Get Map Data World Elevation Data

Aurigainteractivestudios · ‎09-28-2022

Hi, I was wondering what subscription level is necessary for the elevation data to be accessible from within CityEngine's Get Map Data function?

And can data downloaded in this manner be exported as a Geotiff?

I've been using data downloaded from the USGS and it's been giving me no end of problems with the projections and resolution.

My goal is to have elevation data used in Unreal Engine, I have a plugin for that to import DEM data into Unreal's terrain, and I need CityEngine's generated graphs, shapes and generated models to align with that.

JonasObertuefer · ‎10-20-2022

Hi @Aurigainteractivestudios,

Can't you download elevation data through the Get Map Data dialog?

And yes elevation data can be exported as GeoTIFF: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/cityengine/latest/help/help-export-a-map.htm

For unreal you can also use the datasmith exporter, which has terrain support too: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/cityengine/latest/help/help-export-unreal.htm

Cheers,
Jonas

Aurigainteractivestudios · ‎10-25-2022

Hi, I can download basemaps and road/building footprint data but not elevation, that requires a subscription. I bought a single use license, should I have bought the CityEngine for ArcGIS Online license instead?

Oddly enough when I download the OSM data through Cityengine, I get terrible performance, but for a different scene, I had used OSM data directly from them and CE performs much better, even in a very large scene.

There's a load of options for subscriptions ranging from $100 to $3,800 a year.

JonasObertuefer · ‎10-26-2022

hi again,

What country are you located? Ill then can forward you to the right person to answer the licensing question.

Oddly enough when I download the OSM data through Cityengine, I get terrible performance, but for a different scene, I had used OSM data directly from them and CE performs much better, even in a very large scene.

You mean when you directly download the OSM data from openstreetmap.org and then import the OSM instead of using the Get Map Data dialog CE will be running faster? Or the downloaded data has a better quality?

Aurigainteractivestudios · ‎10-26-2022

I'm located in the USA (East Coast)

I mean when I download data manually from Open Street Map, I get better performance than downloading data within CityEngine.

Directly from OSM I have a scene of midtown Manhattan, many streets and buildings, but it runs pretty well.

I made a scene of Burlington, Vermont, a much smaller city and CityEngine runs very slowly.

It may be worth noting that the fast scene was originally made in version 2014.1 and copied over to 2022, while the slow scene was created in 2022. Something between the versions may be to blame, if not the data.

JonasObertuefer · ‎10-28-2022

Regarding licensing:

From the Get Map Data help

Elevation data is only available for subscribed users or those with an ArcGIS organizational account.

--> You need a paid ArcGIS online subscription to download terrain data. You can sign up for a trial account if you only need this feature for a limited time.

Btw. with 2022.1 we added support for 8K map/terrain data, this might be interesting for you!

Regarding osm performance:

All the Get Map Dialog does is downloading the OSM file and then importing it. There should be no difference between that and manually importing an OSM file, you end up in the exact same import dialog.
There where definitly changes from 2014.1 to 2022.0 related to streets. When opening an old scene some conversion is done. Not sure why its getting worse in your case, but without looking at the actual scene file everything is just speculation.