Functionality
With CityEngine Web Viewer, you can interact with 3D city scenes and other 3D scenes in a browser to:
- Navigate the scene by panning and zooming and changing perspective.
- Choose specific layers to view.
- Swipe the scene to reveal different proposals and scenarios.
- Search scene content for features, attributes, and metadata.
For more details on how you can interact with 3D scenes, see Use CityEngine Web Viewer.
Browser requirements
The CityEngine Web Viewer requires a desktop web browser that supports WebGL, a web technology standard for rendering 3D graphics. The latest versions of the most common desktop browsers have WebGL built in. The CityEngine Web Viewer is not supported on mobile devices at this time. To test if your browser has WebGL enabled, open get.webgl.org. To troubleshoot WebGL-related issues, visit WebGL Troubleshooting.
Note:
For the best viewing experience, use the latest versions of Chrome or Firefox.
Firefox
Some older versions of Firefox do not have WebGL enabled by default. To enable WebGL, do the following:
- In the address bar, type about:config.
- Search for WebGL.
- Ensure webgl.disabled is set to false.
- Set webgl.force-enabled to true.
Internet Explorer 11
Internet Explorer (IE) versions 10 and earlier do not have WebGL support and do not work with the CityEngine Web Viewer. IE 11 has an experimental WebGL implementation that currently does not support all of the CityEngine Web Viewer functionality. Depending on the update version of IE 11, the following functionality is either not working correctly or is missing entirely:
- IE 11 with WebGL 0.91—Not supported.
- IE 11 with WebGL 0.92—No shadows, no antialiasing, and some flickering due to z-buffer precision issues.
- IE 11 with WebGL 0.93—No diffuse shadows and some flickering due to z-buffer precision issues.
- IE 11 with WebGL 0.94—No diffuse shadows and some flickering due to z-buffer precision issues.
Safari on Mac OS
Some older versions of Safari do not have WebGL enabled by default. To enable WebGL, do the following:
- Click the wheel icon, click Preferences, and click Advanced.
- Check the box next to Show Develop menu in menu bar.
- In the newly enabled Develop menu, click Enable WebGL.
Hardware requirements
Your computer hardware needs to have a minimum of 2 GB system memory and a video graphics card that supports WebGL. It is recommended that you have at least 4 GB of system memory.
Your hardware should have a nonmobile graphics card with at least 512 MB of video memory. For the best performance, it is recommended that you have a graphics card with at least 1 GB of video memory, especially for working with larger or more memory-intensive scenes. Nonmobile versions of graphics cards typically have better performance than mobile graphics cards (denoted with m or mobile). To get more detailed information about WebGL requirements, visit WebGL Troubleshooting.
Graphics cards
- Graphics card needs to have support for OpenGL 3.0 (Shader Model 4.0).
- AMD/ATI: Radeon 3xxx or higher.
- NVIDIA: GeForce 8xxx or higher or GeForce 2xx or higher.
- NVIDIA: Quadro with support for OpenGL 3.0 or higher.
- Intel: HD 3000 or higher.
Note:
Some systems can automatically switch between integrated graphics and dedicated graphics cards to render 3D graphics. The CityEngine Web Viewer works best with a dedicated graphics card; therefore, in your graphics card driver settings, make sure the per-application settings for your web browser are set to the dedicated graphics card. If this is not set, some point symbols and labels may not display correctly.
Create Web Scenes for CityEngine Web Viewer
Web Scenes can be created with Esri CityEngine or with Export To 3D Web Scene geoprocessing tool.
- Esri CityEngine is a software package that allows you to efficiently create 3D urban landscapes using your existing GIS data, as well as do conceptual geodesign in 3D. Once the landscape has been authored, the 3D scene can be uploaded directly to Portal for ArcGIS. Users can then use the ArcGIS system to share those visualizations to others through a web browser using CityEngine Web Viewer without installing any software.
- Export To 3D Web Scene exports ArcScene documents to CityEngine Web Scene format (available since ArcGIS 10.2).
Learn more about Esri CityEngine
The Esri CityEngine website is your main resource for finding out more about Esri CityEngine and its features. You can also visit the CityEngine community to find additional information about CityEngine. The community has samples, blog posts, forum threads, videos, and documentation related to CityEngine and CityEngine Web Viewer.