gallery and change the basemap for the scene.

1. Click the Washington DC slide.

   The scene shows the park at the Washington Monument. It is difficult to distinguish much from the scene just showing the Topographic basemap, as it only shows 2D data. Next, you'll add 3D buildings to the scene.

2. On the toolbar in the upper-right corner of the scene, click the Basemap button.

   

   The Basemap window appears.

3. Click the existing basemap, Topographic, to open the basemap gallery.

   

4. Click the Topographic 3D basemap to apply it to the scene.

   

   The Topographic 3D basemap is applied to the scene.

   

   Switching to the Topographic 3D basemap enhances the scene with 3D buildings, 3D trees, and labels. Now when you look at the scene, you know exactly what you're looking at.

5. Experiment with other basemaps by clicking them in the gallery.
6. When finished experimenting, click the Topographic 3D basemap.
7. Close the Basemap window.

Data exploration tools

Just as in maps, in scenes you can make measurements of distance and area to gain more information about the features. Next, you'll use the measure tool to measure the height of the Washington monument.

1. On the toolbar in the upper-right corner of the scene, click the Scene tools button.

   

   A window showing the scene tools appears.

   

   There are four scene tools available. You can measure distance and area, slice through the scene, and create an elevation profile. By default, the Measure distance tool is selected. You'll use this tool to measure the height of the Washington Monument.

2. Click the ground next to the Washington Monument to start the measurement. Click again at the top of the monument to finish the measurement.

   

   Note:

   Be sure that the pointer touches the top of the monument, or you may get a larger distance being referenced from the background. Also, your height measurement may differ from the example image.

   The resulting measurement is shown next to the lines of the measurement as well as in the scene tool at the upper right. You can change the unit to show a different system of measurement.

3. If necessary, for Unit, choose Imperial.

   

4. Close the scene tools window to hide the measurement.
5. Click Scene tools to show the measurement again.

   The measurement is retained even after you have closed the scene tools window.

Modify daylight and weather

Next, you'll change the time of day for the scene to observe how it affects the shadows of buildings.

1. On the same toolbar, click Daylight/Weather.

   

   A window appears with the Daylight tab enabled. You can change the time and date to see how that affects shadows on the scene.

2. On the slider, drag the blue dot from left to right to change the time of day for the scene.

   

   Shadows are automatically added to the scene and adjusted to the time. Shadows are calculated for a given time and day of the year. You can use shadows to understand how changes in a city might affect daylight for a specific area.

3. Click the blue play button next to the time-of-day slider.

   

   The shadows are animated throughout the day. Next, you'll experiment with changing the weather in the scene.

4. Click the Weather tab.

   

   The options change from time to weather. Sunny weather is the default.

   

   Weather provides different options for cloud cover and precipitation. It can drastically change the mood of a scene and is a powerful storytelling instrument.

5. Click the Cloudy button and drag the slider to change the cloud cover.

   

   After a moment, the sky changes to a cloudy sky.

6. Click the Rainy button.

   

   The sky is automatically covered in clouds and rain is actively falling. Similarly to before, you can adjust the cloud cover and precipitation through two sliders in this tool. You can use rainy weather in flooding scenarios, where it adds more realism to the scene.

7. Optionally, experiment with some of the other weather options.

Search for locations

Earlier, you worked with slides that zoom you to a specific location. Likely, the creator of the slides used the search functionality in the scene to initially find those locations. Next, you'll search for locations using the search functionality. You can search for your hometown, dream vacation destination, or any other location.

1. On the same toolbar, click the Search button.

   

   The Search box appears. Here, you can type a location that you want to find.

2. In the search box, type the location you want to visit.

   

   In this case, the search is for Hanalei, Hawaii.

3. In the list of results, click the location to zoom to it.
4. Using the skills that you have learned in this tutorial, do the following:
   • Change the weather to match the location.
   • Change the basemap.

   

   While your location is likely different than the example, you have searched for a place and modified the scene's basemap and weather.

In this tutorial, you discovered how to navigate a 3D scene, change a scene's basemap, make measurements, change the time, change the weather, and search for a location. You can create your first scene with the Create a scene tutorial.

You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.

Acknowledgements

• Topographic map sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community