Learning CityEngine, Tutorials and other Training

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Dear all,

We're getting a lot of inquiries concerning training materials, tutorials and other resources, to learn the CityEngine most efficiently.


Here's the list of resources I usually recommend :

I highly recommend to browse through all the mentioned resources since they contain all the basic information to get started on a professional level CityEngine project.



1] Esri Educational Services Intro Video
Free training seminar video (60') : 'Getting Started with CityEngine'
http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=catalog.webcoursedetail&courseid=2567

2] Esri Educational Services Essential Skills Videos
3 videos on:
- Installing Esri CityEngine
- Exploring the User Interface and Navigation Controls
- Managing CityEngine Projects

http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=catalog.webCourseDetail&courseid=2794


3] Resource Center : Videos
http://video.arcgis.com/series/62/cityengine/date/desc

Recommended are all videos which were recorded on version 2012.1, as indicated in each description. [ Some of the videos are older, though we decided to keep them on the web. ]
These give a good overview over how the CityEngine works in it???s basics and what the common workflows are.

I recommend to go through all of them and try to follow the concepts, even though the user interface may have changed slightly between the versions.

Find the current list of Tutorial videos and 2012 Features here:
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/64843-CityEngine-Collection-RESOURCES-FAQ-HELP


4] Quick Start Guide
Go to Help > Help Contents > Quick Start Guide


5] Manual
There???s a detailed manual inside the CityEngine. Go to Help > Help Contents


6] Example Cities
Have a look at the downloadable Example Cities. Download them via Help > Download Tutorials and Examples
Or via the Resource Center:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/communities/city-engine/01w90000000r000000.htm#s=0&n=30&d=1&md=cte-ce...


7] Written Tutorials
The written Tutorials (PDFs) are located within the downloadable tutorial project's 'scenes' folder.

8] CityEngine Workflows
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/communities/city-engine/01w90000000r000000.htm#s=0&n=30&d=1&md=cte-ce...


9] Dedicated Forums
http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/45-Solutions

These 5 dedicated forums already have a great traction and are a valuable resource for basic and advanced questions. I???m here a lot and answer most questions personally.


10] Matt's Youtube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNS4TLgToEDQiH9pi06ofOA

[AndresHernandez]

that such friends, I am proving the CityEngine to see if it is feasible to buy it, because we are already buying Artificial 3D Analyst to develop 3D Cadastre of my country and work with sketchup, however we are interested in the CityEngine analisar porder, I'm with the trial version and one example shows how to export through ArcToolbox tools called CityEngine_Prep, ArcMap project to CityEngine, where I find him to be tested. help thanks.
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[MatthiasBuehler1]

that such friends, I am proving the CityEngine to see if it is feasible to buy it, because we are already buying Artificial 3D Analyst to develop 3D Cadastre of my country and work with sketchup, however we are interested in the CityEngine analisar porder, I'm with the trial version and one example shows how to export through ArcToolbox tools called CityEngine_Prep, ArcMap project to CityEngine, where I find him to be tested. help thanks.
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Hi !

Thanks for your interest in CityEngine.

Befor going too deep into details, I'd like you to check all tutorial videos you can find here :
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/64843-CityEngine-Collection-RESOURCES-FAQ-HELP


Once you go for the workflow tutorials ( part 1 to 6 ), which you have mentioned, download ALL parts. In one of the parts, you find all the data. I believe it was part 3 ( I'm never sure ), where the data is.

Ok ?

[boycepostma]

Hey All (probably mostly Matt?),

   Sorry to bother you again. It seems like I take one step forward and two steps back. I have all 6 of the 3dCity zipped files unzipped and in separate folders. As per the directions in #1, I tried opening 3D City - Data Preparation. I have been getting an "ArcGIS Desktop has encountered a serious application error and is unable to continue" error on load. I tried downloading the zip file multiple times and extracting it in a variety of folders. I could not find a version requirement in the tutorial materials, so maybe this is the problem? I am running ArcScene 10 SP4. I also tried opening 3DCity Maintenance in the 3rd tutorial and found that it would not open due to a version problem - ArcMap 10 SP4.

What do you guys think?

-AP-

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi Boyce.

10.0 is no more supported, 10.1 should work fine.

I hope you can somehow work around this ?

Matt

[boycepostma]

Thanks for the super fast response. I will be getting 10.1 this week, so no problem there. As always, Thanks!

-AP-

[boycepostma]

All right! I was able to get into the files with the update! Thanks again for sending me in the right direction on that. The problem now is that on the first 3 pages of the first tutorial, I am totally lost. Is there a video I am missing that actually shows the breakdown of what the PDF explains? It seems like there is a big jump from the 13 Tutorials describing CityEngine basics to these tutorials on workflow describing not so intuitive ArcCity procedures.

For example the 1st PDF says:

First we�??ll create random points within the building footprints and then create a TIN out of the lidar data. Next we add Z surface information to the randomized points and run a summary statistics to find the MAX_Z within each footprint and join the back to the original footprint feature class.

I don't know what much of this means. Is it saying that the Building Heights from Lidar Tool does all of these things? Or am I supposed to be doing these things? If so, how?

I am not looking for specific answers, because I will have issues like this with the whole tutorial, but more of a general answer on how I might go about learning how to understand these tutorials. My searches for more general GIS videos that might explain things like this have been not so fruitful.

I want to learn!!! But maybe I cannot get there with just the online tutorials.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-AP-

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi,


I assume you're not too familiar with ArcGIS, right ? ( Me neither .. 🙂 )

Tutorials 1 - 15 are quite basic. the workflow tutorials were also created by a person who has some in-depth knowledge in ArcGIS.

I'm not sure about this either since I'm not a GIS user and have only very limited knowledge about those workflows.

But I'm pretty confident that it's all about the 'GP tool Models' which are run to prepare the data ( that nodebased system which links GP tools ).

[boycepostma]

thanks matt! yeah, i have very limited experience with arcmaps (or any GIS software for that matter). i think i can find someone to shore up my gis knowledge, and hopefully these will start to make a little more sense.

thanks!

-AP-

[EberswaldeStadt]

Downloaded City Engine (Trial version) yesterday. Afterwards downloaded Tutorials via Menu 'Help' --> 'Download Tutorials and Examples'. But in downloaded stuff I couldn't find any description of what to do with the tutorial data. There was written in this forum

6] Written Tutorials
The written Tutorials (PDFs) are located within the downloadable tutorial project's 'scenes' folder.

There was no PDF exept for tutorial 14 in 'scenes'-subfolder.  So at the moment I have the tutorial data but no idea what to do with it. Is there anyone who can tell me, where I can get the PDF-files for the tutorials.

[AidaAfrooz]

Hello,

I'm working on tutorial 13 (Facade Wizard). But when i open a .jpg in the facade wizard window, I'm not able to see the image and work on the facade elements. Instead of an image I came across with a black image.

I've attached how it looks like. I tried it in different scenes with different .jpg or tiff but it's not working.

Thanks for any advice.