Esri Complete Street Rule Discussion-Feedback?

[DavidWasserman]

Hi All,

My name is David Wasserman, the urban planner/programmer that wrote Complete_Street.cga that is featured in the Complete Street Example. I was hoping that if anyone had any comments on the rule or suggestions for changes/features/bug fixes I wanted to provide a forum for that on Geonet. So say what ever comes to your mind, but I would prefer constructive feedback. This could be a forum where everyone could provide input, discussion, and hopefully create a better rule. If you want to discuss transportation/parking/urban planning rules generally for CityEngine consider hitting this thread first.

I have attached some example renderings for those unfamiliar with the rule and its capabilities. In addition, there is now documentation for the rule available for download here. It is still pretty rough, so feedback is appreciated. In addition to the documentation, there is a new version of the rule posted about here, feedback would be appreciated.

In addition, this is also an ok forum if you are having problems with the rule. If you comment on here, I get buzzed. In the numbered section below I will recount a short summary of problems discussed in this thread.

Kind Regards,
David Wasserman

PS: If you  do anything with the rule or want to share a rendering you made (a nice one), feel free to share your images/experience.

Discovery 1: Webscene issues that were worked out pretty easily, small webscenes work typically better.

Discovery 2: Street rule is not compatible with CE 2013. Its Crosswalks Depend on 2014 UVSpace options, and there is not an ESRI.lib file for 2013. Rule is designed for and works best with the most recent version of CE (2014).
Discovery 3: For road segments to snap, you must make sure they are apart of the same layer. Merge layers if you have snapping problems.

Discovery 4: Short road segments are hard for the street rule to handle at times. A few work around with short segments include: Change crosswalks and stop types to none, making the CrosswalkBegin/End attributes a negative number, manipulating nodes to be longer, or deleting unnecessary nodes to create longer street segments (use simplify graph tool) (Thanks Steve).

Discovery 5: A discussion about curb extensions  and how to make them albeit an unorthodox way is both below and on this thread.

Discovery 6: Bridges have a minimum height requirement to generate (structure just does not make sense below a certain height). Also if you want Piers to appear regardless of Occlusion settings use On, Show All Piers. If it still does not work try: Making a new segment to test the rule one, restarting CE, or re-importing the road layer and starting again.

Discovery 7: When cropping or re-sizing your aerial for your CE project chances are you will need to georeference the image to your geography or another aerial. Georeferencing an aerial in ArcMAP will take on the ArcMAP scene projection but that is not enough. Be sure to use the "Project Raster" in the Toolbox and this will ensure proper scale and placement for your CE scene.

Discovery 8: Mapped Attributes: IF you map the streetWidth or sidewalk street parameters, and you want to adjust them after the fact you must change both the mapped object attribute AND the shape parameter. See responses below for details.

Discovery 9: Handles - Recent editions to the rule in 2017 have started to support handles for traffic lights and streetlights for more custom edits that were typically reserved for photoshop. If you have any suggestions for handles please add a comment. 

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Notice: 1: There is a 2015 Version of the Complete Street rule. There was a bug in the street rule that did not make it work in 2015, and in this version of the rule the bug is fixed. It should work in 2014 as well as 2015 versions of CE.

[BastienCLEMOT]

Thx I'll check this. 

When I apply in some configuration (curves, with bus/cycle lanes etc)... drains have problem. They don't stay at the bottom of the sidewalk

Ps : for the sidewalk map... i'ts just a work in progress I did in 5 minutes. Nervermind, because you help a lot, after my project i'll be very happy to make some texture for you  

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Bastien, 

Something I just realized is that if you put drainage in the street rule it depends on the street allocation settings too much, and it might make the rule very buggy. 

My suggestion, is add drainage to the sidewalk rules because it will look better (connected to sidewalk), and not interfere with any other rule settings. 

Sidewalk--> #Original
     BridgeSide
     set(sidewalkWidth,scope.sz)
     set(sidewalkLength,scope.sx)
     color( _ModeClassifier ("Pedestrian"))#If Display Thematics==Usage, goes to usage, if not, Thematic. 
     report("Cut/Fill.Total Sidewalk Cut/Fill Volume (m^3)", geometry.area()*Sidewalk_Height)
     report("Mode Area (m^2).Pedestrian", geometry.area())
     split(v,unitSpace,0){Curb_Depth: Curbs_Mass(false) 
                              | ~1: Sidewalk_Setup }
     X. #Enclose Shapes for Printing

Sidewalk--> #Revised
     BridgeSide
     set(sidewalkWidth,scope.sz)
     set(sidewalkLength,scope.sx)
     color( _ModeClassifier ("Pedestrian"))#If Display Thematics==Usage, goes to usage, if not, Thematic. 
     report("Cut/Fill.Total Sidewalk Cut/Fill Volume (m^3)", geometry.area()*Sidewalk_Height)
     report("Mode Area (m^2).Pedestrian", geometry.area())
     split(v,unitSpace,0){Drainage_Depth: Drainage|Curb_Depth: Curbs_Mass(false) 
                              | ~1: Sidewalk_Setup }
     X. #Enclose Shapes for Printing‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

[BastienCLEMOT]

1]About the texture problem. The code is the same. I just  recover the original texture. I changed the dimension to 80192x2048

But i found another solution by reducing the zone. and now it's ok.

2]for the drainage

It works but it seems there is a conflict with a shape at the same place. If I extrude (for test) the drainage it's ok. I don't know what this shape is !

Thx

Bastien

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Bastien, 

1. So do you need any input on number 1 then? It looks good in terms of set up splits. 

2. It might be because you are using tileUV with setUpProjection. It might be texturing itself twice. The docs for example never show setUpProjection being used with tileUV. You usually pick one or the other. However you are not using projectUV, so I am not sure that is the issue (might be you were just testing the different projections to see what the problem was). If I was to guess, comment out BridgeSide (see image), it would go away. IF you don't want to comment it out, translate or (extrude if you want closed shapes) your texture literally 1 CM (t(0,.01,0)) up. No one will know the difference. 

Just hope you don't need bridges with sidewalks. I would have to take a look at the BrideSide rules. EDIT: Scratch this, I am not sure BridgeSide does this. 

PS: What I think is going on is just a problem I never had to deal with because the sidewalks were always extruded above the actual start shape.EDIT: were have determined the X. is the source of the shape conflict. I will see if there is another way to achieve the same result without creating a visible shape. 

David

[BastienCLEMOT]

1] No it's working. so I think it's ok. 

2] commenting setUpProjection being or with tileUV change nothing. BrideSide too. And extrude drain to 1cm is a problem in my case. I can't do this  (specification of my project).

[EDIT] I just found !!!  I commented X. at the end of sidewalk rule.

Bastien

[DavidWasserman]

That makes sense too...That was added to make the rule watertight. Now I am curious if there is a way to make it water tight without creating a visible shape.  
Does the drainage work well across all the streets? I am curious how this work with edge cases. Might be a new parameter worth investigating. 

PS: I am working on making the split lane marking lines an actual feature of the rule. I am making a High and Very High LOD setting, with everything High or better having those split centerlines. I agree, in renderings it looks a lot better (no blur). If there are other features that might require this type of attention, let me know. 
PS PS: Are you comfortable sha ring your version of the rule when you are done? Just wanted to take a look. Some of it might be worth integrating into the core rule. 
Last PS: Enclose Shape Edits, High LOD modifications · Holisticnature/Complete_Street_Rule@8f0ad3e · GitHub - This is an update to the rule that follows our discussion. Let me know if you see any issues. 

David

[WendellDimaculangan1]

Hi David,

I am wondering if you can help me with this PARKING LOT.CGA rule that comes with the 2015- 03 Complete Street Project under the Rule subfolder STREET PARKING. Attached is the rule and the screenshot of the rule applied to a shape.

I would like to put trees on specified intervals on the parking CenterIsland and the Planting on the sides. I would like to have it the same as in the sidewalk to have a planting_width, planting_length and planting_spacing also. I have more than a hundred parking lots on the masterplan that I am modelling and it will take me forever to put trees in Lumion .  

Thanks and regards,

[WendellDimaculangan1]

Hi David,

I managed to put trees but only in the middle of the center Island and I can't seem to put the proper texture on the center Island. Attached is the screen shot and the CGA file.

Regards,

Wendell

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Wendell, 

Sorry for my slow response!

You did a good job of integrating key components of the rule. I have a feeling there might be a few things going on.

1. From what I can read you are calling Median Plant Base, but it only calls Median Planting and Tree_Setup. Tree Setup does not do the repeating splits for trees. If you want repeating trees you should call Median_TreeSplit, but it looks  like you are debugging that. 

2. Check that Median_Ground_Cover is not "None" (in fact here, it should not be an option as greenIslandSpace=True does this). 

3. IF that does not work let me know if changing from a unit space split helps (split on z/x).
 but my guess is part of the issue is you are using UnitSpace splits rather than Spliting on the z/x axis of the current shape. 

I will have to take a deeper look later.

David

[WendellDimaculangan1]

Hi David,

It's getting there slowly  . The problem now is that the trees are cutting a hole in objecttop and. trees are getting the texture of the objecttop.