Long live ArcGIS CityEngine! haha you have to let me have some clickbait blog posts occasionally! Well it looks like CityEngine 2020 (now with added ArcGIS for marketing continuity I think) has been released, or about to be as I think I get downloads earlier (from my.esri.com).
“Changed the full name of CityEngine from Esri CityEngine to ArcGIS CityEngine to better align with the ArcGIS product family.”
This seems like a bigger release befitting of a .0 release (the point .1s are for fixing things generally). Better ‘SketchUp-like’ editing tools which may be of use to some (I prefer SketchUp personally for that kind of thing), an improved interface for some tools (a new Tool Options window pane for one thing).
On the CGA front a headline of improved CSV support and arrays, which means you can use CSV (thing MS Excel tables planners) to control rule operations.
They are making a big thing of improved visual rendering in the viewport which now respects Physical Based Rendering (PBR). This is potentially good for those not wanting to use any other 3rd party product for visuals, although I’d use something else anyway.
Exporting to Mobile Scene Packages is now available to you, although personally I wish they’d do more with old CityEngine webscene viewer (3WS format) or replicate the swipe tool functionality somewhere.
They have also added support for another format Universal Scene Descriptor (USD) which is great for use in vfx pipelines/workflows…
New webstyles in Esri.lib and metadata for plants (SoilPH) which is nice but hopefully not a distraction.
I’ll be reviewing the other new features over the coming week, and may add more detail here if I have the time. In the meantime feel free to read the blog and release notes.
