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. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

[SteveRhyne]

I was afraid of that. I think we have CE 2014 so hopefully that will fix it. Thanks for your help

[SteveRhyne]

Installed 2014 and everything opened correctly without issue. Thanks again for the help!

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Steve,

Whew, I am glad everything worked out. I hated being the bearer of bad news.

Kind Regards,
David

[SteveRhyne]

I came across an issue I'm not certain how to fix. I created a road network and applied the Complete Street CGA. When I drag a node endpoint to an intersecting road to create a T-intersection the intersection doesn't build. When I replicate the same process without a CGA rule the intersection builds. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Steve,

First wow. I never thought about doing land access like that. One concern I have was that the street rule can do short segments, it just is not great at it. It looks like it is doing ok in this case.

In terms of that snapping not work and the intersection not building, and can you try deleting the nodes and make a new road line to the intersection node? Like what I wrote up in this image. I am not sure if this will fix it, but it might refresh it with new CE geometry and increase the segment length. Tell me if this does anything for you...I am taking a shot in the dark.
Kind Regards, David

[DavidWasserman]

Wait Steve, are you moving the node to the intersection or are you drawing a street segment to the intersection?

David

[SteveRhyne]

Both. I tried moving the endpoint to create the intersection and drawing a segment. I did some further tests. I created a complete network without applying the street rule. All intersections worked perfectly. Next I added the street rule. After applying the street rule I created a new road without the rule and I tried to connect a portion of the network with the street rule and it replicated the original problem.

[DavidWasserman]

Hi Steve,

Interesting. I am not exactly sure what might cause this.  Can you try saving the project and restarting the CPU and CE? (It has helped me when weird stuff like this happened).
Moving the node often has issues with snapping which is why I try to draw them when I can.

I did try to make a T-intersection in my project just to check that it can make them. Chris Wilkins‌, do you know what can cause street generation/snapping issues like this?

David

[Anonymous User]

No, I don't.

[DavidWasserman]

Alright. Thanks for taking a look.