Treetop Walkway, plus trees controlled by elevation and soil type. 

It is really quite simple and small as rule files go, and I still need to make proper handrails and of course an access point (stairs and lift).   I used SketchUp to model the pylon and then adjusted the road width to a walkway width and the sidewalks are used as railings.   Instead of junctions I used roundabouts and placed the SketchUp pylon model in the centre of the roundabout.

Different rule file from above similar result….

I hope to put this example and others up online in the near future….

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My First Animated GIF on this blog, apologies to all those living in the present…

It’s a largish urban area and previously we would never even dream of modelling it at such an early stage of the project.  Too much work to model in SketchUp and certainly not to just understand part of a report.   Things have changed and now we are aware of what CityEngine can do we’re starting to modify how we approach jobs.

You wonder why I’m interested in CityEngine?  Well I can see how it is changing our work and what it will change for us in the future.   Less than a month into a project and we’ve modelled an entire urban area in less than 1/2 a day, just to understand something better.

Pre-CityEngine we would never have done this.

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I’m often told that when I’m modelling in 3D I might as well be playing with Lego, so I’ve been working on a rule file that actually models Lego…. Ha! That will show them!

Early Lego/CityEngine model

The serious side to the rule file is that it is teaching me some proper techniques for later use.

Yes but what would it look like in Lego?

 Notice how the height of the Lego block varies and so to does each individual piece….  My next modification is to make the lego height jump in brick heights not actual numbers.

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This is a fun quick tip, instead of assigning a specific colour to each floor and building when not use the built in colorRamp function.  Search for it in the help file for detailed usage here’s how I’ve used it:

Heat island?

I’ve taken a centre point and coloured the rooftop of each building using the colorRamp function.   Basically it checks to see how far it is from a chosen point (fixed in the rule file) and normalises it so the value is between 0 and 1 and then uses that value to pick a colour in the depending on your chosen colorRamp.

The follow code is only extracts to get you going

attr CentreX = 0 //select a node (road junction) and copy values from the attributes to put here
attr CentreZ = 0 //select a node (road junction) and copy values from the attributes to put here

distanceToCenter = sqrt((initialShape.origin.px - CentreX )*(initialShape.origin.px - CentreX ) + (initialShape.origin.pz - CentreZ) * (initialShape.origin.pz - CentreZ))

attrColorValue(x) = 1/ (radiusLimit-radiusCentre) * (distanceToCenter - radiusCentre) //normalized between 0 and 1

colorBasedOnDistance-->
	color (colorRamp("yellowToRed",attrColorValue(distanceToCenter)))

You can also use the same principles for building heights, for example giving each floor level an individual colour based on its elevation (scope.elevation instead of distanceToCenter).

Let me know if this needs more work, it seems good to me ….

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“Good evening fellow geo colleagues and distinguished guests, I feel very honoured to be asked to present at this wonderful conference.   I think we can all agree that GISTEC have done a marvellous job fitting so much in to 3 days, with such interesting presentations and workshops!

I was asked whether I would talk to you now about something motivational or inspirational potentially related to the conference themes.

But all I have come up with is the idea we all need to find time to play.   Let me try and explain to you what I believe is the ….

… the power of play

My first memory of a computer

My life up to now has had a common thread certainly in the technology field, when I was very young my father said he was getting a computer, my mother responded with the forever remembered in family folklore “if you do I’m leaving” needless to say he got that Commodore Pet computer and as far as I know mother is still around.   What’s my first memory of that computer?  Playing a game of course.

Fast forward a few years to when my family lived in Kuwait around 1994, we got access to the internet over a modem.   Did we use it for work initially? Not at first, we explored and experimented, some people might have dismissed it as play.

I also used something called IRC and chatted to people from around the world, in the days when few people were online most used real names.  Again not for work I was just playing it was a social thing.

Simcity 2000 who would need skills from this game?

My first real experience of the game franchise SimCity 2000 (I must have played the earlier version but can’t remember)came in 1994/95 without a real end to the game this was a sure sign of me wasting hours of my time making and simulating cities, I mean who would need that skill in the future?!

My first free email account, what’s yours?

When hotmail (1996 & pre-Microsoft) released free email addresses I signed up for one, not because I needed it but because it was something to do I guess I was just playing.

By 1997 we definitely were using the internet for work in particular emails, my father and I constructed his employers first website, and I made my own website I also had a geocities website.  Not for working I was tinkering, yes playing.

When I obtained an early version of photoshop I played around with it and found you could make some interesting imagery that could be used for professional reports.   We’ve been using photoshop in report production ever since.

My first mobile

Then when finally I went off to university my parents said “we want to remain in contact with you must have a mobile phone”.   I graciously accepted not because I wanted to be contactable by my parents (although I told them that) but because I wanted to play with this relatively new technology.

Fast forward to a year or so back and I’m still playing in fact I want to make levels for a 3D shooter game, oh I’m aware there might be a business application for it too but really that’s not my main motivation.   I stumble across a blog talking about CityEngine…. now look what I’m doing with it and where that’s got me!

Play is not trivial

So now as a relatively new parent I now understand the power of play, we shouldn’t use the word to be dismissive anymore as it often was “oh he’s just playing”.

I watch my daughters play and the things they like playing with you can see them getting better at and discovering new techniques.  At the moment it’s drawing they love, but worryingly for me they also love my iPad, in fact so much that I’ve practically given it to them.

Have you seen pictures of where people at Google work? Slides, funny seats, they even have a policy to allow employees to work on their own experimental side projects, in fact a lot of tech companies do that.

wheeeeeeeeee!

Twitter is now an essential part of how I do business, I can now call on expertise from around the world based on a common love of the geo and planning profession.”

It’s getting serious now…

Gamification is actually a serious academic subject.

Did you notice that you’re getting points for attending conference sessions…?   A game for you but not the conference organisers!

Play is experimenting

Look at this screenshot it’s the latest version of SimCity, why are my work tools not like that? Mind you have you seen CityEngine? Wouldn’t it be easier?

I want my work interface like this!

This is not my joke but imagine going back in time 50 or a 100 years and telling our ancestors that we have devices in our pockets from which we can access pretty much the sum total of all human knowledge they’ll be amazed.  Then tell them we use it to access funny pictures of cats…

Now if I end it there I’m going to be forever remembered as the guy that showed up at GISWORX and almost showed everyone a funny picture of a cat.   So perhaps I should end on this picture of my two daughters playing and drawing, let me never say the phrase “you’re wasting time playing with that”, because I do not know what the future holds only that it will be different from mine.

Shameless use of own kids to hammer home point?

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So I looked at weather my new Samsung Galaxy S3 could view webGL content.   Well no it can’t by default except when you download the beta version of Chrome Beta for Android!   What you do is install Chrome Beta and type into the address bar Chrome://flags and then enable webGL, of course then you point your Chrome Beta browser at your favourite CityEngine webscene.   So far it seems ok, there are times when the 3D is a bit sluggish, the big issue is that you can’t navigate the model by touch, so you have to really on the bookmarks.  Also the slider for moving between two scenes doesn’t work.   My guess is this can be programmed in, as soon as one of ESRI’s nice CityEngine developers (who read this blog?) feel like a quick side project for me….. ?

Don’t believe me?  Here are some screen shots (not got a 3D view as the screen capture software won’t let me… I’ll try again later)

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I’ll show you how to do this….

I’ll introduce attendees to the basics of CityEngine and how I use it in a city master planning context.   I will outline a couple of rule files that create quickly an urban block model with details such as building facades and lamp posts.

The second part of the workshop will take you through our process for creating and visualising a city neighbourhood in realtime from taking real GIS data through to rendered visualisations.

Hopefully I will also have the time to show attendees how they can share their models on line and off line.

…and this.

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Guess what 3D modeller I use…

Once you’ve done this you can use the following rule syntax to enable easy switching off and on of the detail without losing the feel of your model.   Remember your urban model maybe small now, but because you will inevitably reuse this rule file and asset, it’s best to ‘front load’ some of the work.

attr toggledetail = false

asset_balcony =
case toggledetail == true : "assets/detailedBuildings/BuildingFeatures/balcony.obj"
else : "assets/detailedBuildings/BuildingFeatures/balcony_simple.obj"

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In CityEngine

Exported to the WebViewer (hosted locally)

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