topic Re: CE WebGL limits in ArcGIS CityEngine Questions

CE WebGL limits

nicholascarrington — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:39:51 GMT

Is there some sort of texture limit when exporting to CE Webgl runtime ?

Also exporting to CE webgl the textures look really lowres using compact
but it seems it does not like too many images in one scene. (I tried slicing them up
but it seems it's still equals to one large image.. lol)

This is what I get:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21588[/ATTACH]

one of the error files:

EXPORT LOG / CityEngine 2012.1.09130547
---------------------------------------------------

export started at: Thu Feb 07 17:24:54 2013
export completed at: Thu Feb 07 17:25:24 2013
export duration: 30.6 seconds

EXPORT SETTINGS
    format:                CityEngine Web Scene
    location:              C:\Users\ncarrington\CityEngine\COR_GIS_CE\models
    base name:             COR_GIS_CE_terrain_center
    export content:        1 (0 = models only, 1 = fallback to shape, 2 = shapes only)
    file granularity:      0 (0 = single file (or split by file budget), 1 = file per initial shape)
    file size budget:      0
    mesh granularity:      1 (0 = as generated, 1 = mesh per material, 2 = use instances of inserted assets)
    vertex precision:      0.00100
    normal precision:      0.00100
    texcoord precision:    0.00010
    merge vertices:        1
    merge normals:         1
    merge texcoords:       1
    triangulate:           1
    reproject texcoords:   0
    vertex indexing:       0 (0 = allow shared vertices, 1 = force separate vertices)
    normals type:          0 (0 = use vertex normals, 1 = use face normals (flat))
    normals indexing:      0 (0 = allow shared normals, 1 = force separate normals)
    write texcoords:       1 (0 = no texcoords, 1 = first layer, 2 = all layers)
    write materials:       1
    collect textures:      0
    file type:             0 (0 = ascii, 1 = binary)
    embed textures:        1
    write master file:     0
    master group name:     CityEngineSceneRoot
    write cam data:        1
    batch behavior:        0 (0 = normal, 1 = skip existing files, 2 = dry run)

INPUT STATS
    number of initial shapes      = 1
    number of generated shapes    = 1
    number of generated meshes    = 20
    number of generated materials = 20

OUTPUT STATS
    written files: 1
    written materials: 20
    written meshes (total polygons): 20 (397181)
    mesh names (polygons):
            0: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_065' (26901)
            1: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_060' (17606)
            2: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_004' (25290)
            3: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_017' (20062)
            4: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_030' (14873)
            5: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_038' (13582)
            6: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_034' (23419)
            7: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_044' (17983)
            8: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_054' (5774)
            9: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_050' (20165)
           10: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_041' (26332)
           11: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_056' (11886)
           12: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_058' (27452)
           13: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_063' (17791)
           14: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_061' (18802)
           15: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_043' (17335)
           16: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_028' (22805)
           17: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_052' (27496)
           18: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_048' (16036)
           19: 'terrain_terrain_plw3_039' (25591)

INPUT REPORT
    collected/generated initial shapes:
            0: OK    : terrain_center.obj                       OID: bd775022-ca54-11b2-8685-000373492047

OUTPUT REPORT
    written files & status:
            0: OK:                        C:\Users\ncarrington\CityEngine\COR_GIS_CE\models\COR_GIS_CE_terrain_center_0.3ws

Re: CE WebGL limits

MatthiasBuehler1 — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:51:19 GMT

Hi !

there's no real specific limitations.

the only really important limitation usually is the final filesize of the 3ws file, since it has to be downloaded via web.

we usually say that a 3ws file ( which is compressed and which also contains the textures ) should not be larger than maybe 30 MB. just for the fact of downloading.

lowres images thus are of course defined to save space. you certainly know you can set the values to better quality for individual layers...

m.

Re: CE WebGL limits

nicholascarrington — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:51:57 GMT

Matthias when I output to web scene some times i get this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21791[/ATTACH]

1. It looks like some sort of LOD clipping plain thingy. Is this a known anomaly?
2. Also... Is there a way to control mip-mapping distance in CE web-scene and the CE editor?
3. Is it possibly to have images load dynamically depending on where your viewing ?
4. Also is there a way to circumvent the Java memory limit in the editor?

I've got the same model loaded in 3dsmax and it runs great with the video ram I have.

I would like to upload larger scenes if possible with models that have 2048x2048 textures with mip-mapping control and dynamic texture loading I think I can achieve better visual quality.

Thanks again... 🙂

Re: CE WebGL limits

MatthiasBuehler1 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:36:52 GMT

Hi !

1] Isn't this zFighting, where 2 polygons are coplanar ?
2] What do you precisely mean by mipmapping 'distance' ?
3] No. That may change in the future though.
4] By Editor you mean CityEngine ? If so : No, because that's how Java works. You can only set the value high enough.

Let me know ..

Matthias when I output to web scene some times i get this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21791[/ATTACH]

1. It looks like some sort of LOD clipping plain thingy. Is this a known anomaly?
2. Also... Is there a way to control mip-mapping distance in CE web-scene and the CE editor?
3. Is it possibly to have images load dynamically depending on where your viewing ?
4. Also is there a way to circumvent the Java memory limit in the editor?

I've got the same model loaded in 3dsmax and it runs great with the video ram I have.

I would like to upload larger scenes if possible with models that have 2048x2048 textures with mip-mapping control and dynamic texture loading I think I can achieve better visual quality.

Thanks again... 🙂

Re: CE WebGL limits

nicholascarrington — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:15:36 GMT

Thanks again Matthias for answering my questions you have been very helpful.

It was not z fighting seems like it's some sort of graphics issue that went away once the web-scene was uploaded online.

Mipmap distance : the distance from the camera at which a certain texture resolution is displayed on screen.
see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap
Far objects are projected with low-res versions of the texture and object closer to camera gets the high-res version of the texture.Now the ability to set this distance factor would be nice to have faster speeds in CE veiwport and web-gl app if possible.

I see, City Engine is a java app. If so I need to allow more memory to it. How is this achieved?

Thanks again Matt... 🙂

Re: CE WebGL limits

MatthiasBuehler1 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:32:08 GMT

Hi !

Note : WebGl does support MipMapping.

But Mipmaps are handled on the hardware (graphics card). Plus, the 'best lower res texture' is chosen in actual screen space ( pixels ), not according to the distance from camera. That's hardcoded behavior and cannot be changed currently, and most probably never will be definable via the API later on too since this is driven by graphics driver / hardware.

Concerning the memory :
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/56490-Freeing-up-system-memory

Cheers !

Matt

Re: CE WebGL limits

nicholascarrington — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:07:25 GMT

Matthias, thank you I'll call this thread SOLVED!.

😛