Share a scene

Any map or scene has an audience. Usually, the audience is diverse and can range from GIS experts to the public. This tutorial shows you the tools necessary to create an easy and intuitive 3D presentation of your scene and your story. Whether you are informing your team about the latest development projects, publishing research results, or sharing hiking trails with the public—the tools for presenting scenes make your scene accessible to everyone.

This tutorial is the third in the series called Get started with Scene Viewer. If you are new to Scene Viewer or haven't completed the first two tutorials in the series, it is recommended that you complete the other tutorials first: Explore a scene and Create a scene.

This tutorial was last tested on March 4, 2026.

Requirements

• ArcGIS organizational account with a Publisher, Facilitator, or Administrator role (see options for software access)

Share a scene

Create overview slides

3D navigation can sometimes pose a challenge for users. A good way to facilitate navigation in a web scene is to create slides. Slides are saved extents that the user can use to quickly zoom to an area. Slides can guide users through the important aspects of your scene by preserving specific viewpoints, the state of a scene, such as which layers are visible, and the time of day. First, you'll open the scene for Zurich that you created in the Create a scene tutorial and then add some slides to it.

1. Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account.

   Note:

   If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.

2. Go to the Content tab and open the Downtown Zurich scene that you created in the Create a scene tutorial. If you did not take that tutorial, you can alternatively use this scene.
3. Explore the layers by panning, zooming, and tilting the scene.
4. In the layers list, turn the visibility on and off to show or hide a particular layer in the scene.

   

5. In the upper-left corner of the scene, click the Initial view button.

   

   The scene returns to its original viewpoint showing an overview of the city. Next, you'll create some slides in the scene.

6. On the Designer toolbar, click the Slide Manager button.

   

   The Slide Manager pane appears. Currently, there are no slides in the scene.

7. In the Slide Manager pane, click the arrow button to see what aspects of the scene are stored in slides.

   

8. Click Capture slide.

   

   A slide is added with a thumbnail and a default name.

   

   The slide also appears at the bottom of the scene when you point to the scene.

   

   Note:

   If you don't like the way a slide looks, you can recapture it from its options menu.

9. For Slide 1, click the title of the slide, type The Green Building in Central Zurich, and press Enter.

   

10. Click the options button and click Cover.

    

    The Cover option will display the slide name and description in the center of the screen. You'll create a presentation later in the tutorial. Next, you'll create a more detailed slide of the green building.

11. In the layers list, for the Zurich Green Building layer, click the Zoom to button.

    

    The scene zooms in to the green building. You'll adjust the view before capturing the slide.

12. Zoom and pan the scene to get a good view of the green building that shows some of the surrounding areas.

    

13. On the toolbar in the upper-right corner of the scene, click the Daylight/Weather button.

    

14. Click the current time zone and choose UTC + 1 (CET).

    

15. Adjust the time of day to 5:00 PM.

    

    The scene adjusts to show shadows for sunset lighting.

    

16. Close the Daylight/Weather window.
17. In the Slide Manager pane, click Capture slide.
18. Rename Slide 2 to Green Building in Context.

    

Capture a slice

Next, you'll slice the building to show the inside layout. Slides can also be used to store certain tool states, for example, the time slider filter or when something is sliced in the scene.

1. On the Scene Viewer toolbar, click Scene tools.

   

2. In the window that appears, click the Slice objects button.

   

   When you point to the scene, orange slice lines appear.

3. On the scene, point to the top of the green building so that a horizontal plane appears.

   

   Note:

   If you see only a vertical plane, you must point to a horizontal part of the building to get the horizontal plane to appear.

4. Click to select this side for slicing.

   The slice plane is placed. You can adjust the slice plane up and down to determine the best spot to place it on the building.

5. Adjust its size and rotation using the handles to nicely align with the building.

   

   Note:

   If you accidentally placed the slice plane vertically, click the New Slice button to remove the old plane and place a new one.

6. Use the arrows on the slice plane to move down to the 3rd floor.

   

   Now you can see inside of the building.

   

   Capturing slices makes it easy to explore inside features or, when available, underground data. Optionally, you can capture more slides containing more floors of the buildings.

7. In the Slide Manager pane, click Capture slide.

   The slide captured the extent of the scene and the slice as you have positioned it in the scene.

8. Rename the slide to 3rd floor of the building.

   

   You have captured three slides showing different extents and inside of a building using the slide objects tool. Aside from capturing slides of slices, you can also capture slides showing a legend, pop-up, or different weather conditions.

Save a scene

Next, you'll save the changes you've made to the scene and allow the scene to be viewed by other members of your organization. Once the scene is saved and shared properly, you can embed it into other apps.

1. On the Designer toolbar, click Save.

   

   The Save scene window appears.

2. For Title, replace the current text with City of Zurich and click the Save button.

   

   Currently, the scene is only shared with you, its owner. To enable this scene to be accessed by other members of your organization, you must change the sharing settings.

3. On the ribbon, click the scene name, City of Zurich.

   

   Another browser tab appears with the item details page of the scene.

4. Click the Share button.

   

5. Click Everyone (public) and click Save.

   

6. Close the tab of the item details page to return to Scene Viewer.

Create a presentation

You have created several slides to highlight parts of the scene. Next, you'll present those slides in presentation mode with a reduced user interface to emphasize the data in the scene.

1. On the ribbon, click the Present button.

   

   The scene enters presentation mode and shows a cover title of The Green Building in Central Zurich.

   

2. Point to the scene to show the toolbars.
3. In the lower-left corner, click the right arrow to go to the next slide.

   

   The viewpoint changes to show the green building and its surrounding area. Also, the caption shows at the top of the screen.

4. Click the next arrow again to see the slide with the slice in the building.

   

   Note:

   Even though you are in presentation mode, you can still adjust the slice, if necessary.

5. At the bottom of the scene, click the Slide list button to see all the slides.

   

6. Click the first slide to return to the start of the presentation.
7. In the upper-left corner, click the Exit presentation button to leave the presentation.

   

   The scene is back in authoring mode and you can make other changes.

Share a link to the scene

Next, you'll share a link to your scene.

1. On the ribbon, click the Share button.

   

   The Share windows appears.

2. Check Open in presentation mode. Next to the link, click Copy.

   

3. Open a new browser tab and paste the link.

   The scene appears in presentation mode. It is a recommended best practice to share a scene in presentation mode, as it gives the viewers a guided experience, with a focus on the scene content and a clutter-free user interface. You can also share the scene out of presentation mode.

4. Return to the browser tab that contains the scene in Scene Viewer.
5. Uncheck Open in presentation mode and click Copy.
6. Open a new browser tab and paste the link.

   The scene appears out of presentation mode with all authoring tools available.

7. Close the tab and return to full Scene Viewer.

Embed a scene in an app

Apart from sharing a link to your scene, you can also embed the scene in other Esri apps, such as ArcGIS Instant Apps, ArcGIS Dashboards, ArcGIS StoryMaps, or ArcGIS Experience Builder. You can also create a 360VR experience from your web scene, which allows you to create a custom experience around the scene. In this tutorial, you'll embed the scene using Instant Apps. If you embed an app on your organization's website, it's important to include brand colors and a logo. Instant Apps allows you to customize layouts, themes, and branding around your scene.

1. On the Designer toolbar, click Create app and choose Instant Apps.

   

   Another browser tab appears showing the Instant Apps gallery. The gallery is filtered to app templates that work well with 3D scenes.

2. For the 3D Viewer app, click Choose.

   

   The Create app – 3D Viewer window appears. The title of the app is the same as the scene, City of Zurich.

3. Click Create app.

   A browser tab appears containing the app in configuration mode with the scene on the right. You can change different settings for this app, but in this tutorial, you'll publish the app as is.

4. Click Publish.

   

5. Click Confirm and click Launch.

   The app appears in a browser tab. You could embed this app into other ArcGIS apps.

   For more information on branding of an app, see this blog.

In this tutorial, you learned how to create slides to guide your viewers through a scene. You included elements such as daylight settings, slide covers, and slices in your slides and saved them with the scene. Afterward, you presented the scene in presentation mode and learned what sharing options are available. Finally, your scene has been added to an Instant Apps to further customize it.

You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.

Acknowledgements

• The Zurich Trees and Zurich Buildings layers are provided by Open Data Zurich and are shared under a Creative Commons CC Zero license.
• The Zurich Green Building layer was created by the Esri R&D Center in Zurich.
• Topographic map sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community