An overview of the Triangulated Surface toolset

The Triangulated Surface toolset offers a set of surface analysis tools that operate on terrain, TIN, and LAS datasets. They provide the ability to extract surface properties, such as slope, aspect, and contour isolines, identify outliers in the data points, make volumetric computations, and create 3D feature classes that model the surface.

The following list outlines the tools available in the Triangulated Surface toolset:

Geoprocessing Tool

Description

Decimate TIN Nodes

Creates a triangulated irregular network (TIN) dataset using a subset of nodes from a source TIN.

Extrude Between

Creates 3D features by extruding each input feature between two triangulated irregular network (TIN) datasets.

Interpolate Polygon To Multipatch

Creates surface-conforming multipatch features from a polygon feature class using a raster, terrain, or TIN surface.

Locate Outliers

Identifies anomalous elevation measurements from terrain, TIN, or LAS datasets that exceed a defined range of elevation values or have slope characteristics that are inconsistent with the surrounding surface.

Polygon Volume

Calculates the volume and surface area between a polygon and terrain or TIN surface.

Surface Aspect

Calculates the aspect, or direction of the steepest downhill slope, of each triangle in a TIN or terrain dataset and writes the output as a polygon feature class.

Surface Contour

Creates contour lines derived using a terrain or TIN surface.

Surface Difference

Calculates the volumetric difference between two surface models stored as either a triangulated irregular networks (TIN) or terrain dataset.

Surface Slope

Creates polygon features from the triangle slope values of a TIN or terrain dataset.

The following tools that were available in the 3D Analyst toolbox prior to version 10.0 have been deprecated and superceded by its counterpart listed in the Recommendation column:

Geoprocessing Tool

Recommendation

TIN Aspect

Use the Surface Aspect tool to extract aspect information from a TIN surface.

TIN Contour

Use the Surface Contour tool to extract contours from a TIN surface.

TIN Difference

Use the Surface Difference tool to calculate the volumetric difference between two TINs.

TIN Polygon Volume

Use the Polygon Volume to calculate the volumetric and surface area between polygons of an input feature class and a TIN.

TIN Slope

Use the Surface Slope to extract slope information from an input TIN.

Related Topics

11/8/2012