Cameras

CityEngine supports an arbitrary number of cameras. Multiple cameras are especially useful if you are working with more than one 3D Viewport. Here are the predefined cameras:

  • Perspective — Perspective view of the scene.
  • Front — Front view of the scene (you look along the z-axis)
  • Top — Top view of the scene (you look along the y-axis)
  • Side — Side view of the scene (you look along the x-axis)

In addition to these predefined cameras, you can always align the camera along a specific axis by pressing X, Y, or Z. While Y only orients the Y-Axis in camera direction, X and Z also re-orient the Y-axis upwards. This, in combination with switching between orthographic and perspective view (P), allows you to quickly walk through multiple views of your scene.

See cameras in View settings tool View settings for more information about the default cameras.

Access cameras

Cameras are accessible from the Window > New Viewport menu.

To manage cameras, do the following:

  1. Click Window > New Viewport > New Camera....

    This creates a new camera from the current view.

  2. Click Window > New Viewport > Manage Cameras or Edit > Preferences > General > Viewport > Cameras to manage and edit cameras.

    This opens the Camera preferences menu. You can add new cameras or edit current ones. Cameras can be shared across 3D viewports, meaning that if multiple 3D viewports use the same camera, changing the camera in one viewport (e.g. by rotation) affects the second viewport with the same camera, as well.

Configure cameras

Camera configurations have the following options:

  • Perspective Projection View — Lets you turn off perspective rendering.
  • Angle of view — The width of the field of view.
  • Position X, Y, Z — The position of the camera.
  • Tilt Angle — The rotation of the camera around the view direction.
  • Heading Angle — The rotation of the camera around up- axis.