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.

• Learn more about measuring aspect
• Learn more about understanding slope
• Learn more about working with contours

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The following tools that were available in the 3D Analyst toolbox prior to version 10.0 have been deprecated and superceded by its counterpart listed in the Recommendation column: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