City Engine - Security and defense

PmssS · ‎06-08-2015

Dear All,

For the purpose of acquiring the City Engine, I will need to submit a proposal with several uses of the tool for Security and Defense areas.

Besides the range of weaponry and toxic cloud propagation, for what could be or you using the city engine? Also for simulation of explosions? View ranges?

Counting on your suggestions!!

cheers

PS

MatthiasBuehler · ‎06-08-2015

Hi Pedro,

CityEngine is a procedural modeling application, which is dedicated to the creation of 3d city models. It does not have 3d analysis or simulation features. It can report geometric values of the processed geometries (for each 3d model), but nothing like explosion simulation or toxic cloud propagation. This has to be done in an analysis package, based on the resulting geometries you export from CityEngine.

CityEngine can aggregate data from different sources (2D GIS, 3D models, terrain, ..) which all together form that 3d city model.

To do the things you want, CityEngine is one piece of the puzzle, it can not do it all.

Let me know if you need some more info.

Kind greetings,

Matt

Interested in CityEngine training or services? Contact me!

Matthias Buehler

Head of 3D Technologies

twitter: @MattB3D

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Garsdale Design Limited

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MicahTaylor · ‎06-08-2015

What software would you recommend to use to create animations or user control in a CityEngine Scene after export of a finished scene?Matthias Buehler

MicahTaylor · ‎06-08-2015

I have often thought 3D GIS as a use in defense planning. I think as 3D and GIS technologies continue to advance that more options will become available. Here a couple of 3D things that might give you an idea of a scenario where you would use 3D modeling in GIS.

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=16ab93ddf4f647709040df70ce4...

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=3c60e6459ffc4890a3c47d54b96...

Maybe having a model of troop placement in an urban combat zone would be useful....and use the CGA rules to generate different percentages of coverage for certain sidewalks or sides of the building. (Kind of like tree percentages are used now on street and green space rules, but it would be model soldiers with Entrance and Exit strategies). You could then have the model report on the number of troops in each element; or maybe the distance of a sidewalk from soldier to entrance point of a building with the reporting option...or roof placement....or security camera coverage area (think transparent covered domes representing camera viewshed)

Another use would be post-combat investigations. Build a model of a scene to show different "possibilities" of how a situation went down....like in the JFK scene above.

I have also seen some cases where a CityEngine Scene had indoor modeling of buildings. Which could prove useful for defense as well. It would be handy to move about the scene with a remote like the Occulus Xbox remote thing that Esri has at the UC. I'm not sure, but it may even be possible to move CityEngine models/scenes to other 3D softwares that allow you to set up gaming rules (such as Unity). This would open up new possibilities to Defense maybe??

Good luck! Very interested to see what other people suggest.

PmssS · ‎06-09-2015

Thanks for the answer.

I spent today some time watching a video from Nthan Shephard and Gert Van Maren related with the use of CityEngine and the ArcGIS. Got to the conclusion that the City Engine was developed thinking about city planning, city regulations.

Sadly is not a tool that had an horizontal development, in other words to cover other areas of expertise.

I have seen the potential with the examples you sent such as:

- the tennis example could be used for targeting (i)

- the visibility analysis could be used for visibility analysis (wondering if it considers also the relief and trees)

- the example cities I have seen were always in flat terrain, do you know if there is anything in mountains ex. salzburg or hilly ex. Lisbon?

The Rules seems great do you know if there is some for south european cities? Desert cities? sub sahara cities?/african cities? (maybe this has been answered in another post)

cheers

Pedro

MicahTaylor · ‎06-09-2015

Here is a model from Austria (has some hills). This one is cool because it models trees in non-urban area, shows wind-power effects, and has an address locator.

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=c8f8237b639f4a4b8d7deab6345...

Cape Town - Really cool use of cameras.

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=089d6d98d0ce45dbbfd241646be...

Desert - Awesome panorama.

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=5aee281aefcb485a9e197af852b...

Sub Terrainian Modeling! (I expect more of this to be done with 3D in the future.)

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=c123dee5ddd04a61ab08f8c988b...

Here are a few more. Yes, I agree that City Engine is more of a planning tool to show 3D visualizations. But if you need "fast" models that you could pair with other platforms to do your analysis, it is very cool.

Also check out ArcPro..(it seems to be merging the analysis and modeling into one package, which is really useful).

MicahTaylor · ‎06-08-2015

http://nashville.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebScene=50856be2102a46868372319f385...

Here is one that has camera feeds.

MatthiasBuehler · ‎06-09-2015

Hi Pedro,

CityEngine can be used in any sort of project where you have to generate tons of precise 3d geometries. This does not only have to be buildings and cities. But this is used in many industries!

There are many different examples that were made with CityEngine. I recommend you search very specific on google.

Just three examples that you can search for more information:

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- Medieval Town ( on hills ) - I created this rule set when I was working in the CityEngine team. This example is available for download within CityEngine

- Desert City - I also created this example myself. It is also available as a full downloadable example.

- Favela - This is an example I have created in spare time with a friend and shows what you can do when you are good with CityEngine (and 3d graphics in general.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY5gU1J39Ec

As said, CityEngine itself does not have analysis or similation functionality, since it is a modeling application. To to 3d-simulation, you need to export to an other tool, e.g. Esri's 3D-Analyst, which obviously can do 3d analysis, including terrain and so on.

Or are you searching for something specific? Are you working on a specific project that would need specific rules?

Please let me know..