I am trying to get nice smooth contours using ArcGIS. I have already smoothed out the DEM using focal statistics, simplified and smoothed the contours. The current result looks like this, which is way too pixel-y whenever the line is not straight:
And zoomed in on my peeve:
What I am going for is something less raster-y and more vector-looking like this:
I don't know if something like that is even possible within ArcGIS or whether I need a different application. Nevertheless I hope someone can guide me onto the right path towards perfect contours.
Best Answer
You might try turning on anti-aliasing in your graphics drivers. ArcScene should benefit from this since it uses OpenGL to render in 3D using your graphics hardware. Be aware though that this tends to require a lot more graphics card resources.
Also note that ArcMap will not benefit from this, since it renders in software.
If you have ArcGIS Pro, it should have a display option to perform anti-aliasing.
See also: How to replicate QGIS vector smoothing effect in ArcGIS for Desktop?