Accessing GIS attribute values in CityEngine

[Anonymous User]

CityEngine, through the use of CGA rules, allows for mass modeling of cities. In the current software, GIS support is available in the advanced version of CityEngine. You can access values such as land use, building heights, roof type, tree heights, etc. from a GIS feature's attribute table and then use that value to drive mass modeling rules. Below is a screen shot from the CityEngine Inspector window that shows GIS attributes for a shape that has been initialized for use through a rule file.

To access the GIS attribute table of a shape in your CityEngine scene, you will first need to “activate” the attribute in your rule file. This can be done by setting an initial value for that attribute at the beginning of your rule file. You can do this by initially setting all the values to zero for numeric values or to “” if it is a string field. For example, the CGA rule below will extrude shapes based on their value within the HEIGHT attribute.

For further information and great examples of using GIS data to drive your model in CityEngine, check out the resources below.

Video: Generate 3D urban content based on standard GIS data

Forum post thread: GIS Data Mini Tutorial: Building Height and Floor SplitsCarrie D. – Raster Support Analyst

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