CityEngine Archives - Digital Urban

CityEngine 2012 – New Features and ‘Sketch Tool’

Andy — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 09:12:10 +0000

CityEngine 2012 now supports easy-to-use editing tools for the quick sketching and texturing of 3D building models (read SketchUp):

Its only towards the end of the clip that you realise that the resulting 3D geometries can be saved back to the file geodatabase, allowing proceduaural modelling of your SketchUp style models….
CityEngine 2012 has a number of notable new features, head over to http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2012/10/03/cityengine-2012-1-released/ for full details.
Thanks to Flora of http://en-topia.blogspot.co.uk/ for sending this in.

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City in a Book: Augmenting the CityEngine

Andy — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:39:00 +0000

Over the past few days we have been working on a series of techniques to visualise and augment procedural cities.

If you add in a model of a BenQ projector, the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation Handbook, a city within the CASA logo and a webcam you get the following augmented reality:

We are exploring this as part of our digital visualisation module on the MRes here in CASA, aiming to build in the latest research into the lectures. The combination of Lumion, 3DMax, Illustrator, CityEngine and AR is intriguing…

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ESRI CityEngine – Creating Cities inside Logos and Logos inside Cities

Andy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:09:00 +0000

The best way to learn new modelling software is to step away from complex data and take a side look at its capabilities. We have used this approach to run through the various features of CityEngine, producing a series of movies based around the logo of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, here at University College London.
First up we integrated the CASA logo into the cityscape by manually tracing the logo and building a network around it. Via an import into iMovie the result is a playful fly around the logo:

Taking the concept further we built the city around the logo, using the nodes and hubs as interconnected cityscapes. With the city base rising out the sea it presents a different feel to the original movie:

Finally, we used an alpha channel on the logo, allowing us to lower the outline onto the cityscape:

The combination of Adobe Illustrator, ESRI CityEngine, AutoDesk 3DMax and finally Lumion make for a rapid way to create unique cityscapes. The next steps are to integrate actual data…..

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Burning a Logo into a City…

Andy — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:19:00 +0000

This is very much a work in progress post, but we are interested in integrating text/patterns/logos into 3D models of the city. At the moment we are putting a work flow in place to take our CASA logo and burn it into the street patten of a procedural city.

Using the CityEngine, combined with vector files and Lumion/3DMax some interesting results can be obtained, especially if you also build in some physics/particle engine and agent based model capability.

We will have more on this in the coming days….

Update 14th March 2012 – Below is the ~~first~~ second draft movie:

Next stages are to build the city over time, we should have a work flow in place soon…

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15 Minutes with CityEngine and Lumion….

Andy — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

A quick weekend post – following on from our first look at CityEngine and Lumion we have expanded the visualisation to add in various standard items from the Lumion library along with a surrounding terrain and waterside setting:

Total development time: 15 minutes with rendering 1.5 hours, its getting quicker to make cities….

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CityEngine: ESRI and Lumion a first look.

Andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Yesterday a license for CityEngine landed on our desk from the nice people at ESRI and to be honest we were a little too excited for our own good, after all its only software. However, CityEngine and its integration with ESRI ArcGIS, while maintaining full export capabilities to load into 3DMax/Lumion/Unity etc, is a game changer.

It moves GIS visualisation a step forward while at the same time bringing procedural city modelling into the mainstream game engine world. Over the coming weeks we will be putting the software through its paces and exporting into Max/Lumion and Unity as part of introducing CityEngines onto our MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation. The clip below details out first output direct from CityEngine into Lumion, adding in a general landscape, sample trees and transport objects:

Linking in our previous post on ArcGIS Twitter Visualisation in Lumion it seems that the worlds of GIS and architectural visualisation/game engines are finally starting to become accessible.

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Procedural/ESRI and NVIDIA: 3D Cities from 2D ArcGIS Data

Andy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:15:00 +0000

Procedural and ESRI have teamed up with NVIDIA to set up a pipeline for the creation, analysis and visualization of photorealistic 3D cities from 2D ArcGIS data. The video shows the creation of the 3D model of the City of Rotterdam in CityEngine:

3D in ArcGIS has always been a bit of a love/hate affair with us so the ability to create a workflow that includes the CityEngine is an intriguing development.

3D Rotterdam in the cloud: http://www.procedural.com/showcases/rotterdam.htmlNVIDIA

RealityServer: http://www.mentalimages.com/products/realityserver.html

ArcGIS 3D Analyst: http://www.esri.com/3d

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CityEngine 2010: An Upgrade and New Licensing Models

Andy — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:58:00 +0000

CityEngine is without question one of the best city authoring systems out there. In the past we always noted pricing as an issue, but with the release of City Engine 2010 they have a whole new pricing structure in place.

Highlights of the update are interactive editing of dynamic city layouts, node-based rule authoring, and a sketching tool for facades. In addition to that, CityEngine 2010 include advanced block subdivision, modeling of curved streets, new rule operations for instancing and asset search, native Collada support for assets, export instances with the new FBX 2011.2.

The clip below illustrates the power of the latest version:

As part of the new licensing models the CityEngine INDIE is available for $495 and CityEngine STUDENT for $149.

Head over to http://www.procedural.com/ for full details and a free trial. Really, if your interested in cities in any shape or form the trial is a must.

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CityEngine 2009.3

Andy — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:34:00 +0000

The latest version of the CityEngine (2009.3) includes features such as advanced roof types and global texture mapping to make the creation of large urban 3D models even easier. We are big fans of the CityEngine, especially with its ability to import OpenStreetMap data for street layouts.

The movie below details the new City Wizard to create and generate whole cities from pre-defined templates with only a few mouse clicks:

Another nice touch is the ability to download a use a 30 Day trial, even if you have used a previous version.