topic Re: CGA rules for underground facilities in ArcGIS CityEngine Questions

CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 21:57:42 GMT

I'm writing CGA rules for manholes and pipe lines which connect manholes together. Does anyone have examples of these kind of CGA rule files I can refer to?

Thank you!

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 22:26:39 GMT

I have a good manhole rule. I'm home now, so I will send it to in you in the morning.

Chris

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 14:10:39 GMT

Thank you Chris. That'd be great! My manholes have thinner necks and thicker bodies, wasn't sure how to do that either...

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 14:19:43 GMT

This one has all measurements as attributes, so your thinner necks and thicker bodies request is just in the Inspector. Attached is PRK, and it is unlocked so you can unzip it with a file zipper, and see what is inside, or you can just apply it as an RPK.

Let me know your feedback,

Chris

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:11:07 GMT

You can also open and close the section view using the ShowSection toggle.

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:29:03 GMT

Yeah I found it shortly after I asked the question and then deleted my question. What I really want to ask is how I can change the manhole from "offset" to a more symmetrical one? I see there's a "straight" option but that's not what I want. I'm thinking something similar to the offset model but symmetrical.

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:33:44 GMT

Maybe the name "straight" was a bad choice - it is not a straight pipe, but is a symmetrical cone. The offset version is called an eccentric cone. If the "straight" cone is not what you need, can you show a picture of what you are looking for?

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 22:02:07 GMT

Sorry for the late reply. It actually worked pretty well after a few modification. Thank you so much! Could you also offer some suggestions about piping? (connecting the manholes together) I have the pipeline shapefiles but not sure how to make the pipelines and manholes models connect together.

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 22:09:32 GMT

Mmmm... I just made the manhole model. Another guy, Daniel Hedges, made the pipes. Yo Dan!

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

DanielHedges — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 23:05:42 GMT

I'm assuming each pipe feature in your data has an upstream and downstream elevation attribute. If so, you can use "Feature to 3D by Attribute", and specify your upstream elevation as your "Height Field", and your downstream as your "To Height Field". Note that this will only work if the first vertex of each line feature starts at the upstream location. If it does not, you will have to manually attribute each feature with a starting elevation (at the start vertex of the line) and an ending elevation, and then run the tool.

For a more accurate result, you should also add the radius of the pipe to your elevation fields before running "Feature to 3D by Attribute", so that when you buffer the line feature to make it a 3D pipe ("Buffer 3D" tool), the bottom of the pipe will be at the attributed elevation, rather than the center of the pipe.

If you instead have pipe features that are a consistent depth below ground, you can also use the raster calculator tool to subtract the depth from your terrain raster and then use "Interpolate Shape" to set all of the vertices of your pipe feature to the lowered elevation surface.

I know I just threw a lot of information at you, so let me know if you have any questions.

Dan

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:06:56 GMT

Hi Dan,

Then am I able to export the 3D models from ArcMap to CE?

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

DanielHedges — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:15:45 GMT

Yes, the buffered line features will be in multipatch format in your geodatabase. Then you can use File > Import > File GDB Import, and navigate to your new features from there in CE.

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

awei — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 19:36:08 GMT

Thanks! That worked excellently. Also can you texture those pipes?

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

DanielHedges — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 23:35:59 GMT

Absolutely. I'll pass it back to Chris Wilkins, who has put together some simple CGA to texture multipatches. Yo Chris!

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 19:40:55 GMT

Update to this post.... I found a couple errors in the rules, which when encountered made things look really bad.

Here's a fixed version of the Manhole (attached).

Re: CGA rules for underground facilities

Anonymous User — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 19:44:47 GMT

a wei,

Here is the rule Dan mentions (attached). You might need to experiment with the @InMesh annotation on the start rule if using this in ArcGIS Pro.

Also, you'll need to point the image texture to your particular image.

Chris