[HN Gopher] CityEngine: Build a Digital Twin of Your City
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CityEngine: Build a Digital Twin of Your City
Author : rntn
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-06-15 19:02 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gisgeography.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gisgeography.com)
| ajakate wrote:
| Has anyone here played the new Microsoft Flight Simulator Game
| they released in 2020? I was blown away by how accurate the
| environment and maps were (at least in Chicago and Bloomington,
| IL). By far the most realistic representation I've seen in a game
| before. Even outside of the iconic buildings of downtown, a lot
| of the smaller buildings in far out neighborhoods were more
| realistic than I was expecting.
|
| I know the game has gotten a lot of praise on the graphics. I
| guess they leaned heavily on bing maps to build out the game's
| environment. Would be crazy to see what could be created with
| something like google streetview data.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Shame there's no free trial. I guess I'll stick to Cities:
| Skylines for now.
| rubidium wrote:
| Here's they have an example from Portland, OR. Seems.... pretty
| basic I guess?
| https://www.arcgis.com/apps/CEWebViewer/viewer.html?3dWebSce...
|
| Not sure the pricing.
| Meph504 wrote:
| yeah I'm not getting the product other than it looks it ties
| into arc gis
|
| For a comparison, here is google earths version of Portland
| (this isn't and apples to apples comparison, but I still think
| valid)
|
| https://earth.google.com/web/search/port+land/@45.514524,-12...
| renewiltord wrote:
| I am constantly having my mind blown by Google Earth. How can
| this be free?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's not that the esri one is bad. It's that the GE one is
| _amazing_.
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| It's possible to download Google Earth's 3D model, at the
| resolution in your link, for any area where they show 3D
| buildings/landscape. It's not something they facilitate and
| definitely requires something of a hack, but it does work.
| Then you can get the model into Blender, SketchUp, etc. and
| start editing it to add or remove buildings and so on.
|
| Would be interested to know whether that's technically legal.
| I mean, they put it out there on their website, right?
| raylad wrote:
| Only very vaguely related pet peeve: the term "Digital Twin"
| implies that a simulation perfectly matches what is being
| simulated. This is really almost never the case.
|
| Let's just call them what they are: simulations.
| dharbin wrote:
| Wouldn't it be a more compelling product if you sold the model,
| not the model-making tool? If I was the city of Portland, I would
| rather just buy the pre-made Portland model than have an intern
| build it with CityEngine.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| CityEngine is a procedural generation tool, it isn't really
| meant to compete with real world data providers. For something
| like Google Earth but available as GIS data, you can use a
| provider like NearMap.
|
| CityEngine is better for planning out and comparing future
| scenarios, and other specific use cases. E.g.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sOY3LY688QI
|
| Disclosure: I work at Esri but not in a sales role. I am also a
| customer.
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| My SimCity nostalgia wishes someone would use this to make agent
| based models of real cities with every citizen mapped out.
|
| Anything like that ever been done?
| bragr wrote:
| Have you played Cities: Skylines? There are definitely
| limitations to its fidelity, but every person and car is
| something you can click on and see their home, job, route. This
| gives much more realistic traffic for one thing (though there
| are mods that do an even better job).
|
| Ultimately though, I doubt that high fidelity simulations are
| in the cards for consumer devices any time soon. Cities
| Skylines already bogs down on large cities.
| hutch120 wrote:
| Stay away from ESRI (ess-ray) - I should get that printed on a
| t-shirt.
|
| ESRI centralise power, lock you into their technology, and IMHO a
| digital twin should be doing the opposite. Don't believe the
| sales BS about ESRI having "free" software, read the fine print,
| ArcGIS AINT FREE.
|
| IMHO a Digital Twin should be something for the people, by the
| people! So please stop paying proprietary systems like ESRI and
| incentivising them to stifle innovation and increases barriers to
| entry.
|
| If you want to see local jobs, growth and innovation then invest
| in OpenSource software like OSM (Open Street Map) and QGIS and
| other Open GIS products.
| mceoin wrote:
| Your move, SF YIMBY.
| prophesi wrote:
| Does anyone know what the limitations are for the free trial? I'd
| love to try this with where I live and experiment with it in
| Unreal, and pay for a license if I do anything commercial with
| it.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Not sure about the trial.
|
| It's included with ArcGIS for personal use now, which is
| $99/year and includes the rest of the ArcGIS system (except
| enterprise server and the like). Obviously for personal use
| only.
|
| We also released our maps SDK for unity and unreal:
| https://developers.arcgis.com/unity/
|
| Disclosure: I work at Esri but not in a sales role. I am also a
| customer.
| mcluck wrote:
| It's a shame that it requires a business email just to try it
| out. My work doesn't have anything to do with city building but
| I'd love to use this to create a 3D model of my home town for my
| own fun.
| fartcannon wrote:
| There's a blender plugin that will let you import 3d map data
| including buildings and trees from google into blender and then
| do whatever you want with.
|
| https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS
| https://github.com/eliemichel/MapsModelsImporter
| mcluck wrote:
| Hey, hey, this looks great! Thanks!
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