CityEngine 2025.1 release notes—ArcGIS CityEngine Resources

Street Designer

Street configurations and additional information for lanes

You can now sort street configurations in the Inspector window using a drop-down menu next to the search bar, giving you multiple options to sort your tiles such as by date, in alphabetical order, or by total street width.
Added a list view for street configurations, which makes working with long names much simpler. Switch between list and tile view by clicking the icon in the upper right corner of the Street Configuration section in the Inspector window.
Added new read-only object attributes on lanes which give rule authors access to lane context, including lane count, widths, shape types, and travel directions. For example, they can be used to write lane rules that can adapt to other lanes.
Street configurations now store object attributes and automatically add any missing ones when applied to a segment.
Converting streets to static shapes now preserves lane parameters as object attributes, ensuring the generated models stay the same before and after conversion.

Street Designer tools

The pointer icons of the Street Designer tools are now enhanced to reflect the active action or tool. For example, when adding a lane, a + sign is shown next to the pointer.
When activating one of the Street Designer tools, shapes automatically become visible in the Viewport window.
You can now remove the last roadbed lane and move sidewalk lanes back to the roadbed by dragging them to the center edge, or to the opposite sidewalk side if only one side has sidewalks.
The Edit Lane tool now allows setting lane widths as narrow as 0.1 meters, matching the minimum value in the Inspector window.
When there are no roadbed lanes, the edge between left and right sidewalks groups can no longer be interacted with, preventing unexpected width changes.

Better distinction between sidewalks and roadbed

When using the Street Designer tools, the entire group (sidewalk or roadbed) is now highlighted so you can instantly see which section you're working on.
Sidewalk lane shapes now appear darker than roadbed lanes, making them easier to distinguish visually.
Sidewalk separator lines now always appear on top and are augmented in the highlight color when editing lanes.

Selection and performance improvements

Sped up model generation on lanes significantly during interactive edits such as moving streets.
Unnecessary street regenerations are reduced when changing attributes in the Lane Parameters section in the Inspector window.
When you have multiple street segments selected, the first click now selects the segment under your pointer and a second click selects the individual lane.
The Street Configuration section in the Inspector window no longer flickers when drawing streets or changing the selection.
Segment direction and lane arrows are rendered more consistently on top of the street geometry, improving the arrow's visibility on uneven streets.

General improvements and bug fixes

Fixed a bug in which the first sidewalk added with the Add Lane tool had an empty start rule set.
Fixed a bug that when you undo a lane move with the Copy on Move option it caused errors.
Street segments with previously applied street configurations are now properly highlighted when undoing operations such as rule attribute changes, style changes, or attribute resets.
Fixed an issue in which street configurations were incorrectly highlighted in the Inspector window after running the Analyze Graph tool.
Fixed a bug in which the applied street configuration was not highlighted in the Inspector window.
Fixed a bug in which the Disable Highlight option in the Selection tool did not disable the highlight of the sidewalk separator lines.
Framing selected street segments now considers all lanes, not just the roadbed, ensuring the entire street fits in view.
Edits to lane widths that cause the vanishing of street shapes or the creation of invalid street geometry, can now be undone correctly.
Fixed a bug in which setting the lane width for the first time in the Inspector window had no effect.
Fixed missing translations in the Street Configuration section of the Inspector window.

Street Creation tools and street geometry

Added the missing Snapping tool option to the Freehand Street Creation tool, allowing you to disable snapping.
Fixed a bug in which newly drawn street shapes did not appear while in isolate mode.
Crossing nodes now create cleaner geometry without creating small transition shapes.
Fixed multiple issues in which streets drawn using the Street Creation tools resulted in gaps, overlaps, or distorted street geometry.
Fixed a bug in which Junction nodes were incorrectly converted to Crossing nodes when saving and reopening certain legacy scenes.

Tools

In the Align Streets to Terrain and Align Shapes to Terrain tools, the default heightmap is now set to a terrain layer if available.
Fixed a bug in the Area Measurement tool in which error messages appeared when rotating or panning the view in between the placement of measurement points.

Inspector

Fixed an issue in which attributes with @MaterialFile annotation were not displaying user-set values in bold.
Imported rules and their attributes are now hidden when their parent rule section is collapsed, reducing visual clutter and enhancing navigation efficiency in the Rules section in the Inspector window.
Fixed a bug in which the temporary node shape tab associated with the selected node in the Model Hierarchy tree was not always placed directly after the Shape tab.

UI miscellaneous

Shape and Static Model layers now have a dedicated icon in the Scene Editor and Inspector windows, making it easier to distinguish between layer and object.
Updated all outdated social media links to CityEngine pages and renamed Twitter to X to reflect the official platform rebranding.
Fixed missing horizontal separators in the Tool Options panels, ensuring clearer visual organization and improved readability of grouped settings.
Updated the Reset Attributes and Style entry name in the Shapes menu to follow the naming convention of our menus.
Fixed a bug in the Reset Attributes and Style functionality in which a model would only regenerate when the rules style was modified.
Fixed a bug in the Model Hierarchy window which led to blocking the UI for several minutes.

Integration with ArcGIS Urban

Improved the sign-in experience when using the Open in web browser functionality. If you are not already signed in to ArcGIS Urban on ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise, you are now redirected to a sign-in dialog box and your active ArcGIS Urban Plan is automatically opened when signed in.

WebGIS

The OSM download now uses encrypted HTTPS connections instead of HTTP connections.
Street lanes imported from OSM now automatically get a specialized CGA rule assigned that visually reflects their category, such as pedestrian, bike, bus, or vehicle. The category is read from a new osm_derived_lane_category object attribute on the created lanes.

Import and export

General

Improved reading and writing speeds of JPG images.
Deprecated the Alembic export as well as the Vue export and they will be removed in the future. If you have workflows relying on these exports, it is recommended that you change to alternatives using exchange formats such as USD or glTF.

IFC

Fixed a bug in which IFC4 files with georeferencing and a defined scale would scale incorrectly.

USD

The USD importer now ignores problematic elements rather than failing to read the asset.
Fixed a bug in the USD importer in which preview materials were ignored.

Python

Added support for running Python 3 in scripts and in interactive consoles (beta).
Added Python 3 API (beta).
Added UI to manage Python 3 interpreters and virtual environments.
Added UI to select a Python interpreter per Project and interactive console.
Improved the UI to manage concurrently running scripts and interactive consoles.

To get started with Python 3 (beta), see Working with Python 3 and the known limitations.

Visual CGA Editor

Component nodes can now output information through parameter connections:
- Component nodes now allow extension points with rule parameters.
- Extension parameters appear as output slots and can be connected to pass through data such as floor level or height.
- Added new built-in conditional node type which supports attribute, value, and parameter connections. The old ConditionalFlowControl node has been removed.
- Components in VCGA are now imported with dynamic imports.
The Visual CGA Editor now supports documentation features for nodes:
- To show a component node's documentation, click the button in the title bar. Markdown formatting is supported. (See @RuleFileDescription)
- Hover over attributes, extensions, and start shape slots to show their description (See @Description).
- Documentation for a VCGA design (see @RuleFileDescription) and start shape (see @Description) can be authored in the annotation editor of the InitialShapes node.
Extensions can be sorted using the @Order annotation.
The title tooltip of component nodes now additionally displays the original CGA or VCGA file name.
The context menu title for built-in nodes now includes the subtype, for example StringValue instead of String.
Connections to attributes, values, and parameters are now displayed slightly more opaque.
The Add Node dialog box can now be repositioned by dragging it using the mouse.
The Add Node dialog box can now be closed by pressing the Esc key.
Fixed an issue in which sometimes the chosen node on the Add Node dialog box was not added to the canvas.
Fixed a bug that led to incorrect node size after reloading it.

CGA

Rule inlining got more powerful with shape recomposition. The new recompose strategy for inline, merges separated shapes into one connected geometry. Modifications to individual shapes, such as transformations, are respected, allowing for twisted and bent geometries. Additionally, shape recomposition can be applied with the new modify operation that is especially useful when only parts of a geometry are selected and modified.
Rule files can be documented with the new @RuleFileDescription annotation. This information is used for components inside the Visual CGA Editor.
The initialization phase (attribute evaluation) was sped up, resulting in an improved dynamic import performance.
Handles on dynamically imported shapes are now supported.
The behavior of the split operation was changed, resulting in a different order of vertices, edges, and faces.
Fixed a bug in the offset operation in which a positive offset did not create holes correctly.
Fixed a bug in the split operation in which splitting extruded shapes led to a wrong result.
Fixed a bug in the extrude operation in which existing vertex tags would not be propagated to the new side edges.
Fixed a bug in the convexify operation in which faces were not convexified at holes.
Fixed incorrect return value of geometry.nVertices when applied to a shape with face vertices (created with comp(fv)).
Fixed incorrect number and wrong order of components when the comp(v) operation was applied to a shape with face vertices (created with comp(fv)).
Fixed a rare crash in the cleanupGeometry operation for meshes with holes and multiple groups.
Fixed issues in the CGA Compiler in which overriding a rule file or changing the case of a containing folder led to a wrong compilation result.

For a more comprehensive and detailed list of changes, see the CGA Changelog.

ESRI.lib

Extended the ESRI.lib with new Visual CGA components to create procedural facade designs. Use the Manage ESRI.lib dialog box in the File menu to ensure that you have the latest version installed. You can find the new components in the Library section of the Add Node dialog box.
- Added Floor & Roof components.
- Added Pattern & Tile components.
- Added Window and Shading components.
- Added Utility components such as for reporting, coloring, or applying transformations.
Updated the Street Rules in ESRI.lib.
- Added a new rule for OSM imports that matches lane types on vehicle lanes.
- Improved the automatic line markings for vehicle lanes.

Tutorials, examples, and content

Tutorials

Updated the current CityEngine tutorial series catalog with new content and improved visuals:

Expanded the catalog with two new tutorial series, each offering a sequence of tutorials with step-by-step guidance through essential CityEngine workflows:

Learn procedural modeling with CGA
Learn how to write CGA rules to generate attribute-driven and adaptable 3D models in real time.

Import data in ArcGIS CityEngine
Learn how to import, clean up, calculate, format, and report data in your ArcGIS CityEngine projects.

Refurbished and added fresh workflows and updated visuals to the following tutorials:

Tutorial 14b: Modeling on terrain
Learn the essentials of modeling streets and shapes on terrain.
Tutorial 21: CSV import
Learn how to import data from a .csv file and use it in CGA code arrays.

Examples

Added the Example Contemporary Architecture Park featuring the latest CGA capabilities for mass model and facade creation in two scenes and an additional scene with a collection of core building blocks ready to use and adapt. You can download the example in Download Tutorials and Examples in the Help main menu.

Content updates

Example Planning 05 Urban Design:
Disabled shape visibility in the scene to better see the green spaces and fixed z-fighting issues in the CGA rule that generates the greens spaces. Additionally, rearranged tree assets to reduce conflicts with buildings.
Tutorial 10: Python Scripting:
Updated scripts in the project and documentation to follow better coding practices and temporarily removed the Change Street Widths subsection due to incompatibility with Street Designer.
CityEngine Tour:
Updated street configurations in the scene to make use of the improved automatic line markings in the ESRI.lib rules. Also, reduced the density of cars, trees, and markings for faster scene loading and improved overall performance.

System

Improved performance when selecting a large number of scene objects.
Deprecated support for Windows 10.

Installer and ArcGIS Administrator

Keyboard shortcuts will now start CityEngine in the same language used in the installer.
Fixed an issue in the ArcGIS Administrator in which check boxes were not correctly scaled for HiDPI screens.

Updated third-party libraries

Updated the PyDev Python Development library to 9.3
Updated libxml2 to version 2.14.5
Updated Open Design Alliance (ODA) to version 26.5

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