News
ArcGIS CityEngine 2020.0: What’s new?
NOTE: This is an revised version of the blog post I made available at GeoPlanIT.
Aside from the new name (Esri has been swapped for ArcGIS) this is a new .0 release of CityEngine which means it should have some new features.
“Changed the full name of CityEngine from Esri CityEngine to ArcGIS CityEngine to better align with the ArcGIS product family.”
Esri’s CityEngine release notes for 2020.0
This seems like a bigger release befitting of a .0 release (the point .1s are for fixing things generally). Better ‘SketchUp-like’ editing tools which may be of use to some (I prefer SketchUp personally for that kind of thing), an improved interface for some tools (a new Tool Options window pane for one thing).
On the CGA front a headline of improved CSV support and arrays, which means you can use CSV (thing MS Excel tables planners) to control rule operations.
They are making a big thing of improved visual rendering in the viewport which now respects Physical Based Rendering (PBR). This is potentially good for those not wanting to use any other 3rd party product for visuals, although I’d use something else anyway.
Exporting to Mobile Scene Packages is now available to you, although personally I wish they’d do more with old CityEngine webscene viewer (3WS format) or replicate the swipe tool functionality somewhere.
They have also added support for another format Universal Scene Descriptor (USD) which is great for use in vfx pipelines/workflows…
New webstyles in Esri.lib and metadata for plants (SoilPH) which is nice but hopefully not a distraction.
I’ll be reviewing the other new features over the coming week, and will look at amending the CityEngine course to include the new release. In the meantime feel free to read the blog and release notes.
