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Convert and Host Your Models as glTF on Cesium ion

Starting today, you can upload OBJ, COLLADA, glTF, or FBX models to Cesium ion for conversion and hosting as glTF. This gives you the ability to manage models side-by-side with your 3D Tiles, imagery, and terrain for use in CesiumJS and other clients. glTF is widely supported and is an efficient format for real-time rendering, which is why 3D Tiles uses it internally for streaming massive datasets.

glTF Ecosystem

A Khronos standard co-created by the Cesium team, glTF has become the “JPEG of 3D,” a ubiquitous, efficient model specification supported by almost everyone. Courtesy Khronos.

Models loaded in CesiumJS can make use of all glTF features, such as animations. What’s more, they can also be geographically located and fused with 3D Tiles and terrain. For time-dynamic data, models can be attached to a CesiumJS entity to provide position and orientation tracking, such as receiving real-time drone telemetry, vehicle fleet tracking, or satellite station keeping.

Cairo Drone

A glTF drone model flying over the Great Pyramid of Giza in CesiumJS with Vricon’s 3D Surface Model tiled as 3D Tiles.

ion’s glTF pipeline not only converts your model but also supports Draco compression of meshes and draw call optimization. This reduces file size and load time and also improves rendering performance.

You can start uploading your own models today by signing up for a free ion community account.