Latest Contributions by MatthiasBuehler1

Hi ! Ok, cool. So go through the code and play around with it, together with curved Street Shapes. If you have more questions so far, let me know .. m. ... View more

Hi ! You can do the camera animation somehow similar, with the default navigation via the 'alt' key and the left, middle and right mouse button. That navigation is shown in my first tutorial video. Takes about 15 minutes to 'acclimate' to it, but once it's in, it's pretty handy. Though, the camera flights will not be as fluid as with a 3d mouse. [ Cheapest model of those 3d mice is about 99$ or so, which would do the job just fine. ] Also very important for the navigation is the 'f' key and the 'a' key to frame objects. Framing sets the camera's focal point around which the camera spins. The cars themselves cannot be animated in CE. So they can't drive around .. The cars are just created as a part of the Street Models. But showing some cars on the Models gives the impression of traffic. 🙂 Let me know if you have more questions .. ! ... View more

Hey ! My video .. that's me talking .. 😮 Well, that was all done in CE. I just moved the camera around and edited both streets and rule attributes. The video itself then was recoded by using a screen recording software. ( a good one is camtasia http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html ) I have a 3d mouse by http://www.3dconnexion.com/ .. This is why the camera floats quite fluidly. Do you need to make a presentation or similar ? Let me know .. BTW : Here's a new 1 hour CityEngine training video : http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=catalog.webcoursedetail&courseid=2567 ... View more

Hi ! It all just looks more complex than it actually is. Let's go through it step by step in the CGA code : 1] We want to create a Street model from Street shapes. So we use a CGA rule to split that shape and colorize it until it represents a street how you need it. 2] For now, we only work on Street Shapes, so we NIL Crossing and Sidewalk Shapes in the CGA code. This means no Model is generated. 3] We define a series of attributes we can use : - laneOffset : With the offset, we can shift the lanes sideways e.g. 2 left and 3 right can become 1 left and 4 right. - laneWidth : Width of a street lane in meters (3 meters.. code in meters !! ) - medianWidth : 0.1 meter - oneWay : @Range ("no", "left", "right") . the attr oneWay gets specified better with that 'annitation'. This makes that you have the 3 options as a dropdown in the Inspector for this attribute. - doMedian: true or false. This is a 'boolean' value which is either true or false. Depending on it's state, a median will be made or not. 4] functions : functions are there to calculate some values and return a value. e.g. f = 5 if f is called, the value of 5 is returned. In print ( f ), 5 will be printed. 5] - rint() means round integer. this rounds up or down to the next full integer number. 5.1 will be rounded to 5. - geometry.dv(0,unitSpace) is the width of a curved street, in meters. 6] attrs with the @Hidden annotations are not displayed in the Inspector. We use them hidden as 'generic attributes' to pass values down our rules, thus they are set at the very beginning, after Street --> 7] case : .. else : is the same as an 'if statement' in other programming languages. this tests if something is true or not. to TEST if something is true or not, the '==' (double equal sign) is used. E.g. 5 == 5 is 'true' in real world, so we try to create similar statements in CGA to split our geometries. 8] In the rule called 'DoStreet', we then distinguish the different cases and split the street geometries among the U and V dimension. Those are actually texture coordinates. This is a good trick, because Street Shapes already have proper UV coordinates. The V direction is along the WIDTH of the street. 9] So in general, with the functions, what we basically do is find out the proper number of possible lanes in each direction, with or without a median and then split the geometries accordingly. Let me know if this short input helps you a little further... I know it's complicated at the beginning. But once you know what's happening, the magic becomes easy ! 🙂 m. ... View more

Hi Nicole .. What do you mean by 'animating' exactly ? What's been going on for a few days ? An export ? Please let me know .. Matt ... View more

Hi ! the workflow packages are now numbered accordingly. click on each link and you'll find parts 1-6. m. ... View more

Hi ! Yep, the 2000 meters is the issue. You can also fix this in Sketchup. Read some more here on WebGL scenes : http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/77209-CE-WebGL-limits .citygml is not supported. The overall size limit is as mentioned in other threads here mostly limited by the download speed by the user who views the file online. you don't want to download a 200 MB scene .. WebGL scenes should be COMPACT size-wise. Otherwise, there's no limitations. m. ... View more

Hi ! Shapes can be aligned to Terrains and Terrains back to Shapes. Models are ONLY generated with CGA, BASED ON the Shape. So there's no way to align the Terrain to a Model or the other way round in CE. The best you can get is a proper alignment between Terrain and Shape. On the CGA side though, of course you have multiple ways to generate Models which accentuate the fact that the shapes is actually not flat, but sloped. E.g. by creating a flat base first on which you build a flat building or to extrude directly and use all vertical facades with a sloped 'cut' at the bottom. Hope this helps .. m. ... View more

Hi ! 1] Yes, you can host your files also on your own server. 2] There's no API available yet of the WebGL viewer, but you can e.g. edit a few colors and exchange the images used to personalize your viewer. Though there's no tech-support for this. Some other threads are about this topic on the forums. read on here : http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/205-CityEngine-Import-Export e.g. the stricky threads. Lemme know if there's more questions ! Matt ... View more

so your goal is to get the stuff in stereo 3d ? ( left + right eye ) I have never played with that. CE just gives you a plain 1-camera perspective viewport. I'd have to ask a developer whether he knows more about this. Let me know if this is the specific thing you're interested in. I have only a limited knowledge in the actual techniques HOW the stuff is displayed. Lemme know. m. ... View more

Hi ! obj itself does not have a file size limit since it's an ascii format ( pure text ). means also that you may face some issues in performance compared to a binary format such as fbx. but I like obj a lot and use it extensively. mtl supports mostly : - texture - alpha - specularity I'd not really use it for other things. Not perfectly sure if even bump maps and normal maps and such are supported. would have to check in the obj specification. WebGL : WebGL scenes are can handle large amounts of geometries, but rather for offline use. Rule of thumb : don't go over 30 MB (!!!) .3ws zipped file, since it takes a lot of time to download for other people. let me know if you have more questions ! Matt ... View more

hi ! great to hear it works now ! m. ... View more

hi ! what assets are you using ? how many polygons ? make sure when you model / preprocess them that they're centered at the cartesian origin ( the asset's own vertex coords ). let me know .. maybe add a few screenshots so I can see what the issues are. matt ... View more

Hi ! I've contacted Esri and somebody in their ranks will come and help you out ! Cheers ! Matt ... View more