Welcome to the Esri CityEngine installation guide

Esri CityEngine is a 3D Edit and Visualization tool that can be extended to a professional modeling and design solution for efficient creation and design of 3D cities. Esri CityEngine delivers a full suite of industry-leading tools to aggregate geospatial data, lay out and edit street networks, generate and modify buildings, create 3D road profiles and distribute street furniture, control the shape of the skyline, and analyze urban planning projects.

The Esri CityEngine setup was created using Microsoft Windows Installer technology. This technology uses a package file (.msi) and a client-side installer service (msiexec.exe). Windows Installer is a service that runs on your operating system. This service enables the operating system to manage the installation and uses the information contained within the package file to install the software.

The msiexec.exe program is a component of Windows Installer. Msiexec.exe uses a dynamic link library, msi.dll, to read the package files (.msi), apply transformations (.mst), and incorporate command-line options.

Note:

Windows Installer 3.1 (minimum) is required for the Esri CityEngine setup. If you are installing by using setup.msi directly, you must have at least Windows Installer 3.1 on the target machine. It is recommended that you use setup.exe to install Esri CityEngine when possible.

Windows Installer technology

More information on Windows Installer can be found in the Windows Installer Software Development Kit (SDK) which can be found at the Microsoft website.

The setup.msi installer package can be used to deploy Esri CityEngine in Windows Installer-supported environments such as Active Directory and Microsoft System Management Server. See Installing Esri CityEngine silently for information on command-line options for installing Esri CityEngine. A deployment white paper is available on the Esri Support website.

Use the web-based help to get the most up-to-date information

Use the ArcGIS web-based help to get the most up-to-date help online. Esri frequently updates the web-based help with new topics and additions to existing topics. These changes come from your suggestions and feedback from Esri support. If you have an addition or correction you would like to request for the help, let us know by visiting the Esri Support website.

Questions, feedback, and information