Publish hosted scene layers

You can publish three-dimensional data (multipatches) and two-dimensional data as hosted scene layers to your portal from ArcGIS Pro 1.1. You can publish three-dimensional points as hosted scene layers (also called 3D scene layers) to your portal from ArcGIS Pro 1.2 and later releases. You can also upload a scene layer package to your portal and publish a hosted scene layer.

Note:

Your portal must be configured with ArcGIS Data Store (10.3.1 or later) and have a tile cache data store to publish hosted scene layers using multipatch data. You can publish hosted scene layers using 3D point data beginning with ArcGIS Pro 1.3, ArcGIS Data Store 10.4, and Portal for ArcGIS 10.4. You can publish point cloud data beginning with ArcGIS Pro 1.4 and ArcGIS Enterprise 10.5.

The hosted scene layer exposes all vector datasets included in the map. Scene layers are composed of a hosted feature layer containing vector data and a cache to support rapid visualization of the data. To create this cache, you must have ArcGIS Data Store installed and a tile cache data store configured with your portal's hosting server.

You must have privileges to create content, publish hosted feature layers, and publish hosted scene layers.

Publish from an ArcGIS Pro scene

From ArcGIS Pro, you can publish a scene layer to be hosted on your portal. For information on configuring your web scene in ArcGIS Pro before publishing, see Configure a web scene in Share a web scene.

Before you publish, be sure your portal connection is active and you are signed in with an account that has privileges to create content, publish hosted feature layers, and publish hosted scene layers.

Be aware that web browsers cannot display some complex cartographic symbols you might have originally used when you authored the map. Most symbol types are available, but in some cases, the symbols may be downgraded when you publish them. See Author feature services in the ArcGIS Server help for more details about what symbols are supported, and make any required changes to your map symbology prior to publishing.

1. Start ArcGIS Pro and open the project that contains the data you want to publish.
2. Sign in to your organization from ArcGIS Pro.
3. To publish a scene layer to your organization, do one of the following:
   • To publish the scene and all its layers as a scene layer, click Web Scene in the Share As group of the Share tab.
   • To publish selected layers from the scene, select the layers in the Contents pane. Right-click the selection set and click Share As Web Layer.
4. If your data source is an enterprise geodatabase and you want the feature layer to reference that data rather than being copied to the hosting server's relational data store, check the Reference registered data check box.

   To use this option (available beginning with ArcGIS Pro 2.1), you must register the enterprise geodatabase with the hosting server as a database data store.

5. Type a name for the feature layers and scene layers in the map. The layers are saved to My Content by default. You can save to a folder in My Content by either typing the folder name or browsing to an existing folder.
6. Fill in the Summary and Tags fields.
7. Specify how the layers will be shared. All layers you publish are automatically shared to your personal workspace in your organization (My Content). Your content is inaccessible to others until you share it with one or more of the following:
   • The name of your organization—Selecting this option allows the layer to be shared with all authenticated users in the organization.
   • Everyone—Selecting this option makes the layer available to anyone who can access your portal URL.
   • Groups—You can share the layer with members of groups to which you belong.
8. You can change editing, synchronization, and export settings for the feature layer. To do so, click the Configuration tab. If publishing a feature layer that copies data, these options appear directly on the Configuration tab. If publishing a feature layer that references registered data, you need to click the edit button next to the feature layer to see these options. Check the box next to the operations you want to allow:
   • Enable Editing—This operation enables members of your organization who have edit privileges to add, update, or delete features in your layer.
   • Enable Sync—This operation allows others to take the layer offline.
   • Export Data—This operation allows others to export the hosted feature layer data to a CSV file, shapefile, file geodatabase, or GeoJSON. This only applies if you publish a feature layer and choose to copy data.
9. Scene layers use a cache, which ArcGIS can build when you publish the scene layer, or you can manually build the cache after the scene layer is published. On the Configuration tab, specify which caching method you want to use.

   For more information on configuring the scene cache, see Web scene layer in the ArcGIS Pro help.

10. Click the Content tab to confirm your hosted web layer will include the data layers you intended.
11. Click Analyze to check for any errors or issues.

    If any issues are discovered, they will be listed on the Messages tab. Right-click each message to get more information, read help for the error or warning, and access suggested fixes. You must fix the errors before you can publish. Optionally, you can fix the warnings to further improve the performance and appearance of your hosted feature layer.

12. Once you've fixed the errors and, optionally, any warnings, click Share.

    Note:

    Your data is copied to the server at this point. The size of the data and your network speed and bandwidth will impact the time it takes to publish.

You cannot view a web scene layer until caching is complete. If you configured the layer to cache on the server, caching continues after publishing completes. Once publishing completes, you can view the cache generation status on the scene layer's details page in the portal website. Click Manage the web layer to open the portal website.

Publish from a scene layer package

A scene layer package contains a scene layer and its data. Beginning with ArcGIS Pro 1.3, you can use the Create Scene Layer Package geoprocessing tool to create a scene layer package. Beginning with ArcGIS Pro 2.2, you can use the Create Integrated Mesh Scene Layer Package geoprocessing to create a scene layer package. When you add a scene layer package to your portal, you have the option to publish a hosted scene layer.

Follow these steps to upload a scene layer package and publish a hosted scene layer:

1. Sign in to your organization and open Content > My Content.
2. Click Add Item > From my computer.
3. Click the browse button and choose the scene layer package on your computer.
4. Type a title that describes the scene layer.
5. If your portal administrator configured content categories, click Assign Category and select up to 20 categories to help people find your item. You can also use the Filter categories box to narrow down the list of categories.

   Categories are available beginning with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.1.

6. Type tag terms separated by commas.

   Tags are words or short phrases that describe your item and help people find your item when searching. Federal land is considered one tag, while Federal,land is considered two tags.

7. Check the Publish this file as a hosted layer box.

   If you leave the box unchecked, your scene layer package is added to My Content, but no scene layer is published. You can publish it later by opening the item page for the scene layer package and clicking Publish.

8. Click Add Item.