Selecting features in 3D

Selecting features in ArcScene can be done in a variety of ways. It allows you to identify or more easily locate a subset of features on your scene. Applying a selection of features is a useful way of specifying features for queries, geoprocessing analysis, editing data, viewing attributes, and so on.

About selecting features in ArcScene

There are several ways to select features in a 3D view. The most direct way to select features is to click them in the view with the Select Features tool. When a feature is selected, it is highlighted.

The other main tools for selecting features are applicable only when editing. The Edit Placement and Edit Vertex tools on the 3D Editor toolbar, and the ability to select features with an edit task, will only be available when you are in an edit session.

You can also select features in the 3D view by selecting their records in an attribute table, or graph window with your mouse pointer. Selecting features inside the display, a table, or in a graph is immediately represented in each of these views.

Selecting features can also be based on their attributes or by their location with respect to other features. For example, you could select all the polygons that you've classified as having moderately steep slopes, then select all the buildings that are within these polygons. These tools are available in the Selection menu drop-down.

Interactively selecting features is a useful and critical part of many tasks such as 3D editing or defining input for geoprocessing tasks. You can also easily navigate to a selection set, brining it into the center of the view, using Zoom to Selected Features. Open the Selection menu to find Zoom to Selected Features, or add the command to any toolbar if you use it freqently.

Making a layer selectable

Before using a selection method, it can be helpful to specify which layer or layers should be selectable. Do this when the features you want to select overlap or are close to features from other layers. To set which layers are selectable, you can specify from the layers that are checked in the Set Selectable Layers dialog box, which you can open by clicking the Selection menu and clicking Set Selectable Layers. Uncheck the layers you don't want to be able to select from. Layers whose names are unchecked are still visible in your 3D view but can't be selected.

An example when setting selectable layers would be useful is if you have a layer of cities where many of the cities are on rivers. You can avoid selecting rivers by specifying that you want to select from the cities layer only. In the Set Selectable Layers dialog box, you would make sure that cities are checked, but you should uncheck the rivers layer.