topic Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel in ArcGIS CityEngine Questions

RE: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

ScottFujikawa — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:57:49 GMT

Hi Matthias,

The Object Attributes info panel only shows the first 10 characters of an attribute field name. Can this be changed in the next version of CE so that the complete field names will display? This is an small but important feature since the abbreviated names are transferred to the web scene info panel and our users have been confused by the shortened field names. Also, we noticed that the field names are sorted alphabetically but in an descending order which is opposite of what we would expect to see.

Thanks,
Scott

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

RobertBorchert — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:08:21 GMT

Unfortunately it is the nature of shapefiles to only show 10 characters. The only way to have more than 10 characters is to use a goedatabase.

As a workaround what you can do is populate the alias field with the title you want. You can even take out the underscores to make it look better.

Hi Matthias,

The Object Attributes info panel only shows the first 10 characters of an attribute field name. Can this be changed in the next version of CE so that the complete field names will display? This is an small but important feature since the abbreviated names are transferred to the web scene info panel and our users have been confused by the shortened field names. Also, we noticed that the field names are sorted alphabetically but in an descending order which is opposite of what we would expect to see.

Thanks,
Scott

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

Anonymous User — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:20:58 GMT

Original User: matthiasbuehler

Hi !

Yep, that's an issue about importing data into CityEngine ( as mentioned via .shp, that's a .shp file format limitation to have max 10 characters ), not a WebGL export issue. That one's not limited.

E.g. the esri Campus WebScene has some attribute names longer than 10 characters for example

Ok ?

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

ScottFujikawa — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:55:42 GMT

Thanks for the quick responses.
I did not realize it was the shapefile limitation. Exported our data into the .gdb format & now the field names are intact.
(But they are still sorted alphabetically reversed in the CE info panel)
Scott

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

Anonymous User — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 23:44:05 GMT

Original User: jesterjace

Unfortunately it is the nature of shapefiles to only show 10 characters. The only way to have more than 10 characters is to use a goedatabase.

As a workaround what you can do is populate the alias field with the title you want. You can even take out the underscores to make it look better.

How does one go about using the aliases from the GDB? I don't see that option during the import process.

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

MatthiasBuehler1 — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:22:55 GMT

I've never seen that the aliases could be imported.

Is that something which may make sense to provide ?

M.

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

Anonymous User — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:18:19 GMT

Original User: jesterjace

Definitely! Field names are often shortened, written in full caps, or have underscores (ex. WALLLEN_M). The alias field is used to give a more creative description of the field to convey to people viewing the data in services or the CityEngine WebGLS scenes. The example field name could be changed to "Wall Length (m)" which makes more sense.

It would be greatly beneficial to have the alias field names available for CityEngine exports.

Re: Object Attributes in the Inspector panel

MatthiasBuehler1 — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:01:24 GMT

Hi,

Seems we've heard this wish before, so it's a known thing. Nevertheless I forwarded the wish again.

Thanks for the input !

Matt