How do you convert a 2D building polygon layer to 3D to use in ArcGIS Portal Scenes in Pro?

[tasubasu]

We want to publish a 3D building layer to ArcGIS Enterprise Portal 11.1 using ArcGIS Pro 3.x. (Standard, Spatial Analyst and Data Interoperability Extensions)

The building dataset will be for the whole country of Korea so we want this to be light and render fast. What are the steps to convert this from a 2D polygon layer to a 3D layer in Portal (and rendering relatively quickly)?
My initial thought was:

1. Convert the polygons to a 3D building as objects or 3D object layer or mutlipatch layer or a scene layer / scene layer package. However, it appears that "ArcGIS Pro and CityEngine are required to create a layer with 3D buildings as objects." Alternatively, that we would need "ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension".
   
2. Then, publish this as a Scene layer to portal (Copy all data and Cache on the server)
   

However, the only method we found that works (so far) is to use Data Interoperability to read in the 2D buildings data --> reproject to WGS 84 --> set the building base height using the base height attributes in the 3DForcer transformer --> using the Extruder transformer using the building height attribute --> Write out data as 3D multipatch layer or as an Esri Indexed 3D scene layer. Then in ArcGIS Pro, publish as a Scene layer to Portal.

What am I missing? What can be done to improve the rendering of this layer and what are the steps to take using ArcGIS Pro? Or should we stick to using Data Interoperability for creating the local layer, and then, publishing as a scene using Pro? Also if there is a more simple or effective method please let us know.

The data will be static, and will not need to be edited or frequently updated.

[tasubasu]

I have made some progress on this. It turns out there is a known bug using FME's Esri indexed 3d scene layer (i3s) writer. Info of error 
In ArcGIS Pro there is a known bug with Pro 3.2 where using the create Create 3D Object Scene Layer Content with shapefile input data. So, the data was then exported to a multipatch feature class in file geodatabase, then used the Create 3D Object Scene Layer Content tool, then published the data to Portal. So far so good. Relatively fast rendering and no rendering issues found so far. It just kills the viewers machine.

[Andrew--Johnson · Accepted solution]

Hi,

One possible workflow you can use

1. Extrude polygon features https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/extrude-features-to-3d-symbol... 

2. Export the extruded polygons as a multipatch feature class using Layer 3D To Feature Class tool https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/3d-analyst/layer-3d-to-feature-class.htm 

3. Share the multipatch feature class as a web scene layer to your portal https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/sharing/overview/web-scene-layer.htm 

thanks,

Andrew

[tasubasu]

Thank you! I knew I was missing something. The name of the tool "Layer 3D to Feature Class" threw me off to be honest. (1.) So this method allows for a feature association so that the symbology can easily be updated if the user requires.
I see, that workflow makes sense as opposed to the convoluted workflow I have been following.
Add building polygon to a scene --> Layer 3D To Feature Class --> Share the multipatch feature class as a web scene layer to your portal (1.)
OR
Add building polygon to a scene --> Layer 3D To Feature Class --> Create 3D Object Scene Layer Content --> Share the scene layer package to Portal

[Andrew--Johnson · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Glad that simplifies the workflow! There's always multiple ways to do something in GIS but this appeared more streamlined for your case. And yes those are the two options. If you need access to attributes for editing you'll need the associated feature layer but if you just want to visualize the data you can create the slpk using the geoprocessing tool.

thanks,

Andrew