We are working on a project where we have created a local scene of the Jezero Crater on Mars using ArcGIS Pro. Our goal is to transfer this scene into NVidia Omniverse to apply physics simulations. The scene consists solely of elevation data and surface imagery raster datasets.
We have access to the following software:
ArcGIS Pro
CityEngine (free trial)
NVidia Omniverse
We have placed the scene into a geodatabase and attempted to import it into CityEngine for export to a 3D format like .usd, .obj, or .stl, since CityEngine supports these formats but ArcGIS Pro does not. Unfortunately, CityEngine cannot import rasters.
What is the best method to convert raster data from ArcGIS Pro into a 3D format that can be imported into NVidia Omniverse?
Any guidance or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Nvidia Omniverse supports a huge range of 3D cad data from all sources. You will have to convert your data in a 3D format of your choice. I cannot really advise you on specifics.
Why do you need to go from ArcGIS to City Engine to Ov ? Can you just go straight to OV from ArcGIS ?
The reason we are trying to go from ArcGIS Pro to CityEngine before importing into Omniverse is because ArcGIS Pro does not natively support exporting to 3D formats like .usd, .obj, or .stl, which are compatible with NVidia Omniverse. CityEngine, however, does support these export formats, which is why we considered using it as an intermediary step.
We solved the conversion issue by importing the original files directly into Blender using the USD+ Blender in the Omniverse Launcher with a few GIS import add-ons. From there, we exported the scene to USD. However, after adding shading and materials in Blender and baking it, the scene does not render with a texture in any of the RTX renderers. The scene only renders “correctly” in the Pixar Storm Renderer, and we need to set a distant light with an intensity of 1,000,000,000 for proper rendering.
Additionally, Pixar Storm does not run PhysX well when the piece of Mars is loaded, operating at around 10 FPS, whereas RTX Realtime operates at approximately 70 FPS under the same conditions. When running Pixar Storm with PhysX, it only uses 20% of memory, with CPU and GPU utilization being lower.
Any advice on how to resolve these rendering issues or optimize our workflow would be helpful. Thank you!
Well then, you are best to JUST convert the geometry in City Engine, and do all the texturing in USD Composer. We do it all but geometry. It will be way easier. We have very very simple material workflows and amazing photo real materials. All you would have to do is make a new OmniPBR material and add the ground texture and it will work straight away. Do the work where you want to end up and it will always be easier.