Skip to main content

STK Generates CZML to Share Data in CesiumJS

Developed by Analytical Graphics, Inc., (AGI), Systems Tool Kit (STK) is a modeling environment used by thousands of engineers, mission analysts, and software developers to model complex systems. These systems include aircraft, missiles, satellites, and their sensors. In addition to the complex analytical models representing these systems, STK provides an accurate, immersive interactive 3D visualization.

STK offers several options for sharing a simulation scenario, one of which is the ability to export data to a CZML file for visualization in Cesium. The team at AGI designed CZML from the ground up because they couldn’t find a pre-existing format that met STK’s need to communicate time-dynamic data to a visualization system. CZML was built specifically to represent analytical data over time. CZML has the fundamental building blocks to display STK’s complex scenarios, including polylines, billboards, textual labels, and even 3D models. The ability to save to a CZML file allows the information to reach a much larger audience by exporting time-dynamic visualizations to a web browser while still supporting interactivity.

Developers working with the STK Components development kit to build custom applications can likewise produce CZML for visualization in Cesium by writing .net or Java code. However users work with STK, its aerospace and defense-related analysis can be easily visualized in Cesium with CZML.