Updated 15th October 2024

What is CEPT?

CityEngine Pro Tools or ‘CEPT’ is designed as an expandable paid for helper application for the community of ArcGIS CityEngine users.

At its core is the CEPT GUI app, a simple always on top interface for accessing custom scripts and tool shortcuts that can help make your CityEngine projects work a little smoother.

The app is designed so that adding your own buttons and menus is easy, update two text files and your scripts are added.

PLEASE NOTE: You will need to be confident editing text files and code as well as image creation (for toolbar buttons) to get the most out of this tool.  Plugins will be available for download and/or purchase which will individually have installation instructions.

Who is CEPT for?

• Professional users of CityEngine but not necessarily experts in CityEngine or coding.
• Plugins allow experts to create scripts to help and improve users with tasks in CityEngine
• Experts can expand and extend the CEPT GUI and create plugins specific to them.

CEPT Plugins

• We additionally can provide a range of ‘plugin’ scripts which can easily be added to CEPT.
• Plugin prices will range from free (simple stuff) to prices between £10 and £100 depending on complexity.
• Licencing may range from perpetuity to yearly. Although this can only work on trust.
• Think of how SketchUP works with Ruby scripts and plugins (an inspiration for this was the Smustard site for SketchUP helper scripts).
• Initially just a list of scripts that will be available, we will add more information about each near release time.

Can anyone create their own plugins?

Yes – users do need to share their own scripts, but user can sell or distribute their own scripts which can be integrated into CEPT core.

Code is available so users can improve on it. The nature of python coding in CityEngine means code can be modified by users but users will be required to check terms/licence before redistribution.

Can users modify the core CEPT code and then resell?

• No this would be against the terms of use.
• Each plugin has its own licence terms which need to be checked before doing.

Will there be technical support?

We will provide limited support for CEPT once released, we’re hoping the included manual and quick help guides will be enough. We may run a few workshops to help people get up and running. It will be difficult for us to provide detailed technical support for every scenario but we will do our best!

Work the way you want to!

Designed to be added to, you can add your custom tools to the interface. Work the way you want to. You will need to know a bit of jython/python/java to fully take advantage of this useful tool.

Release Date

To be decided. We anticipate now a late winter 2024 release date, technical support and publicity materials are currently being written.