Latest Contributions by AlanKlys

‎05-07-2019

Hi Cheryl, Thanks a lot for your reply, and the great suggestion. Very much appreciated. I'll definitely give that a go as I didn't realise one could add other valuable things to the label. It would be interesting to see if one can parse and further use some of the label functionality down the line? Yes you are correct that what I was suggesting was a distance that's locked to a certain direction. Essentially it's raycasting from a polygon/shape by specifying a vector. I use this quite a bit in packages such as Houdini, Lightwave etc (anyplace that has this type of access), as it's a handy technique for various things, not only sticking things on top of other things. So in this pseudo case you'd be effectively casting only upwards from the tower shape to determine the distance of the labeled podium shape above and place the resulting tower model on top. The neighboring building podium shape would never be included in the query (no matter how close in the y direction) as it's impossible for it to be "hit" by the directed cast. It's a very hacky way of "passing" information to other shapes. I'll post some graphics later to make that clearer.

‎02-21-2019

Hi CE folks, I think this question is / might be for the developers as I can't seem to make CE do what I need. I have two separate shape layers - one represents building podiums (green) the other building towers (pink). Each of these has a different rulefile applied. I'm using the minimum distance function to dynamically adjust the height (labeled tag on the roof of the podium) that the towers get placed upon as labels and distances to them seems to be the only way I can achieve this. The general idea being that we can bring in GIS podium layers with a "number of levels" field and then bring in a separate towels layer and dynamically generate towers that sit upon podiums. This all works well when the podiums are the same, or very similar size, with a reasonable separation distance. When they get closer together however, in a denser neighborhood with smaller podium separation, the whole thing falls apart. It's all to do with geometry and distances as per the last two frames of the GIF. I'm wondering if it's possible to request an additional query (or set of to make it more flexible) to the minimum distance function. So in this case I would only want to pull in the Y distance with my psudo code ... minimumDistance(inter,y,"PodiumRoof") Is that remotely possible as a request I wonder ? Other options would also be handy ... minimumDistance(inter,xz,"PodiumFloor") As in querying minimum distance on a plane. Hope all that makes sense. Cheers.

‎11-11-2018

Cheers Geoff, This will definitely come in very handy. I'll need to cook up come Down Under approved versions, but that shouldn't be too hard.

‎09-24-2018

Hi Benjamin, Thank you for your prompt reply, and apologies that I didn't locate this on GeoNet. I must admit I still struggle with it compared to the old forums and obviously my searching needs to improve That link looks just like what I need and the implemented HUD is a big bonus as I'm just starting out on the blueprint side so anything I can learn from and pick apart is greatly appreciated. Native implementation would be great so I look forward to that whenever the next version (2018.2 I assume) is available. Cheers Alan K.

‎09-23-2018

Hi CE/UE folks, After months of false starts I've finally been able to dive into the world of UE and the datasmith workflow. I'm trying to build a HUD with some basic reporting functionality and seemed to have wrongfully assumed that each asset's metadata might be natively populated with the reporting information from CE. Is that something that's actually available via the exporter? If not why not ? Or do I need to hook that up manually via an external CSV then filter/hook up-to each individual building ? Problem is that I have a precinct with 100+ building and this will get very tedious very quickly. Is that sort of reporting functionality something that's included in the existing CityEngine VR Experience? Cheers. Benjamin Neukom‌

‎07-12-2018

Thanks for the document Benjamin, and for the template Esri/CE folks, very much appreciated. I am about to deep dive into Unreal and CE to try this entire process so will undoubtedly have a few questions. PS: Nice to see you here Zorko!

‎04-11-2018

Oh , I get it now. I'm trying to imagine the different scenarios that we'd use and yah I believe it would be handy to have that from a bookmark perspective as well. I can see people requesting a panorama from a certain view / bookmark that's in the webGL viewer for example. You don't see the analysis layer in webGL I imagine ? Hope that makes sense.

‎04-11-2018

Heya David, I'm just testing both these scripts on view domes but not exactly sure what you mean ? As in the actual naming convention of View Dome VS the geo location ?

‎04-11-2018

Thank you Thomas, David, Luiz and Amna. I was just about to screen-grab all my viewsheds when I noticed this timely and awesome post. Much appreciated everyone. Alan K.

‎02-08-2018

Hi David, I think I'm setting some sort of record here for the longest time between comment / reply Not a record to be proud of but I'm back in the CE fold and need to attend to a few stray posts it seems. To answer your question yes I'm simply sampling the terrain below to colourise the shapes. That old scene keeps crashing the newest CE version so I'll see if I can make it work and post it here perhaps. It's a very simple setup than anyone can knock up in a few minutes.

‎08-17-2015

Not sure if this will help Ionut but I've done something along those lines by creating the shapes externally (as my buildings needed to be based on actual footprints) then breaking them up into simple chunks. That base gets brought into CE and extruded accordingly. You can even stack them to produce nice overhangs and such. So it's not all procedural as the shapes aren't derived from the lot / setbacks /slicing etc but good for some specific building massing.

‎08-13-2015

Thanks Micah. I did all the changes manually, not that good with python scripting yet, so a video via CityEngine would be a clunky way to go. It's not that well suited for this type of thing. I'm just starting to learn Houdini so might attempt to knock something up in that or some other 3D/animation package if/when I get a chance. I'll be sure to post it here so you can have a peek

‎08-12-2015

Thanks Chris Here's the next phase A crude test I know, but It's interesting that the skyline becomes recognizable even at fairly low subdivisions. I did a similar thing in 3D apps a long time ago but it was nowhere this flexible nor dynamic to mess around with. If you notice "green" buildings and other weird stuff it's not because Melbourne is progressive and has lots of vertical gardens (there are a few) but because the height data is eons old and doesn't match my hand stitched ortho. Theoretically this could be way more precise I guess.

‎08-11-2015

Hi CE folks, Just toying around with the idea of using CE and simple height data to quickly abstract away or refine swathes of city blocks etc. This came about as I have often been asked to abstract away certain parts of models for sensitivity / in development reasons as well as me wanting to do a bit of a stress test to see what's better in terms of web scenes, instances or real geometry. I'm yet to figure that one out but it's an interesting question. Don't ask me how I'd texture this

‎04-29-2015

Cheers a bunch Chris & Esri folks. It's all good now... just be ready for lots more questions

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Date Last Visited	‎08-11-2025 08:50 PM

My Ideas

Latest Contributions by AlanKlys

Re: Minimum distance based on axis / world orientation ?

Minimum distance based on axis / world orientation ?

Re: 3D Street Sign Library for ArcGIS Collector

Re: CE-datasmith-UE metadata availability ?

CE-datasmith-UE metadata availability ?

Re: CityEngine VR Experience for Unreal Engine

Re: How can i save the image that appear in the right of the screen

Re: How can i save the image that appear in the right of the screen

Re: How can i save the image that appear in the right of the screen

Re: Height data for abstraction or refinement

Re: Futuristic Building Creation

Re: Height data for abstraction or refinement

Re: Height data for abstraction or refinement

Height data for abstraction or refinement

Re: City Engine 2015 trial ?

Re: Complete Street Rule Discussion-Feedback?

Re: Complete Street Rule Discussion-Feedback?

Re: Some fun with CE ...

Re: Joined reporting for features from different l...

Re: I want to calculate how many buildings there a...