See through 3d map

[jeremybrunelli]

I am in argis pro and have shape file of all land masses in the world and have tranformed the entire layer to 3d.  So, I am trying to make back ground of the map completely transparent so I can essentially see through the globe where water would be.  Also, would like to see the other land masses on the other side, essentially the underside of the layer.  Was going to try  to change the layout background to hollow, but the background option was disabled. Any ideas?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

not all data types support transparency, you could check the layer to see if it does or you would have to troll through the various data types to see if it does  Layer—ArcPy | ArcGIS for Desktop ( look for lyr.supports("TRANSPARENCY") and other examples in the code section)

[JeremyWright]

In a globe the background isn't shown anyhow - you see space and stars.

Think of it this way:

On a 3d globe you can have one or many surfaces.

The primary surface is the "Ground".

By default this gets its shape from an elevation source (from AGOL) and its color from the surface color (by default WHITE) and a basemap (by default the Topo basemap) painted on top of that.

So, the base coat of paint is the surface color and then a basemap wallpaper gets added on top.

If you want to see through the "Ground" you have to do two steps:

1.  Make the base coat white -  go to Map Properties->Elevation Surface and change the color picker next to "Ground" to "no color".  Now you should see holes at the top and bottom of the earth (where the basemap doesn't cover due to using Web Mercator coordinate system).

2.  Make the wallpaper transparent.  You do this by selecting the basemap in the TOC, activating the APPEARANCE tab, and then changing transparency slider to make it partially transparent.

Give this a try and let me know if this works for you.

[jeremybrunelli]

Worked like a charm, exactly what I was trying to do…question: how do I remove stars in the background?

[JeremyWright]

Stars go away when you switch to "Local" scene view.  To switch, go to the VIEW tab and hit the "Local" button therein.  This switches your view from Global (whole earth) view to a Local (fishtank) view. 

PROTIP: Local scene views can use any coordinate system, whereas Global views always have to be geographic.

PROTIP: You may want to limit the extent of your fishtank view by using the "Custom Full Extent" and "Clip to Full Extent" options in Map Properties.

[jeremybrunelli]

Thank you. But when I do this, the map flattens out. Preferably I would like to have the Global View with no starry background, is this possible?

[JeremyWright]

Not possible right now - that'd be an enhancement request.

Please submit it at ideas.arcgis.com for consideration - and suggest what you'd like to see (e.g. skybox, just static background, etc.)

[RamsrujanMakam]

Hi Jeremy, 

To turn off the stars in ArcGIS Pro 2.5 global scene, navigate to Scene Properties > Illumination > Atmospheric Lighting  > turn off 'Show stars and halo' > click 'Ok'. 

Here is the documentation - Illuminate a global scene

Hope this helps. 

Regards, 

Ram

[JeremyWright]

Ram,

Thanks!  I'm aware that we added this feature several releases ago.  2016 was a long time ago!

J