CityEngine 2017.1 Release Notes

Visibility Analysis tools for planners

• CityEngine introduces the new Viewshed, View Corridor, and View Dome tools. These tools instantly provide visibility analysis results of scene objects.
• By placing a Viewshed or View Dome in the scene, all geometry in its radius is colored based on the visibility from its observer point. Edit handles in the 3D viewport allow for interactive editing of the observer point, point of interest, and the field of view. Precise numerical control over these parameters is available in the Inspector.
• You can use multiple Viewsheds and View Domes simultaneously to analyze a specific area from multiple viewpoints.
• The View Corridor tool models protected views, such as to and from historic sites in your scene. The buildings in your scenarios that interfere with the view corridor from an observer point are highlighted automatically.
• All Visibility Analysis tools are scene objects that are saved in the scene.
• The Inspector shows a 3D view from the observer point of a selected Viewshed or View Corridor. This allows for intuitive and precise positioning.
• The Inspector shows a 360 degree equirectangular view from the observer point of a selected View Dome.
• All Visibility Analysis objects can be created and controlled with Python.

Collaborative layer editing with the ArcGIS platform

• Polygon feature layers hosted on ArcGIS Online can be conveniently imported into CityEngine and modifications can be synchronized across the ArcGIS Platform.
• Geometry and attributes can be exchanged between feature layers and CityEngine shape layers. When synced, newly created features are automatically made compliant with the layers attribute scheme.
• The layer synchronization can solve edit conflicts and allows for collaborative editing on the same layer. This means the layer can be simultaneously edited by multiple planners using CityEngine, ArcGIS Pro, a web app based on ArcGIS API for JavaScript, or other ArcGIS apps.

• Polygon feature layers hosted on ArcGIS Enterprise can be conveniently imported from within the CityEngine Navigator as well. However, layer synchronization is not yet possible with on-premise solutions.

High-end architectural visualization with Unreal Engine

• A new exporter for Unreal Engine by Epic Games has been added. It is based on Epic Games' Datasmith SDK and replaces the FBX-based workflow when exporting to Unreal Engine. This new workflow is more efficient and can handle large scenes with tens of millions of polygons and tens of thousands of objects. Also, the number of materials is not a limitation anymore.
• A template project for the Unreal Editor is available on the Unreal marketplace. It can be downloaded into the Editor with a single click. The template project contains shaders and lights optimized for CityEngine-based architectural visualization. The materials of an imported CityEngine scene get automatically connected with the provided Unreal Engine shaders. No manual adjustments are necessary to get a good initial look.
• Epic Game's Datasmith plugin as well as our CityEngine exporter are currently in a Beta state. We will provide updates for the CityEngine Unreal exporter in sync with new Datasmith Beta releases.

3D viewport, navigation, and camera bookmarks

• The CityEngine renderer now supports transparency sorting. This means CityEngine can now correctly visualize translucent objects when they are behind each other. This significantly improves the visualization quality in the CityEngine viewport and allows for comprehensible visualization of zoning volumes, floor plates, and other half-transparent models.
• A preview window for camera bookmarks has been added to the Inspector. The window shows the 3D view from the bookmark's viewpoint. This allows for a more convenient and precise editing of bookmark positions.
• The inspector window for bookmarks has been redesigned for improved ease-of-use.
• The Frame function for certain corner cases was improved.
• A lighting bug where objects are rendered in black or include artifacts for high camera zoom factors has been fixed.
• A rendering bug for AMD graphic cards that incorrectly clamped the material "shininess" parameter has been fixed. In certain cases, objects were rendered incorrectly in pure white.

CGA language and editor

• The CGA editor now supports looking up rule definitions from call sites. By default, this function uses the F3 key.
• In the CGA editor the convenience functionality "Find References…" of rules (Ctrl+Shift+G) has been fixed.
• A new geometry.height function has been added. It calculates the height of the geometry in world coordinates.
• The @Range attribute annotation has been extended with stepsize and restricted parameters. This allows for more control over the attribute sliders in the Inspector.
• The new @Enum attribute annotation has been added. It allows you to define lists of valid attribute values.
• New attribute annotations for unit support have been added: @Angle, @Distance, and @Percent. These annotations improve the corresponding user interfaces in both CityEngine and ArcGIS Pro.
• The cleanupGeometry operation has been improved to better handle holes in polygons. Also, the overall robustness and quality of the operation has been improved.
• The scatter operation now respects relative coordinates for the Gaussian standard deviation.
• The CGA style button in the Inspector is now shown for all rules. This permits for controlling the style also for rules without attributes.
• A bug where the wrong CGA style is shown in the Inspector has been fixed.
• A new tutorial about local edits has been added: Tutorial 20: Local Edits.
• Local Edits now supports rules with styles.
• Memory consumption in the Local Edits and Model Hierarchy Tools has been greatly reduced.
• The accuracy of occlusion queries has been improved (especially for sharp ridges). Also, a bug where occluding shapes were missed was fixed.
• A bug in the CGA Problems view where functions in "ce.lib" were reported as duplicates has been fixed.
• Fixed a bug in the CGA Style Manager that led to CityEngine not responding with some rules when a style was deleted.
• The documentation for certain CGA operations has been improved (cleanupGeometry, reduceGeometry, trim, and push/pop).

Scene Layer Package exporter

• A Scene Layer Package (SLPK) generated with CityEngine is now “Smart Mapping-ready”. This means statistical information on attributes is now written to the scene layer which allows for smart mapping capabilities in ArcGIS apps. For example, in Scene Viewer, the colors of all buildings in a city can be interactively driven by the scene layer attributes.
• Exported Feature IDs are now unique per start shape. This enables a simpler data model setup in case the scene layers are used in ArcGIS API for JavaScript or ArcGIS Runtime SDK applications.
• A new option for backface culling has been added.
• The global offset option has been removed. Models are exported at their actual height and are correctly displayed in Scene Viewer.
• The SLPK exporter now correctly handles situations where CGA rules do not generate any geometry (empty models).
• The Models with Shape Fallbacks option has been fixed to support several corner cases.

File GeoDatabase exporter

• The File GeoDatabase (FileGDB) exporter has been improved by cropping textures to the actually used regions. This reduces file size and loading time in many cases.
• The FileGDB exporter now correctly exports renamed layers that originate from a previous FileGDB import.
• The layer name validation on FileGDB export has been improved to prevent illegal characters in feature class names.

Import of GIS data, models, and terrain

• The Scene (CEJ) importer has been fixed to correctly handle imports if there is an overlap in content of the imported and importing scenes, such as with OID values. This fixes a problem where sometimes objects have been missing after import.
• The FileGDB importer now correctly reads feature geometry with holes if the "Import Textures" option is disabled.
• The import precision for GeoTIFF and PNG (with world files) has been improved.
• A bug in the KML/KMZ importer has been fixed. It was not possible to correctly import models into a scenario.
• An exception in the KML/KMZ importer for certain KML files from Revit has been fixed. The parser is now more robust.
• A bug where imports of WebMercator features into scene coordinate systems using a local reference ellipsoid are showing an offset has been fixed.
• The Shapefile importer has been fixed to correctly import the streetWidth array attribute.

Python API

• Changes in the special script "scripting.py" are now reliably detected at startup.
• The documentation for special scripts "startup.py" and "scripting.py" have been improved.

Miscellaneous improvements and fixes

• A bug in licensing which can lead to a startup problem if other products with FLEXnet licensing are installed has been fixed. Installing CityEngine 2017.1 fixes this problem for existing CityEngine 2017.0 and older installations.
• In the Navigator, automatic refresh of the workspace has been implemented.
• The file preview again supports setting of a shading mode and zooming on texture files.
• The "undo" behavior of the Measurement Tools, Dynamic Shapes, and changes made with sliders has been improved and corrected for several cases.
• The snapping behavior of the Distance Measurement tool for steep camera angles, such as the Top View has been improved.
• A new environment CITYENGINE_EXTENSION_PATHS variable has been introduced. It is used to search for custom extensions (for example, custom export plug-ins).
• A bug for Get Map Data where the terrain was downloaded with an incorrect extent for coordinate systems in feet and coordinates with negative numbers was fixed.
• The Local Edit functionality "reset highlighted local edits" has been improved.
• A new Markdown card typehas been introduced to Dashboards. Users can add layout text using the mark up language Markdown.
• A bug where scenes with Dashboards were not correctly saved was fixed.
• For Dashboards the layout of cards and placement of tool-tips has been optimized.
• A bug in the Shapefile exporter where CGA Rule attributes were missing or wrong was fixed.
• To improve 3D model export workflows, materials that only differ in the material.shader attribute are not considered identical anymore by model exporters.
• Several translation fixes for Finnish have been applied.
• On Linux, a localization bug which prevented a number of coordinate systems to be used on non-English systems has been fixed.
• The Philadelphia example has been updated with scenario support.
• The CityEngine scene file format (.cej files) was updated. 2017.1 scenes can't be read by older CityEngine versions.

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