CityEngine supports exporting models in a variety of formats including 3D, 3D GIS, and ArcGIS Online formats.
To export models, select the objects to export in the Viewport window or Scene Editor window and either click File > Export Models from the main menu or press Ctrl + E. The export model dialog box appears and you select the format.
Note:
The model exporter is independent of the generated models in the current scene and can export large scenes. This means that you do not need to generate a scene before exporting a model.
The following table lists the supported 3D formats:
| 3D format | Description |
|---|---|
An open, interchange framework designed for VFX content production pipelines. | |
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Loads a large number of DCC tools and rendering engines with support for asset instancing, layered textures, and file referencing. | |
Provides simple data transfer from CityEngine into the Unreal Engine Editor and Twinmotion. It supports modern materials (PBR) as well as geometry instancing. | |
A proprietary 3D geometry format native to Autodesk AutoCAD. It doesn't have modern material support but is widely used in the BIM and CAD industries. | |
Provides export into Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder, and other DCC tools equipped with an FBX importer. It Includes support for layered textures (multitexture) and per-texture UVW transformations (scale, translation, and rotation). | |
A recent JSON-based 3D geometry delivery format. It supports modern materials (PBR) as well as geometry instancing and is supported by many desktop and web apps. Currently it is the recommended exchange format for new projects. | |
An open-source 3D geometry exchange format used to describe building elements. It is mainly used in the BIM and CAD industries to store project information for design, procurement, and construction phases as well as reference for operations. CityEngine only supports version 2x3. | |
Transfers models with solid coloring or single texture layers to a DCC tool or rendering engine. The material definitions are exported into accompanying .mtl files. It does not support instancing. | |
Stores large CityEngine scenes with minimal loss of information, which makes it suitable as an interchange format for further processing in VFX pipelines. | |
A native object format for polygonal meshes of e-on software's VUE product. CityEngine supports VUE 8.5 and later. It is recommended that you use the latest version. |
The following table lists the supported 3D GIS formats:
| 3D GIS format | Description |
|---|---|
A common file format for GIS workflows. Export multipatch, multipoint, point, and polyline geometry types into a file geodatabase. Textures are supported. | |
Exports into georeferenced earth browsers such as ArcGlobe and ArcGIS Earth. The models can be shared, for example, in Google Warehouse. |
The following table lists the supported ArcGIS Online formats:
| ArcGIS Online format | Description |
|---|---|
A mobile scene package (.mspk file) is a custom, web-optimized file type that can be used to share complete scenes on the ArcGIS Platform. | |
A scene layer package (.slpk file) is a custom, web-optimized format that can be shared and published on ArcGIS Online and viewed with Scene Viewer. | |
Exports panoramic photos of CityEngine scenes. |
The following table lists the supported CGA Material format:
| Material format | Description |
|---|---|
CGA Material | The material descriptions of a CGA model are collected and written into individual subdirectories. Each subdirectory contains all the material—including the used textures—which can be copied into a folder of assets, for example. The name of the subdirectory and the .cgamat file is the material.name attribute but is made unique if there are several materials with the same name. The <matName>.cgamat file is in CSV format, as is the result of the CGA function: getMaterial(used, changed). |
The following table lists the supported custom export format:
| Custom export format | Description |
|---|---|
Allows Python commands to be arbitrarily run during batch export. |
Export models considerations
- Each format has a series of export settings that can be adjusted for customization. See Export model settings for more information.
- To compare the material and shading functionality of the various formats, see Format feature comparison for more information.
- For more information on application notes such as format recommendations, see Export model application notes.