General
Capabilities
Procedural modeling
3D content on the web
ArcGIS platform
System requirements
Support
General
See What's new in CityEngine 2019.0 for more details.
Over the next few years, we see CityEngine becoming the desktop application of choice for city planners, urban designers, and architects. We will invest in advancing special-purpose capabilities such as procedural master planning tools, interactive urban analytics on the GPU, or the management, comparison, and communication of redevelopment scenarios. At the same time, we will continue to tightly integrate CityEngine with the ArcGIS 3D platform, namely, interconnect CityEngine with web apps such as Scene Viewer and Story Maps, and with VR/AR apps based on Runtime SDKs.
Yes. CityEngine is used by several major animation studios and visual effects houses for the creation of digital sets of urban environments. CityEngine can generate Alembic geometry caches of unlimited size on disk. Alembic allows for the hassle-free management and rendering of massive 3D models in DCC tools such as Houdini or Maya and is typically used in the production of feature films.
Capabilities
Yes. CityEngine is well suited to export your 3D GIS data or city models to Unity, the tool of choice for developing Virtual Reality applications (for example, Gear VR, Hive, and Oculus) or Augmented Reality solutions (for example, HoloLens). As a result, CityEngine writes the popular FBX file format, which can now be flawlessly read by Unity. In the typical use case, an FBX so-called "instancing" feature allows for small file sizes and high frame rates in Unity.
Yes. The ability to import and export KML is available in CityEngine. Industry-standard 3D object properties such as advanced materials and multiple textures are supported by CityEngine and can be read by KML viewers such as ArcGIS Earth.
No. CityEngine does not support LiDAR data nor are tools provided for the automatic extraction of surfaces out of point clouds. However, based on ArcGIS Pro and CityEngine RPKs, Esri provides solution workflows to extract building and tree parameters from LiDAR and generate procedural representation of buildings and trees at various levels of detail.
Yes. If you have a detailed DSM (digital surface model, including buildings), you can compute the building height and automatically generate LOD1 buildings in CityEngine. To get the building footprints, you could use the CityEngine Get map data functionality, which imports OSM data and the underlying digital terrain model.
Procedural modeling
Procedural modeling means that 3D geometries and textures are constructed using rules (procedures) instead of labor-intensive manual modeling.
A single procedural rule can be used to generate many 3D models. For example, the rule can use feature attribute information stored in GIS data—such as the number of floors, roof type, wall material type, and son on—to generate a series of alternate 3D models that accurately represent the properties of each feature. The more attributes you have, the more accurate the generated model can be.
3D content on the web
The CityEngine Web Viewer is the original, special-purpose application on ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise that allows you to view exported CityEngine Web Scenes. CityEngine Web Scenes are hosted on ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise and viewed in 3D on browsers that support WebGL, a web technology standard built into most modern browsers for rendering 3D graphics.
The original CityEngine Web Viewer visualizes so-called CityEngine web scenes (3WS), which are limited in size. It is a viewing-only tool that allows commenting and comparing scenarios (for example, using the swipe tool). The CityEngine Web Viewer can only view content created by CityEngine.
Scene Viewer can visualize 2D and 3D content created at any scale with an unlimited extent. The content viewed by Scene Viewer can be used across the entire ArcGIS platform, (for example, authored and viewed in ArcGIS Pro, CityEngine, ArcGIS API for JavaScript, ArcGIS Story Maps, and so on). However, Scene Viewer does not yet support the same easy-to-use commenting, comparing, and offline user experience as the CityEngine Web Viewer.
In the future, Scene Viewer will take over the same functionality and user experience as the CityEngine Web Viewer. Until then, the CityEngine Web Viewer will remain on ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise with mainstream support guaranteed. Additionally, after Scene Viewer takes over the CityEngine Web Viewer, you will still be able to use the CityEngine Web Viewer safely for another two years.
No. CityEngineCityEngine is not a web server and does not contain hosting capabilities. You can, however, use CityEngine to download content from ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise and add to your CityEngine scenes. You can also share CityEngine Web Scenes (3WS) to ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise in the CityEngine Web Viewer and through scene layer package (SLPK) files that can be consumed by Scene Viewer.
ArcGIS platform
There are several ways ArcGIS Pro and CityEngine work together. Both ArcGIS Pro and CityEngine can share layers via Web GIS, read and write geodatabases, and provide support for a wide variety of compatible 2D and 3D exchange file formats. While ArcGIS Pro is a powerful general-purpose application that manages, analyzes, and visualizes GIS data on any scale, CityEngine provides unique interactive design tools, for example, the editing of multipatch features and the parametric modeling of detailed 3D roads, as well as powerful 3D export capabilities.
ArcGIS Pro includes system styles that contain procedural symbol layers. The latter derive all their properties and 3D geometry from RPKs. To create procedural symbol layers, you can find RPKs by searching ArcGIS Online. Alternatively, you can author your own custom procedural symbol layers in CityEngine and export them as RPKs for use in ArcGIS Pro.
System requirements
Support
I work for a city government and want to build my own city in 3D with CityEngine. How can I get started?
Many cities all over the globe want to go 3D with their GIS. To get started, check out the series of follow-along-demos Esri provides that are designed to introduce users to the basic concepts of CityEngine, demonstrate the workflow for creating a 3D city model, explain how to create and share RPKs, outline the process for exporting 3D models from CityEngine to various 3D formats, and publish a 3D scene to ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS. You can search the course catalog for available CityEngine courses and training at the Esri Academy.
Visit CityEngine Resources for videos, blogs, technical information, and more.