This weeks lab took us into 3D Mapping and the various aspects of it. ESRI offers a great online course for 3D Visualization using ArcScene and ArcGlobe. If you have not taken this course before and 3D mapping is something you are interested in, then I would highly recommend you taking that course. It gives the quick, down and dirty of how to accomplish these tasks using the ArcGIS suite.
In this lab we focused on 5 sections using ArcScene. The first section taught us how to set base heights for raster and feature data. This was done using Crater Lake as a backdrop and adding the lake, rivers, watch towers, and land use data over the top of elevation data. Here is how mine turned out:
The second module taught us how to apply vertical exaggeration to a map. Minnesota is a fairly flat state, especially in the section we worked with. This is what made it such a great candidate to apply vertical exaggeration to so we could see the features. The picture below is Minnesota with about 23 times exaggeration to make the features stand out.
The third module showed us how to use illumination to highlight certain features. Santa Barbara Island was the backdrop and I set the sun to be coming from the south and not much over the horizon, about 9 degrees. You can see how this highlighted the cliff face in this picture:
After completing the ESRI lesson, we moved on to making 3D buildings for Boston. This started off in ArcGIS to create the data we would need to make the building extrusions in ArcScene. Once that data was created, we moved to ArcScene and made the buildings there using the extrusion process. Then that data was saved in as a .kml file to later be imported into Google Earth. The picture below shows the buildings that were created in ArcGIS/ArcScene and then imported into Google Earth.
In this lab we focused on 5 sections using ArcScene. The first section taught us how to set base heights for raster and feature data. This was done using Crater Lake as a backdrop and adding the lake, rivers, watch towers, and land use data over the top of elevation data. Here is how mine turned out:
The second module taught us how to apply vertical exaggeration to a map. Minnesota is a fairly flat state, especially in the section we worked with. This is what made it such a great candidate to apply vertical exaggeration to so we could see the features. The picture below is Minnesota with about 23 times exaggeration to make the features stand out.
The next two exercises focused on using extrusions to create 3D buildings. The first picture shows buildings and wells. You could actually see the depth of the wells if you looked underneath the map. How cool is that? The second picture uses the dollar value of the specific parcels to illustrate which ones were worth more and whether they were commercial, residential, or industrial lands.
Overall this was an interesting lab. All of the work we have done over the semester has been in 2D and it was somewhat refreshing to take a different look at it this week. I can definitely see some pros to 3D mapping in the fields of flood modeling and utilities planning. The ability of seeing how different water levels may affect a 3D modeled city or how/where different utilities are placed in a 3D environment is definitely useful. A couple things people need to be aware of though are 1. Be aware of where you are facing in your 3D maps and 2. Know that sometimes 3D maps are distorted to show you their message or enhance features. The data doesn't change, only the perception of what it is.
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