Procedural Ships CityEngine for Urban Modeling
Suggested retail price $6,950
 ZURICH,
Switzerland, July 23, 2008 -
At this year’s SIGGRAPH, a
spectacular 3D recreation of ancient Rome (A.D. 320) will be revealed where
revolutionary graphics technology has been applied to reconstruct the
extremely detailed virtual urban environment. It wasn’t until now that
professional users could actually buy the software that made it possible,
Procedural Inc.’s CityEngine.
Procedural Inc., an innovative software company located in Zurich,
Switzerland, is home to the world’s foremost procedural modeling technology.
With the CityEngine, Procedural Inc.’s graphics experts have created a
radically different 3D application that allows the modeling of cities up to
10 times faster than previous solutions, making automatic digital city
creation possible for professional users. This makes it a compelling tool
for the production of video games, feature films and television series,
architectural visualizations and applications for the emerging 3D internet,
where consumers expect richer, higher quality digital content for their
dollar.
“Cities are huge, richly detailed artifacts that are often required in
digital productions, and modeling them with existing tools can take several
man years,” says Pascal Müller, CEO of Procedural Inc. “The CityEngine
addresses these previously unsolved modeling problems by offering several
procedural modeling tools for generating large-scale urban layouts, as well
as a unique shape grammar for the efficient creation of detailed building
models. With these tools, users not only experience a faster modeling
experience, but one which allows them to create cityscapes that have never
been seen before.”
As the core of the CityEngine, the shape grammar has been designed
specifically for rule-based production of architectural content at arbitrary
levels of detail. The procedurally generated 3D buildings can be exported in
various file formats, allowing for a flexible and simple integration into
existing production pipelines. In addition, the underlying procedural
approach ensures the reusability of designs and is well suited for
collaborative work environments.
“The CityEngine is a perfect match for the Rome Reborn project,” says
Bernard Frischer, director of Rome Reborn. “Our project involves the
complete virtual reconstruction of the city at its zenith under Emperor
Constantine, when it had about one million residents. To build by hand the
corresponding 7,000 apartment buildings, family houses, public buildings and
temples would have taken us forever; but CityEngine's power and flexibility
made the process amazingly quick without sacrificing detail or quality. This
allowed us to concentrate on modeling the unique monuments. The CityEngine
also helps to quickly change the model as new scholarship or discoveries
warrant.”
“After the Rome building designs had been specified in the CityEngine,
generating and exporting the entire city model took exactly 1 hour and 55
minutes,” continues Müller. “Thus, Rome actually WAS built in one day… or,
at least its digital counterpart was.”
The release of CityEngine also marks the official debut of Procedural
Inc. Founder and CEO Pascal Müller was formerly a researcher at ETH Zurich,
where he pioneered the field of procedural urban modeling (with his series
of SIGGRAPH publications about procedural urban modeling), which led to the
creation of CityEngine. In just six months, the Procedural engineering team
under CTO Simon Schubiger transformed the research into a powerful industry
application.
Pricing and Availability
Priced at $6,950 per license, the CityEngine is now available for
purchase via Procedural’s website or by telephone order at +41 76 720 3303.
A free 30-day trial version, including example scenes, is also available for
download at www.procedural.com.
About Procedural Inc.
Based in Zurich, Switzerland, Procedural Inc. is a developer of
professional software for the efficient creation of 3D buildings and cities.
Its flagship product, CityEngine offers the fastest solution for creating
high-quality architectural elements, allowing urban environments to be
created 10 times faster than any other solution. Founded in 2007, the
company is a spin-off of ETH Zurich, Switzerland's most renowned university,
ranking among the Top-10 technical universities worldwide.
For further information, or to join the active Procedural community,
please visit Procedural’s web site at
www.procedural.com.
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