The following list describes the changes in the latest release of CityEngine version 2012_1.
CityEngine 2012.1 key new features:
Sharing 3D city scenes in the browser
Publish 3D city scenes directly to the web for sharing 3D models, analysis results or design proposals with decision makers or the public. Based on WebGL technology, no plugin is required for most browsers.
Intuitive editing of 3D multipatch models
Easy-to-use editing tools for the quick sketching and texturing of 3D building models. The resulting 3D geometries can be efficiently saved back to the File Geodatabase.
Ability to visualize urban planning zoning rules in 3D
Zoning regulations are text-based descriptions (per city) of allowed building volumes, usage and density. They are the main tool defining the image of a city and/or growth/development investment money. In most cases however, they are hard to understand by the public and other stakeholders. CityEngine 2012.1 allows you to specify / visualize / analyze and store zoning regulations in 3D.
Tight integration with ArcGIS
CityEngine 2012.1 fully supports the Esri file Geodatabase (including textured multipatches) and the Shapefile format which allows users to import/export any geo-spatial vector data such as parcels, building footprints with arbitrary attributes, or line data to create street networks. And as mentioned above, publishing a 3D city scene on ArcGIS Online is now very easy.
Instant custom report generation
Customized rule-based reports can be generated in real-time to analyze the urban design e.g. automatically calculate quantities such as GFA, FAR, etc.
Perspective Facade Image Cropping
Intuitive and effective tool for the preparation of facade textures from ground based facade images, perspective correction and region selection are done in one step.
Improved Street Sketching and Network Analysis
Sketching of streets has been significantly improved with the new editing tools. After street network creation, the network can be analyzed by computing global integration, local integration and in-between centrality. For each street these three values are computed and stored as object attributes.
See new examples and rules on the CityEngine resource center.
Esri licensing
CityEngine now is licensed through the ArcGIS license administrator.
Improvements and fixes
- Improved content assist in the CGA editor
- Improved style chooser UI
- Improved of curved streets
- Undo of inspector edits
- Correct azimuth range for sun position
- New FBX library based on version 2013.1
- New Collada reader based on opencollada
- CGA fixes: vertexmerger, geometry.isOriented(), scatter, setback, shapeLUO, geometry.angle
- Model to static shape conversion
- Edges & vertices rendered as cuboids
- New CGA functions and operations: geometry.isInstanced(), improved setback, cleanup, street selectors