Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 17, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Esri CityEngine is a tool for the procedural editing and visualization of 3D cities for Windows, Linux and Mac. It enables intuitive creation and management of city data in a few steps and can be integrated into existing pipelines (Python support). To further simplify getting started and general work with CityEngine, Esri introduces, among other things, the “Esri CityEngine Resources” page in this 2019.0 update. On the page itself, alongside the documentation, you will find around twenty tutorials, prepared videos, help on CGA (Computer Generated Architecture) operations and Esri’s own ArcGIS Blog.
CityEngine 2019.0
Interactive Editing & Design Tool Improvements
Using the drawing and transformation tools now feels more precise and responsive thanks to numerous performance improvements. Alongside the existing tool enhancements, CityEngine has now also received a Boolean subtraction tool for 2D shapes due to high demand. The Offset tool is now named Offset Shapes and is located behind Subtract Shapes in the main menu. The ability to draw arcs with the Polygon Creation Tools has also been improved in several places.
Many New CGA Operations
The procedural modeling language CGA has received several new, interesting operations with this update. For example, the correction operation “rectify,” with which inaccurate building footprints can be cleaned up. Or the “setbackPerEdge” operation, which allows the user to control the setback for each edge of a polygon separately.
Integration with ArcGIS Urban (Beta)
With the current software release, Esri announces the integration of CityEngine into “ArcGIS Urban.” You can obtain more information about ArcGIS Urban, Esri’s upcoming web-based urban-planning platform, in the following video.
Palladio, a CityEngine Plug-in for Houdini
Palladio is an open-source plug-in for Houdini that enables CityEngine’s procedural modeling power in Houdini networks and is aimed at developers from the VFX, gaming, architecture or urban-planning industries. With the CityEngine 2019.0 release, support for Houdini 17.0 and 17.5 as well as HDA (Houdini Assets) has now finally been added. for non-commercial use, a CityEngine license is also no longer required. Anyone who wants to can therefore also use Palladia free of charge for student and private projects. To use the plug-in commercially, you then need at least a commercial license for CityEngine 2019.x.
Licenses
In addition to the existing license models, “Named User licensing” is now available for CityEngine, with which you can simply sign in to CityEngine through your ArcGIS Online account. With the new license model, FlexNet license activation and the ArcGIS Administrator installation are then no longer required.
You can download a free 30-day trial version here.
Further Features:
- Import & export of the gITF 2.0 format
- Export improvement to Unreal Studio (Beta)
- City Engine VR Experience now also with the Oculus Rift
- Serlio – the CityEngine plug-in for Autodesk Maya (still in development)
You can find a complete overview of the further features here.
