The wind turbine rule allows you to create (surprise again) wind turbines.
Rule of the Week 7: Wind Turbine Download | YouTube videoĪlternative energy sources are a hot topic in the world, and visualizing these in 3D provides a strong foundation for discussing the feasibility of implementation. It’s also useful for comparing proposed scenarios – giving you real-time context in a fast and efficient way.
This simple rule is great for increasing the context of any scene, giving you full control over the landscaping of an area. They were used to build the context around the week 5 example scene, HITOS, which used the Apply Color rule. Week 6 featured two rules: one for creating improved parks with walking paths and hedges, and another for creating unimproved parks and open space. Rule(s) of the Week 6: Parks, Formal and Natural Download Formal Parks rule | Download Natural Parks rule | YouTube video Just like with the manhole rule, a final scene created with the rule was then exported from CityEngine as an ArcGIS 360 VR Experience, or 3VR. It’s useful for items that don’t have any textures. The Apply Color rule is very simple: it just applies a color to a shape or multipatch and turns it into a model. Rule of the Week 5: Apply Color Download | YouTube video If you have a Gear VR, sign up for the app, and give this Experience a try here. These are immersive 3D scenes that you can consume in a Samsung Gear VR using ArcGIS 360 VR from the Esri Labs. We then exported it directly from CityEngine as an ArcGIS 360 VR Experience, or 3VR. Such a cool rule needed some context, so we built a CityEngine Scene around it showing subsurface utilities in 3D. You can even cut away the side to see into the structure from the outside. The manhole is attached to its shaft, and you can control the width, depth, length of transition, offset, rung spacing, rung width, etc. It’s a great example of how you can push CGA to create very realistic procedurally generated objects for just about any environment. This rule creates -surprise- a procedural manhole. Rule of the Week 4: Manhole Download | YouTube video No additional assets are used with this rule – demonstrating the versatile capabilities of CGA. This means that it only uses cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, and quads to create the representation of the iconic structure. The Taj Mahal rule creates a model of the Taj Mahal, made entirely out of built-in CGA primitives. Rule of the Week 3: Taj Mahal Download | YouTube video This serves as a good reference point when editing a multipatch in ArcGIS Pro: showing how the multipatch will be textured by the built-in procedural symbology, with a rule package (RPK) that textures buildings, or by giving them facades (such as the Building Shell with Detail rule). The Color Mass by Orientation rule colors parts of a multipatch based on the orientation of the faces: vertical faces are colored beige, flat faces are colored grey, sloped faces are colored red. Rule of the Week 2: Color Mass By Orientation Download | YouTube video This rule is designed to make creating 3D buildings from simple masses quicker and easier. The volume itself will dictate the type of roof generated (sloped or flat) but you can change the roof textures or add a parapet to flat roofs.
You can also control the size of the balconies and the windows interactively. You can control the layout of the facade by dictating the length of panels the wall is split in to, along with what appears in those panels such as windows, balconies, and blank wall space.
It’s meant to be run on a closed volume: either a closed multipatch in ArcGIS Pro or volumetric shape in CityEngine.
The Building Shell with Detail rule adds facades with architectural detail to a simple building mass. Rule of the Week 1: Building Shell with Detail Download | YouTube video
If you’re just starting to work with CGA and want to learn more about how to use and author the rules themselves before diving into the rule of the week, we recommend visiting the CityEngine Help Manual here or checking out this video from the 2017 Esri Developer Summit. This blog lists each rule, a brief description of the rule, where to download the rule, and where to find each rule’s accompanying video. In the beginning of the year, the CityEngine team published a variety of CityEngine rules to demonstrate what can be done with Computer Generated Architecture (CGA).
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