What's New for 3D Analyst in ArcGIS Pro 3.4

The  3D Analyst extension offers new and improved capabilities in ArcGIS Pro 3.4.  We’ve added new toolsets, enhancements, and bug fixes to improve the ArcGIS 3D Analyst user experience. Here’s a rundown of what’s new in 3D Analyst.

ArcGIS Pro 3.4 was released in November, 2024.

• Download from here

For a complete summary of all the changes that have been made for this release, have a look at the What’s New in ArcGIS Pro 3.4 blog post.

New Capabilities to ArcGIS 3D Analyst

• The Delete Breakline tool was added to the interactive TIN Editor.
• A line of sight profile graph can be made from the feature output of the Line Of Sight geoprocessing tool.
• Profile graphs include the following items:
  • Cursor tracking to mimic the cursor location in a graph at corresponding positions along the profiled lines.
  • Chaining of features to treat multiple input lines as individual profiles. For example, you can combine multiple connecting roads, streams, or trails into single logical profiles in the graph.
  • The option to use m-values from input polyline vertices for y-axis values as well as z-axis values.

Lidar and LAS datasets

• A new workflow topic explains how to extract building shells from aerial lidar.
• A notification appears when a LAS dataset with a missing or outdated display pyramid is added to a map or scene.

New geoprocessing tool  

• Extract Rails From Point Cloud—Extracts rail track lines and center lines from classified railroad tracks in a LAS dataset, point cloud scene layer package, or I3S point cloud layer. The example below is of data courtesy of Esri India.
• Mesh To LAS—Converts an integrated mesh into a LAS format point cloud.  Only with a basic license do you require the 3D Analyst extension.

Geoprocessing tool enhancements  

• Classify LAS By Height—Offers improved performance and the functionality to classify areas at subfile granularity.
• Line Of Sight—New output attributes facilitate the creation of a line-of-sight profile graph.
• Classify LAS Ground—The new Recover Ridges ground detection option improves results for ridge areas that were not successfully classified using standard ground detection methods.
• Change LAS Class Codes—All class codes can be modified at once. For example, you can undo all existing classifications and classify a point cloud from the beginning.
• Interpolate Shape—Improved results are obtained with lidar-based surfaces across data voids such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
• Skyline—The new Vertical Offset parameter enables the specification of vertical offsets to observer positions.
• Train Point Cloud Classification Model—The new Loss Function parameter allows for the use of focal loss. This improves results in the presence of unbalanced classes.