What’s new in Map View and Scene view of ArcGIS Online (February 2023)

ArcGIS Online offers interactive maps that allow you to connect people, locations, and data, providing location intelligence with smart, data-driven styles and intuitive analysis tools. With it, you can create maps and apps to share your insights with your organization or the world, either as a complete cloud-based solution or by complementing the capabilities of ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Enterprise. The latest update, released in February 2023, introduces new features to Map Viewer, including spatial analysis tools, and includes various enhancements and capabilities across the entire ArcGIS Online platform. See below for more details.

Map viewer Map Viewer is an essential tool for creating, exploring, and modifying web maps. To take advantage of the new features and improvements that come with each update, both administrators and members are encouraged to set Map Viewer as their primary map viewer.

The latest update includes several enhancements and features that have been added to Map Viewer, such as:

New analysis experience Spatial analysis tools enable you to identify trends and connections in your data. Map Viewer now provides an updated and enhanced experience with most of the feature and raster analysis tools that were previously available in Map Viewer Classic, along with some new tools and capabilities.

Media layer A newly introduced feature is the media layer, which can be accessed through the Contents (dark) toolbar in the Add or Layers pane.

To add a media layer, simply select the option and choose a .jpg or .png image file to include in your map. The layer includes positioning and rotation tools to help you place the image exactly where you want it, and you can view anchor points in a side-by-side view to ensure proper placement.

Effects can be added to media layers, and once the positioning has been saved, you can modify the image’s placement and reposition it if necessary through the media layer properties.

Upload image symbols ArcGIS Online now allows you to upload .gif, .jpg, and .png images that you can use as symbols when styling your layer or creating a sketch in Map Viewer. These symbols are saved and can be used again in other layers or sketch layers until you clear your browser cache.

To access the analysis tools, click on Analysis in the Settings (light) toolbar. This will display the analysis pane, where you can browse through all the available tools or view your previous analysis history. The analysis history provides information on which tools were run, their results, parameters used, and any errors or warnings encountered. The tools are categorized by function and can be searched by name or keyword. Tool descriptions are available by hovering over them.

Groups in legends

Map Viewer now offers a new way to control the feature display order of overlapping features in layers with Types (unique symbols) or Predominant category styling applied. When you manually change the order of types in the list, you can now display overlapping features based on this order, with features in types that are higher in the list drawn on top of features in types that are lower in the list.

Display order of overlapping features

The Search tool in Map Viewer is now available directly from the lower right corner of the map, located with the hide/show interface, home, and zoom in/out buttons.  It can also be accessed using a keyboard shortcut—Alt+f on Microsoft Windows or Option+f on Mac.

Scene Viewer

Scene Viewer is a tool available on ArcGIS Online that allows for the creation, exploration, and viewing of 3D scenes. The latest update comes with new features such as the ability to measure while snapping to features, custom request parameter appending for supported layers, and support for pop-ups and slice tool usage in voxel layers. Additionally, terrain visualization has been improved with enhanced shading and higher elevation resolution.

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