ET Surface is a set of tools for ArcGIS that enable the users to create surfaces and perform surface analysis without the need of 3D or Spatial Analyst extensions. The only requirement is an ArcGIS license (ArcView, ArcEditor or ArcInfo).

ET TerrainViewer - a stand alone application included in ET Surface allows 3D visualization of surfaces (PolygonZs, TINs and Rasters), features stored in shapefiles. It also allows draping aerial photography over a surface.

Versions 4.0 and above include ToolBox implementation of most of the functions. This allows running the functions from within Arc Toolbox environment, including them in models or using them in Python or VB scripts.

In version 5.0 most of the raster functions were completely rewritten with optimization for speed and memory use.

Main Features:

• Interpolate Surface
  • ESRI TIN and PolygonZ TIN from points, polylines or polygons.
  • Modify ESRI TIN and PolygonZ TIN by adding data from points, polylines or polygons.
  • Break lines (Hard and Soft) are supported for ESRI TIN.
  • Contours to Raster
  • IDW
  • Density
• TIN Surface Analysis - Slope, Aspect, Visibility, Volume, Cut/Fill
• Raster Surface Analysis - Slope, Aspect, Hillshade, Viewshed, Volume, Cut/Fill, Interpolate Contours
• Raster Distance Analysis - Euclidean Distance, Direction and Allocation, Weighted Voronoi (Thiessen) allocation, Cost Distance and Allocation
• Raster Processing - Clip, Erase, Smooth, Clean Boundaries, Resample
• Raster Calculator - enables the user to perform complex mathematical calculation on rasters.
• Zonal Statistics
• Profile Extractor
  • Create profile of multiple surfaces (ESRI TIN, Raster, PolygonZ TIN)
  • Draw profiles for:
    • User drawn cross-section line
    • Selected polyline or polygon graphic
    • Selected polyline or polygon feature
  • Interactive Profile Window
    • Zoom
    • Pan
    • Identify
    • Label data points
  • Animate profile for cross-sections moving along route
  • Draw profile directly on the data frame
  • Draw profile on the layout preserving the scale of the data frame
  • Export profile to a text file, an image, point or polyline feature class
• Line of Sight (LOS) tool
  • Draw on View and in Profile Window
  • Set offset for the Observer and Target
  • Apply Earth curvature corrections
  • Apply light refraction corrections
  • Apply radio wave corrections 
  • Animate rotation of the Observer
• Digitize 3D features or graphics with elevation extracted from ESRI TIN, Raster, PolygonZ TIN