Latest Contributions by CherylLau

Sorry, the intersection shapes cannot be aligned to follow a specific gradient.  Street shapes are dynamically generated from the underlying graph network based on parameters.  Let's say we have a street that goes uphill, and we want the intersection shape to also go uphill.  When editing the streets, there are handles (parameters) to change the angle of the street in 2 (uphill/downhill, left/right) out of 3 possible directions.  Since the third direction (tilted streets) cannot be adjusted for the street that intersects the first street, it's hard to make the intersection shape follow the uphill slope of the first street.  I'm guessing this is probably why the intersection shape itself is always flat.  Also, streets seem to mostly be flat and not tilted to the left or right, so not having this third direction of movement is probably ok. However, if you do not need the street shapes to be dynamically generated based on the graph, then you can convert the graph to static shapes and align the static shapes to your terrain, and you get intersection shapes that are sloped according to the terrain.  Since these are now static shapes, they are not generated from the graph.  This means that if you change the graph, the static shapes will not change.  If you do not need to change the street shapes anymore by changing the graph network, then you can use this option.  Select your street network -> Graph -> Align Graph to Terrain.  This gives you dynamic shapes with flat intersection shapes.  Then, create static shapes and align them to the terrain.  Graph -> Convert to Static Shapes -> Align Shapes to Terrain icon.  However, the streets will be bumpy and tilted because they will follow the terrain bumps, which may not necessarily be what you want.  I imagine it would look better if streets are not tilted to the left or right.  Nevertheless, here is the result of the above steps. Another option would be to write cga rules and apply them to the street shapes.  In the cga rules, you can create intersections that slant in the desired direction. ... View more

Did you search for a place and drag a rectangle around the area you want to download?  The OK button is grayed out until an area is selected. ... View more

Since 2012 there certainly have been some breaking changes, so it is not surprising if the code has errors.  However, typically, it should be fixable.  If you open the code in the rule editor, you can see the errors and try to update the code and make it acceptable for 2016.1.  The CGA reference manual will probably be helpful for this task.  CGA Reference Index  In regards to the error, I'm not sure what is causing it.  If the error is not coming from the code, you can try to delete the .cgb files in the bin folder and see if that helps. ... View more

Yes, Ben is correct.  The shape you get depends on the angle between the two edges.  I have a feeling that it happens when the angle between the two edges is > 135 deg.  Maybe this is a bug.  Thanks for posting. If you want the behavior on the left, you might be able to achieve that with a split, but that depends on what kind of lot shapes you want this to work on. ... View more

You can write a CGA rule and use the occlusion testing operations inside(), overlaps(), and touches() to see if any shape intersects any other shape using the "inter" option.  Occlusion Query Functions   However, this will also detect intersections that may exist between shapes coming from the same shapefile. In the rule, you can create an attribute that is by default set the empty string.  The purpose of this attribute is to tell you if the shape intersects another or not.  For shapes that intersect (as determined by the occlusion tests), set this attribute to something like "intersectsWithOtherShapes".  Then, in the scene editor you can try to search for "intersectsWithOtherShapes", and the intersecting shapes will be selected.  Alternatively, you could also make a boolean attribute and then use a python script to select the objects that have this attribute set to true. I know this may not be the ideal workflow, but I think it should work. ... View more

There are CityEngine tutorials online: Introduction to the CityEngine tutorials—CityEngine Tutorials | ArcGIS Desktop  Tutorials 6, 7, 8, and 9 deal with CGA. ... View more

With regards to linking layer attributes, you should be able to link to layer attributes without having to import an image.  There is a bug here which disables this ability, but if you create an attribute with the same name, then layer linking should be enabled again.  You don't have to use the attribute with the same name, and you can even delete it once the layer linking is enabled.  https://community.esri.com/message/660438-re-connecting-attributes?commentID=660438&et=notification.mention#comment-660823  ... View more

It seems like this is a bug.  Thanks for posting and helping us find this one.  Yes, you should be able to link to the layer attributes with different names than your rule attribute names. I also found another workaround.  You don't have to import any image data.  In fact, if you just create an object or layer attribute with the name height (to match the rule attribute name), then this seems to open up access to the layer attribute linking in the connection editor (as you found out).  Then, you can link the rule attribute to any attribute even if it doesn't have the same name (as you also wrote).  But, you can also go and delete the original height attribute, and the attribute will continue to be linked to the layer attribute with the different name.  I'm not sure if this helps your workflow or not though. ... View more

If you have the scene in CityEngine, to export to obj or fbx, select your models -> File -> Export Models. ... View more

c. Add text (pointers or otherwise) in CityEngine You can add text using rules.  There's a rule that puts text on a shape in ESRI.lib, which comes with CityEngine.  The rule can be found here:  ESRI.lib/rules/General/Text.cga. Chris wrote a rule to create 3D text in scenes, and you can download the code from this post here: https://community.esri.com/thread/71674#comment-459502  a. Add dimensions to 3D massing models that you create in   b. Add horizontal dimensions to roads & sidewalks  I'm not sure what you mean by dimensions.  You can create rules that can be applied to shapes.  The shapes can be, for example, 3D massing models, streets, or sidewalks.  With rules you can add geometry or colors or materials.  So, you can extrude street shapes to make them have a third dimension.  Or, you can change the material properties of shape (which could be seen as adding a fourth dimension) such as color, opacity, texture, and other properties. ... View more

Sorry, I don't see anything wrong in the screenshot.  But, there are different options that you can choose when inserting objects, and maybe one of these would help.  With the default insert mode alignSizeAndPosition, the object is scaled to the scope.  Then, you can make a scope with the size you want.  If you want to keep the original asset size, you can use keepSizeAndPosition or keepSizeAlignPosition. i Operation  ... View more

No, it is not possible to use the values generated by reports when setting attribute values or anywhere else in the cga code.  Reported values can only be seen in the Inspector or used in the Dashboard. ... View more

You can publish your web scene by putting the spk in your AGOL account (and then sharing it/setting permissions).  Here's how to sign in (File -> Sign In): Sign in to Online / Portal  Here's where to create a free public account: https://www.arcgis.com/home/signin.html  ... View more

Are the random seeds different for your shapes?  (Inspector -> Information) ... View more

There are some cases where conforming the normals will not work as desired.  In this particular case, the black face is a duplicate face.  There are two faces in the same position.  If you run cleanupGeometry(faces, 0.1) first, this will remove the duplicate faces.  This works on this model, but the help page describes other cases where some preprocessing actions could help setNormals(conform) to work as desired.  setNormals Operation  ... View more