An overview of the 3D Features toolset

The 3D Features tools allow you to manipulate features and surfaces in 3D.

The following table lists the tools in the 3D Features toolset and a brief description of each.

Tool	Description
Add Z Information	Adds information about elevation properties of features in a Z-enabled feature class.
Construct Sight Lines	Creates line features that represent sight lines from one or more observer points to features in a target feature class.
Difference 3D	Computes the geometric intersection of two volumes defined by closed multipatch features, based upon the geometric intersection of their patches. Subtracts all the volumes of one feature class from the other and writes the result to a new output feature class.
Feature To 3D By Attribute	Creates 3D features using height values derived from the attribute of the input features.
Inside 3D	Tests each feature to determine if it falls inside a multipatch. If it falls inside a multipatch feature, it writes an entry to a new table indicating which feature it fell within.
Intersect 3D	Computes the geometric intersection of two volumes defined by closed multipatch features, based upon the geometric intersection of their patches. Features or portions of features which overlap in the two layers and/or feature classes will be written to the Output Feature Class.
Intersect 3D Line With Multipatch	Computes a geometric intersection of the input line and multipatch features, and returns the number of points of intersection. Points (of intersection) and/or lines (resulting from input lines being broken at intersection points) can optionally be written to output feature class(es).
Is Closed	Evaluates multipatch features to determine whether each feature completely encloses a volume of space.
Near 3D	Calculates the three-dimensional distance from each input feature to the nearest feature that resides in one or more near feature classes.
Skyline	Generates a line or multipatch feature class containing the results from a skyline silhouette analysis.
Skyline Barrier	Generates a multipatch feature class representing a skyline barrier or shadow volume.
Skyline Graph	Calculates sky visibility and generates an optional table and polar graph.
Union 3D	Computes the geometric intersection of the patches of overlapping multipatches, then aggregates the multipatches together. How many features are created as output depends on the tool's settings.

Overview table of 3D Features tools