{"id":411,"date":"2011-10-26T09:22:28","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T09:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/?p=411"},"modified":"2012-01-09T11:44:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T11:44:33","slug":"cityengine-2011-whats-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/?p=411","title":{"rendered":"CityEngine 2011 : What&#8217;s new"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_new_help_2011.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-413\" title=\"cityengine_new_help_2011\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_new_help_2011.jpg?resize=300%2C158\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_new_help_2011.jpg?resize=300%2C158&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_new_help_2011.jpg?resize=1%2C1&amp;ssl=1 1w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_new_help_2011.jpg?w=726&amp;ssl=1 726w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today sees the release of CityEngine 2011, recently\u00a0acquired\u00a0by ESRI and being\u00a0integrated\u00a0into the core of their software offerings. \u00a0 This package fits in nicely with <a href=\"http:\/\/video.esri.com\/watch\/125\/jack-dangermond-talks-about-geodesign-at-ted2010\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Dangermond&#8217;s ideas on GeoDesign<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/technology-topics\/geodesign\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">you can also read more here)<\/a>. \u00a0 The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/events\/euc\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">ESRI user conference in Madrid today<\/a> will be when it is officially released, but what will the new release contain and what improvements will ESRI bring to the table (aside from some cosmetic changes).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/toc.html\" target=\"_blank\">Well I&#8217;ve noticed that the help file for the new version is online and you can find it here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>New features I have spotted so far include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/georef\/georefdata.html\" target=\"_blank\">georefenced terrain and texture maps can now be used with support for GeoTIFFS (at last!)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/import\/toc.html\" target=\"_blank\">file formats for import supported (including ESRI&#8217;s geodatabase and KML)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/export\/export_toc.html\" target=\"_blank\">export file formats supported (including KML)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/import\/shapefile.html\" target=\"_blank\">support for coordinate system when importing Shapefile (I hope this works the way I think it should work!)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/is\/create\/block_params.html\" target=\"_blank\">new subdivision method &#8211; skeleton subdivision (will have to see how this works in practice)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/is\/create\/intersection_params.html\" target=\"_blank\">ROUNDABOUTS!<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/manual\/is\/create\/street_tool.html\" target=\"_blank\">Smooth streets<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/cgareference\/func_geometry.html\" target=\"_blank\">geometry.isOrientated function<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/cgareference\/func_getGeoCoord.html\" target=\"_blank\">getGeoCoord function<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/cgareference\/style.html\" target=\"_blank\">styles &#8211; not exactly sure what this is yet but it looks potentially very useful<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/cgareference\/style.html\" target=\"_blank\">a style manager<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.procedural.com:8080\/help\/index.jsp?topic=\/com.procedural.cityengine.help\/html\/cgareference\/cga_changelog.html\">You can also visit the CGA change log for a more thorough breakdown of what has been added, changed and fixed.<\/a><\/div>\n<div>There also seems to be a number of interface changes, which look to make the process of linking to rule files, selecting start rules and the like easier. \u00a0 The inspector window has undergone some cosmetic changes, not much but I think some the people at Procedural\/ESRI have been trying to ensure consistency and a clearer interface.<\/div>\n<div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_412\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-412\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_2011_roundabouts.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-412\" title=\"Roundabouts in CItyEngine\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_2011_roundabouts.jpg?resize=300%2C191\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_2011_roundabouts.jpg?resize=300%2C191&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_2011_roundabouts.jpg?resize=1%2C1&amp;ssl=1 1w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cityengine_2011_roundabouts.jpg?w=726&amp;ssl=1 726w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roundabouts? Believe me when I say I&#39;m happy about this new feature...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad there&#8217;s is increased support for GIS file formats (namely KML and GDB) but\u00a0I haven&#8217;t managed to find out whether object attributes set in CityEngine are now automatically written back to a shapefile upon export without the need to dive into Python scripting (which is only available at PRO level). \u00a0I really hope it does this for the versions that can export to shapefiles as it is in my view a hugely important feature essentially for working with ArcGIS.<\/p>\n<p>In summary this looks to be what I was hoping for from CityEngine, a refinement of the interface and increase in support for proper GIS georeferenced data, plus enhancements to the way streets and lots are created. \u00a0 Until I get the new update I can&#8217;t possibly comment on the software&#8217;s real life performance, but the future looks very promising.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I hope ESRI doesn&#8217;t do is fragment the product too much (i.e giving a small, medium and large approach with huge feature differences between products). \u00a0 We use ArcMap (lets call it ArcGIS for cheapskates) in the office \u00a0and increasingly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qgis.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">QGIS <\/a>seems like a much better alternative in some circumstances, as the feature set is much richer and it&#8217;s file format support better than ArcMap. \u00a0Yes I know we should pay more money if we want the features, but honestly that&#8217;s not always possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today sees the release of CityEngine 2011, recently\u00a0acquired\u00a0by ESRI and being\u00a0integrated\u00a0into the core of their software offerings. \u00a0 This package fits in nicely with Jack Dangermond&#8217;s ideas on GeoDesign\u00a0(you can also read more here). \u00a0 The\u00a0ESRI user conference in Madrid today will be when it is officially released, but what will the new release contain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,116,145,64,7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcgis","7":"category-arcmap","8":"category-city-creation","9":"category-cityengine","10":"category-esri","11":"category-gis","12":"category-workflow"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geoplanit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}