CityEngine

Overall Opinion: Building design never happens in a vacuum. While an urban planner or an architect may have a grand vision for the design they're looking to create, the space available, relationship to other buildings, and building codes and laws can have a drastic effect on what they can accomplish. CityEngine takes a more holistic approach to 3D design than many of the more standard architectural modeling programs, letting you map out your prospective designs on a grand scale. This makes it a useful tool for individuals working in urban planning and civil engineering as well as architects working on larger scale buildings. The scale of its 3D visualization software has also made it a useful tool for game designers looking to model open worlds and academics looking to test theories regarding urban design. CityEngine operates best when not used in a vacuum. Since CityEngine's most unique features involve the interrelation of multiple types of buildings in a larger structure, compatibility with a wide range of AutoCad and 3D modeling suites comes standard. This includes ArcGIS, a powerful data visualization that allows you to map geographic areas according to a number of metrics. Both products are produced by Esri, and great pains were taken to implement the geodatabases of ArcGIS into CityEngine. With support for GPS and satellite imagery, this means the use of both pieces of software together is practically essential for people looking to make the most of CityEngine's features in a real world context. You can rather quickly put together a visualization of the city or town in question and access real world variables straight through CityEngine. Once you have your environment mocked up, the strengths of CityEngine really shine. It's designed to help you model the real world impact your designs will have. The editing tools are relatively simple to master, allowing you to quickly bring three dimensional context to your two dimensional design, and a number of different textures provide a high degree of realism to the simulations. Facade texturing can be done in one step, taking into consideration both real world photographs and dimensional complications to create a structure that doesn't require the painstaking use of painting or editing tools. But at its heart, CityEngine is about more than just visualizing your design. It's about analyzing the practical effects of the design in the real world. The option to create zoning restrictions comes standard with CityEngine, so you can quickly make sure that your design fits within all the regulated standards, and the ability to simulate real world effects like lighting mean you can see the aesthetic and practical impact the surrounding environment will have on your structures. You can even automatically generate reports that will help you understand the nitty gritty aspects of your structure like surface density and floor area. Once you've finished your project, it's easy to share the 3D results online, and the ability to create side by side prototypes make it easy to compare competing designs.

Pros: Allows the quick generation of real world and imagined urban environments Rules files gives you a lot of control over the parameters of your project

Cons: Deeper level features necessitate a moderate understanding of coding Limited integration with game design engines