ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine - How to import location and modify them

[FilipSedlacek]

Hello everyone,

I´m struggling with ArcGIS SDK for Unreal Engine (version 5.4.2). I work on my diploma thesea so I need every single good idea how to achieve this:

1) I need specific locations from Japan, with terrain, roads and buildings in UE 5.4.2

2) I need to cut of the locations and modify then via Game Design Document.

3) I need to get proper workflow how to do those things.

4) Unfortunatelly I need it asap. 😞

If could be here anyone who could solve this topic I´ll be grateful. For more instrutructions and guidence I can use Discord for communication.

[AShahbaz]

Hello,

You can use the default terrain and basemaps that come with the plugin anywhere in the world. For buildings, you can use the OSM building layer. I am not aware of any service that contains worldwide roads as 3D data. So you probably need to generate your own data. I can think of 2 ways for doing that:

(1) You could generate a 3D object scene layer from existing road data. If you have access to CityEngine, that can be done there relatively easily. You can then host the layer or generate an slpk file that you can stream using our plugin.

(2) You could also generate the road geometry dynamically in Unreal, which can be a bit more involved. You could for example query a service that has road information as feature data. Using that information you generate the road geometry using Unreal tools (e.g., Splines or Procedural Mesh/Custom Mesh)

You can use similar workflow for generating buildings, if you need higher-fidelity building models and textures. 

I am not quite sure what you mean by cutting locations and modifying via Game Design Document. But you can use the Mesh Modification and Spatial Filter tools from our plugin to mask or filter parts of the data and add you own data in there. 

[piercze]

Hi AShahbaz, I'm interested in the Mesh Modification and Spatial Filter tools. 

Would these allow a designer to create architectural cutaways (section cuts) of a 3D Building layer for example? Would these enable someone working with subsurface geometry (beneath the basemap) to visually expose something like an aquifer, geology, or subterranean infrastructure? 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Best of luck Filip. 

[AShahbaz]

First, I am assuming that by designer you mean a game designer that works on the Unreal project (as opposed to an end user of the application without access to the unreal project).

The spatial filter is likely not suitable for section cuts / slicing of individual buildings. Generally, entire objects (in this case individual buildings) are filtered and not individual polygons. You may be able to refine your source data to split the buildings into separate sections, but I am not sure if the spatial filter would give you the desired effect with a good precision.

If you have the data for certain buildings as Building Scene Layer (BIM data), you may be able to use building filters for this purpose. But again, you may need to modify your source data to create finer categories (e.g., you may need to split the category Walls into several subcategories such as south, north, west, east, and internal walls)

As for subsurface geometries, you should be able to expose them using the mesh modification filter, which cuts through the elevation (and the basemap). 

You can find more information about mesh modification, spatial, and building filters here.

[piercze]

Thank you, Mesh Modification is handy.