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Ersi CityEngine Goes Hollywood

Esri to demonstrate the powerful capabilities of CityEngine and other GIS solutions for digital artists in film, television, and game design at SIGGRAPH 2013.

Redlands, CA -- When Esri merged geospatial technology with digital urban design in CityEngine in 2011, it created a revolutionary new methodology for 3D cityscape creation.  At SIGGRAPH 2013, taking place in Anaheim, California, July 23-25, Esri will demonstrate the powerful capabilities of CityEngine and other GIS solutions for digital artists in film, television, and game design. 

Creating realistic 3D city designs is a notoriously expensive process, typically involving teams of designers and multiple specialized software programs. At SIGGRAPH, Esri will show how CityEngine helps simplify and improve the quality of urban designs by connecting spatial datasets with building design rules, resulting in more impressive and accurate 3D models.  

“Designing realistic cities is one of the more challenging and expensive tasks in the entertainment industry,” says Dominik Tarolli, Esri’s business development director for 3D markets. “Using CityEngine to build 3D metropolis models gives designers an edge by integrating geography into the artistic process.” 

CityEngine’s highly automated drag-and-drop process for creating cities has been used in movies such as Cars 2, Total Recall, and Man of Steel, as well as in TV commercials and video games. 

Highlights of Esri’s exhibit at SIGGRAPH 2013 include 

  • CityEngine 2013demonstration 
  • Preview of SDK plug-in thatenables the 3D-building generator capabilities inside Maya 
  • OculusRift 3D city demo 

Source: Esri

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.