New Features Provide a Faster, More Intuitive Experience for Modeling Virtual 3D Urban Environments

Redlands, California— April 29, 2015—The release of  Esri CityEngine 2015 allows GIS professionals, architects, planners, and urban designers to create 3D city models faster and share them easily via ArcGIS Online. These new features open the use of 3D models for every day, real-world simulation, emergency response, urban planning, and entertainment scenarios.

"CityEngine 2015 is faster, sports higher-quality visuals, and introduces an innovative and unique 3D design experience. The latter is possible with Procedural Handles, a novel user interface for the intuitive editing of 3D models. We worked very hard on this and are excited to release it," said Pascal Mueller, director of the Esri R&D Center, Zurich AG.

Companies like Esri partner SmarterBetterCities use CityEngine to help clients view and investigate building development proposals in a true 3D environment.

"CityEngine provides decision makers with the opportunity to do more advanced planning than when they are using a typical CAD or spreadsheet system," said Antje Kunze, CEO, SmarterBetterCities. "We are now able to help our clients better visualize rules and regulations and perform analytics that no one has been able to address in the past."

Advancements from user requests—including a modern editor for managing layers, real-time shadows based on daytime and location, faster data export, and improved publishing workflows—have been implemented. More information can be found in the  release notes.

"With CityEngine 2015, we made a huge step forward in user experience and speed, resulting in less coding and more designing," said Dominik Tarolli, director of international business development for 3D geodesign at Esri.

CityEngine 2015 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. A free 30-day trial with full export capabilities can be downloaded at  esri.com/cityengine.

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