Cesium for Omniverse v0.25.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.19.0

CesiumJS 1.135

Cesium for Unreal

To modernize defense planning and rehearsal, VRAI used Cesium for Unreal to build the Virtual All-Domain Environment (VADE), enabling users to deeply examine areas of interest before arriving. 

VADE uses Cesium to mirror operational reality. Courtesy VRAI. 

Virtual All-Domain Environment (VADE) uses Cesium to mirror operational reality. Courtesy VRAI.

This Is VADE

An immersive XR platform in the works since 2021, VADE began as a proof of concept between simulation data company VRAI and the Royal Air Force for comprehensive situational awareness and could scale across Defence. VRAI announced VADE’s full release at DSEI in fall 2025. 

Real-world 3D data and live collaboration in VADE enable a common operating picture (COP) for detailed planning and faster decisions. Add XR, and troops familiarize themselves with a location before deploying. VADE can be set for individuals or in multiplayer mode, accessed via desktop app or with headsets.  

The tool’s capabilities span domains: 

For drone intervisibility studies, users can draw routes, mark waypoints at each kilometer, and determine blind spots at specific locations and heights to ensure proper placement anywhere on the globe.  

With a volumetric tool for battlespace management and deconfliction, airspace coordination via VADE is accurate and intuitive.  

High-altitude parachute insertion simulations include trackback lines for descent, giving the distance to the drop zone throughout the line; users can view the line from the aircraft or the ground, with the surroundings they can expect to see.  

Because VADE allows users to customize for NATO standards, slopes turn red if they’re not sufficient for helicopter landing sites (HLS). 

Although VADE is not a targeting tool, users can examine the impacts of explosives. 

Restricted operating zone for UAS overwatch. Courtesy VRAI.

Intervisibility study to ensure proper placement. Courtesy VRAI.

Route planning, with directional arrows and optional kilometer markers. Courtesy VRAI.

Gun target line (GTL) tool. Courtesy VRAI.

GTL and impact of explosives. Courtesy VRAI.

VADE employs Cesium World Terrain and Bing Maps Aerial imagery with Cesium for Unreal to enable users to navigate to places that matter for their missions, manipulating the time of day and simulating weather conditions, with high-fidelity rendering. When users are online, they can pull in Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles for exercises in urban areas, and Vexcel data is a boon when VADE is used as part of an airgapped solution via Cesium ion Self-Hosted.  

The VADE library includes data via Cesium ion; 3D models of aircraft, tanks, and other vehicles; NATO map marking symbols for friendly forces and enemy capabilities; and user-specific sources, like their own imagery, photogrammetry, or GitHub repos. VADE connects to users’ private Cesium ion accounts for hosting, tiling, and streaming efficiently. Using geospecific data via Cesium saves VRAI engineers and their users days of work per location and obviates the need for hand modeling or geotypical data, improving situational awareness and decision speed and reducing the cognitive burden on those tasked with complex planning and rehearsal. 

“It’s a transformative way of planning for defense. We operate in multiple dimensions—why wouldn’t we plan in multiple dimensions?” said Ant Casson, former Squadron Commander in the Royal Air Force and VRAI’s business development lead for the UK and Europe. “The possibilities are endless for VADE, enabled by the powerful tools provided by Cesium for Unreal.”

The VADE library includes 3D models of aircraft, tanks, and other vehicles. Courtesy VRAI.

VADE is dual use: in addition to its defense value, the app’s live 3D COP enables better decisions with real data for emergency services, disaster relief, critical national infrastructure planning, large event planning, and agricultural monitoring.  

Learn to integrate 3D geospatial data when clarity, confidence, and speed matter most. 

VRAI Delivers Virtual All-Domain Environment with Cesium for Unreal 

When a court case following a serious automobile accident could benefit from a visualization of the incident, attorneys turn to Forensic Rock, a Philadelphia company that creates visualizations of accident scenes using tire marks, LiDAR scans, and other physical evidence. With Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Cesium for Unreal, Forensic Rock delivers immersive, accurate reconstructions with speed and precision.

Forensic Rock recreates accident scenes for court cases using Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Cesium for Unreal. Courtesy Forensic Rock.

Visualizing car accidents using Cesium for Unreal

Forensic Rock

In one urgent case, Forensic Rock animators were given only two weeks to reconstruct an accident. They completed their animation on time thanks to Cesium for Unreal.

Forensic Rock’s typical process is to complete a LiDAR scan of the site, then build the scene and add an animation of the circumstances of the accident. By using Cesium for Unreal, they were able to forgo the labor intensive scanning and modeling stage. Through Cesium ion, animators had instant access to curated global datasets, including Photorealistic 3D Tiles, which gave them the real-world terrain and building data from the exact crash location needed for the scene.

With Photorealistic 3D Tiles, Forensic Rock can focus on visualizations without losing time to scanning and modeling the environment. Courtesy Forensic Rock.

Using Photorealistic 3D Tiles from the exact location of the accident, as well as police report data about the vehicle’s speed and position, they plotted a point-to-point crash trajectory that clearly demonstrated the path of the accident. The result was a compelling, data-driven animation that attorneys could use in court.

“While the forensics business often presents stressful deadlines, the integration of Cesium into our pipeline ensures we are always prepared.” 

Because Cesium is built around open standards, animators have access to high-quality datasets like Photorealistic 3D Tiles to bridge the gap between raw data and visual storytelling—making their work not just technically impressive but also impactful in legal contexts. Sign up for a Cesium ion account to bring real-world datasets into your application.

Forensic Rock Accelerates Accident Reconstruction with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles

In October, we introduced Google Maps 2D Tiles in Cesium ion and had a busy month with events: Intergeo, FOSS4G Japan, AUSA, YII, ArchiFuture, and the 133rd OGC Member Meeting. This week we’re at FOSS4G NA in Reston, Virginia—join us at our talks and stop by the Cesium table to chat with the team.  

The stunning mountains of Kauai, Hawaii, visualized with Cesium World Terrain and the Google Maps 2D Satellite asset from Cesium ion.

We made improvements across Cesium this month. To get notifications about our monthly releases, you can subscribe to the Cesium release roundup thread on our community forum.

CesiumJS 1.135 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Added experimental support for loading 3D Tiles as terrain, via Cesium3DTilesTerrainProvider. See the PR for limitations on the types of 3D Tiles that can be used. #12296 

Added support for EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility glTF extension. #12765 

Improved performance of scene.drillPick (#12916), removing primitives (#3018) and terrain Quadtree handling of custom data. (#12907) 

Removed support for the KHR_spz_gaussian_splats_compression extension in favor of the latest 3D Gaussian splatting extensions for glTF, KHR_gaussian_splatting and KHR_gaussian_splatting_compression_spz_2. Please re-tile existing Gaussian splatting 3D Tiles. #12837 

This release contained a number of community contributions, including three from user Beilinson. If you’re interested in helping too, check out our contributors guide. 

Sandcastle has been updated at https://sandcastle.cesium.com!

glTF model demonstrating the EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility extension in CesiumJS. Customization of edge colors will come in a future release.

Cesium for Unreal v2.21.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added ICesium3DTilesetLifecycleEventReceiver interface, allowing applications to receive callbacks when a material is instanced, when a tile changes visibility, when a tile is unloaded, etc. 

Fixed a bug where CesiumCreditSystem would not filter out empty credits, resulting in duplicate on-screen delimiters. 

Improved CesiumGeoJsonRasterOverlay’s support for polygons with holes and for datasets with geometry on both sides of the antimeridian. 

Check the Cesium for Unreal release and the Cesium for Unreal Samples release for the full list of updates.

Download the Cesium for Unreal plugin from Epic Marketplace

Infrared weather data across North America overlaid on satellite imagery from Microsoft Azure.

Cesium for Unity v1.19.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added CesiumGoogleMapTilesRasterOverlay to stream imagery from Google Maps. 

Added CesiumAzureMapsRasterOverlay to stream imagery from Microsoft Azure. 

Added assetOptions to CesiumIonRasterOverlay to pass JSON-string options to Cesium ion as it accesses an asset. 

Check the Cesium for Unity changelog for the full list of updates, and follow our Cesium for Unity tutorials to get started. 

Traffic in Philadelphia, PA, USA, visualized over a roadmap layer from Microsoft Azure alongside Cesium OSM Buildings.

Cesium ion now keeps track of which user created a story or uploaded an asset when that user is acting as a member of a Team account. 

Cesium ion now allows users to copy assets and stories between accounts to which they have access, such as from their individual Community account to a Team account. 

In Cesium Stories, added a feature to clip the terrain around a model. 

Added support for spherical harmonics when viewing Gaussian splat assets. 

Added support for tracking the creator of an asset and a story. 

Fixed an issue in reality tiler that could cause incorrect materials to be mapped to meshes when loading OBJ files. 

Fixed an issue where repositioning an asset would cause the re-archive process to fail. 

Fixed a bug with 3D Tiles imports from Microsoft Azure. 

Fixed an issue that could cause models with multiple sets of texture coordinates to be subdivided more than necessary. 

Check the changelogs for the full list of updates for Cesium ion SaaS and Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

We added a feature to Cesium Stories to clip the terrain around a model.

In November 2025, we added a feature to Cesium Stories to clip the terrain around a model. 

Clip Terrain in Cesium Stories

Terradepth's AUVs collect vast amounts of 3D seabed data hosted on Cesium ion Self-Hosted and streamed to its CesiumJS-powered app, Absolute Ocean.

Glider Sim uses Cesium for Unity and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to deliver a globally immersive and highly realistic VR flight experience for both casual explorers and professional pilots.

In September, we released Cesium Mars, highlighted MicroStation’s 3D Tiles support and Cesium Native integration, and announced participants in the iTwin Activate cohort focusing on Cesium and 3D Tiles. We also attended the GeoGov Summit and welcomed Khronos members to Philadelphia for the F2F meeting. 

Cesium Mars is a 3D Tileset to enable developers, researchers, and mission planners to create visualizations and simulations of the Red Planet. 

Cesium Mars

CesiumJS 1.134 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Added Google2DImageryProvider to load imagery from Google Maps. #12913 

Converted voxel raymarching to eye coordinates to fix precision issues in large datasets. #12061 

Fixed vertical misalignment of glyphs in labels with small fonts. #8474 

Fixed flickering artifact in Gaussian splat models caused by incorrect sorting results. #12662 

Sandcastle has been updated at https://sandcastle.cesium.com! The legacy Sandcastle app will remain available through November 3, 2025. 

Cesium for Unreal v2.20.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added support for rendering glTFs with line primitives. 

Added UCesiumGoogleMapTilesRasterOverlay. 

Added AssetOptions property to UCesiumIonRasterOverlay. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.51.0 to v0.52.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

The Google Maps attribution requirements were updated to use the "Google Maps" logo instead of the "Google" logo. Cesium ion and Cesium clients now use the Google Maps logo. If your application includes its own logic for the inclusion of the logo rather than using a logo provided by Cesium, see Google Maps' documentation for guidance about whether your application needs to be changed. 

Support for spherical harmonics for Gaussian splats. 

v1.7.1 is now available, with minor bug fixes. 

Fixed an issue that could cause incorrect materials to be mapped to meshes when loading OBJ files.

Fix export issues for some elements in Revit 2026. 

Fix incorrect transforms for some exported subcomponent elements. 

Support for Mars data added to imagery-tiler, terrain-tiler, and quantizedmeshto3dtilesconverter.

point-cloud-tiler handles PLY files with any number of comments now.

point-cloud-tiler fixed issue where in certain cases when using draco compression with .pnts output could result in batch table data not being written.

imagery-tiler added TileJSON format support.

For years, Propeller has been using CesiumJS to visualize drone-captured surveys of earthworks, quarries, mines, and waste management sites. Propeller recently got an upgrade when its team incorporated Cesium’s Design Tiler into the platform. 

For Propeller’s users, streaming IFC files as 3D Tiles means a faster, higher quality experience. They can analyze large files, like viewing cross sections of this IFC model. Courtesy Propeller.

Last year, Cesium released the first readily accessible, comprehensive 3D Tileset of the Moon. Today, we are excited to introduce Cesium Mars. Cesium Mars is a 3D Tileset to enable developers, researchers, and mission planners to create visualizations and simulations of the Red Planet. 

Cesium Mars comprises precise terrain captured by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), paired with colorized imagery. Cesium Mars is provided as 3D Tiles, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard created by Cesium. 

Enabling a digital ecosystem for planetary data 

A wealth of Mars data has already been captured by orbital and rover missions. The seven man-made satellites from five space agencies currently orbiting Mars and the two active rovers on Mars, NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance, send home more data every day through the Mars Relay Network. In addition, two space agencies are actively planning manned missions to Mars, and several additional agencies are planning for continued robotic exploration and orbital analysis. Cesium Mars lowers the barrier to entry for studying existing and new Mars data and for leveraging this ever-increasing data as part of the planning, execution, and analysis for Mars programs. A precise, easily accessed model of Mars supports the space community in its efforts toward an open, interoperable platform for a digital ecosystem supporting data captured beyond Earth.  

Mars viewed from space. Data for Cesium Mars from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on the NASA Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the ESA Mars Express. 

The Gale Crater, visualized with Cesium Mars.  

Cesium Mars draped with a Mars MOLA elevation map from NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. 

The launch of Cesium Mars comes at the right time when there's a need for planetary-scale digital twins and simulation for the next leap in human and robotic spaceflight. Buendea intends to leverage Cesium Mars within NASA’s XR Operations Support System (XOSS) to expand our digital twin environments beyond the Moon and into Mars. By combining Cesium’s geospatial platform with our high-fidelity interactive environments in Unreal Engine, we are creating a foundation for next-generation mission planning, astronaut training, and real-time operations in support of these efforts.  

Cesium Moon in XOSS in VR mode. Courtesy Buendea and NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab.

Since Cesium Moon’s release, the dataset has become a foundation for digital twins for mission planning, for training simulators, and for games. We anticipate similar uses for Cesium Mars. 

Space architects designing for the Moon and Mars are already employing workflows like those used for infrastructure on Earth. Cesium Mars enables those processes to converge, as users leverage functionality available for our open source runtime engines. Use Cesium Mars as a base layer to place models of habitats, vehicles, or rovers on the Martian surface. If you have your own high-resolution terrain data, clip and inset it so your projects can live within a single continuous 3D surface rather than multiple separate project areas. Share realistic, interactive 3D design visualizations with large, dispersed teams to facilitate review, highlight design alternatives, and present designs as they change over time. 

NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars, viewed with Cesium for Unreal in Unreal Engine.

Cesium Mars is provided as 3D Tiles using the IAU_2015:49901 CRS and is composed of the ⁠Mars Viking Colorized Global Mosaic 232m imagery and ⁠Mars MGS MOLA - MEX HRSC Blended DEM Global 200m for terrain, along with higher resolution data for the Jezero and Gale craters. Cesium’s visualization engines—CesiumJS, Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium for Omniverse—are ready for you to start building with Cesium Mars using an accurate representation of the planetary ellipsoid for measurement and analysis. Cesium Mars is available via Cesium ion SaaS and Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

This CesiumJS Sandcastle provides an example of how to include Cesium Mars in a web app. A sample level in Cesium for Unreal provides an example for how to get started with development using Cesium Mars in Unreal Engine. 

As lunar and interplanetary missions proceed, the need for an open, interoperable, standards-based platform to support simulation, planning, and analysis has never been greater. Cesium Mars, along with Cesium Moon, is a step toward this vision, offering a precise and scalable foundation. 

To access Cesium Mars, sign up or sign in to Cesium ion, locate the asset in the Cesium ion Asset Depot, and add the tileset to your Asset Library. Then start building! Create Cesium Stories, incorporate the data into a CesiumJS web app, or build advanced visualizations with 3D creation engines such as Unreal Engine. 

In August, we attended SIGGRAPH, MODSIM World, TAK Offsite, and P3DL; celebrated YouthMappers’ grant-funded 3D course; and introduced iTwin Platform to Cesium developers.  

Follow the tutorials to kickstart your use of iTwin Platform with Cesium.

CesiumJS 1.133 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Added Ellipsoid.MARS for use with Mars terrain and imagery. #12828 

Added spherical harmonics support for Gaussian splats, supported with the SPZ compression format. #12790 

Added support for the EXT_mesh_primitive_restart glTF extension. #12764 

Fixes issue where a Gaussian splat tileset would be rendered even if out of current camera view. #12840 

Removes the minimum tile threshold of four for WMTS. #4372 

Fixed a crash when loading PNTS (point cloud) data that contained a batch table without a binary part. #11166 

For more details, see the changelog. We also welcome your thoughts on the new version of Sandcastle.

The path of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover rendered in CesiumJS. Data courtesy NASA, European Space Agency, and the USGS Astrogeology Science Center.

Cesium for Unreal v2.19.1 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added assets for the IAU2015 Moon and Mars ellipsoids under Content. 

Added a missing CesiumRuntime.h include in CesiumPropertyAttribute.cpp that broke compilation in v2.18.0 on Windows. 

Fixed a bug in FCesiumVectorStyle that made polygons use the color mode from LineStyle instead of PolygonStyle. 

Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when undoing and redoing deletion of a CesiumRasterOverlay component. 

Fixed a crash in UCesiumLoadGeoJsonDocumentFromIonAsyncAction that occurred when a Cesium ion server was not specified. The action will now fall back to the default ion server, similar to ACesium3DTileset. 

Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect ellipsoid parameters to be used when loading a level. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.50.0 to v0.51.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

Cesium for Unity v1.18.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added option to ignore the KHR_material_unlit extension to force default lighting on tilesets. 

Fixed a bug where CesiumCreditSystem did not accurately track the loading progress of images, which could result in missing credits. 

Fixed a bug where CesiumPointCloudRenderer could dereference a null CesiumPointCloudShading on Cesium3DTileset. 

Coming soon: Cesium Mars. Stay tuned for the full announcement later this week. 

Fixed an issue with texture size estimation for tiles, which could negatively impact performance and cause tileset trees to be deeper than necessary. 

Fixed an issue that would cause some tile textures to have an invalid sampler index. 

Fixed an issue that could cause a crash or invalid material references when loading a glTF file with multiple primitives that reference the same material. 

Fixed an issue where materials would be incorrectly handled when loading multiple glTF files. 

Fixed an issue where translucent IFC materials were being considered opaque. 

Fixed an issue where an excessive number of tiles would be generated when processing nodes with a single point. 

"The most brilliant engineering designs, no matter how well crafted, remain unrealized until their vision can be clearly communicated and understood by all stakeholders," said Wayne Sullivan, visualization lead at infrastructure engineering and consulting firm Parametrix. This philosophy drives Parametrix’s Advanced Visualization team: a group of software engineers and 3D artists using Cesium for Unreal, Cesium ion, and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to enhance public outreach and help win project bids by making complex designs easier to understand. 

High-fidelity, photorealistic renderings of a proposed design helped the City of Las Vegas secure a $25 million grant for the Stewart Avenue Complete Streets project. Courtesy Parametrix.

本記事は、2025年6月23日にShehzan Mohammedによってリリースされた記事を、今回日本語化したものです。

CesiumがBentley Systemsの一員となってから約9ヶ月が経ちました。この間、私たちはBentleyの技術を深く理解し、それをコミュニティにどのように還元できるかを探ってきました。今回、初のCesium Developer Conferenceを機に、皆さまからのご意見を広くいただくべく、iTwinによるデジタルツイン機能をCesiumに統合するためのロードマップ案を共有します。

当社のミッションは、「人工環境と自然環境が融合する3D地理空間体験をコミュニティが自由に構築できるようにすること」です。3D Tilesの活用は着実に拡大しており、Google、Esri、Ansys、FOX Sports、 The Weather Company、 GE Aerospace、 MathWorks、 CAE、 Trimble、 そして DroneDeployなど、多くの企業に採用されています。Cesium ionも月間30,000人以上のアクティブ・ユーザーから3億回以上のリクエストを受けています。Cesiumはオープンソースへの継続的な投資を通じて、コミュニティの拡大とともに、CesiumJS、Cesium for Unreal、Cesium for Unity、Cesium for Omniverseといったランタイムエンジンを活用し、新たな3D地理空間アプリケーションの迅速な開発を可能にし続けています。

また、現在以下のようなニーズに限りないほどの強い需要がある状況です。

多様な入力形式に対応する高性能なタイル変換パイプライン

より効率的なエンドツーエンドのワークフロー支援ツール

Bentleyの一員として、私たちはBentleyの最先端技術を活用し、3D地理空間コミュニティ全体を根本的に強化・拡大していく機会を得ています。

Cesiumはこれまでも常にコミュニティの声を指針としてきました。今回のロードマップに掲げたテーマについても、皆さんのフィードバックをぜひお寄せください：

リアリティモデリングおよびAI解析サービスのCesium ionへの統合

iTwinプラットフォームAPI／サービスをCesium経由で利用可能にする

データを3D Tilesとして最適化するための柔軟に構成可能な(composable)タイル処理パイプラインの導入

新3D Tilesへの拡張やプラットフォーム統合に対応したCesiumランタイムエンジンの進化

高品質な整備済みの地形・都市・惑星データ提供をさらに拡充

再利用可能でカスタマイズ可能なUXツールとウィジェットの提供

学習教材の充実と継続的なメンテナンス強化

3D Tilesは、Cesiumプラットフォームの中核を成す存在です。
 プラットフォーム全体とコミュニティを貫く「軸」として、エンドツーエンドの一貫したワークフローを形づくり、開発者が卓越したアプリケーションを構築できる力を与えてきました。私たちは現在、コミュニティから長年にわたって求められてきた複数の新機能を3D Tilesに追加しようとしています。

あらゆる業界のユーザーが、これまでになく高解像度かつ高頻度で、さまざまな種類のデバイスを使って環境をキャプチャするようになっています。
 このような指数関数的なスケーリングの進展は、空間的整合性を保ちつつ、時間とともに更新される3D地理空間データを、より効率的に保存・ストリーミング・可視化・分析できるよう、3D Tiles仕様を拡張する絶好の機会を生み出しています。

時系列対応 3D Tilesは、3D Tilesに時間軸の概念を効率的に組み込むための拡張仕様です。
 これを使えば、1つのタイルセットを時間の経過とともに更新でき、各キャプチャで変更があった部分のタイルだけを差分更新することが可能になります。

もはや、更新のたびに完全な新しいタイルセットを作り直す必要はありません。
 1つのタイルセットに変更履歴を保持しながらインクリメンタルに更新できるため、再生成の効率も速度も大幅に向上します。

この仕組みは、時間に沿った変更点の分析や、タイルセットと設計モデルの時系列比較といった分析ワークフローにも活用可能です。 詳細や意見交換はGitHubのIssueページ にて。

時系列対応3Dタイルを使えば、1つのタイルセットを時間の経過に沿って更新でき、各キャプチャごとに影響を受けたタイルだけを差し替えることが可能になります。

さらに現在、BentleyのSYNCHRO 4D Schedule APIと連携し、時間変化に対応する3D Tilesetを生成する手法も検討しています。
 SYNCHRO 4D Schedule APIは、時間軸を含んだプロジェクトデータをWeb経由で取得・活用できる仕組みを提供しており、この連携により、時間的に変化するジオメトリと業務インテリジェンスとの融合が実現されます。

ボクセルによるボリューム（体積）データ表現

地質学、海洋学、気候科学など、連続的なデータ表現が求められる多くの分野において、ボリュームデータは現実世界を可視化する重要な手法となっています。

3D Tiles仕様は、大規模かつ多様なデータを最適に表現できるよう、さまざまなジオメトリ形式を柔軟にサポートするよう設計されています。

3D Tilesにボクセル（体積要素）を3Dペイロードとして導入することで、地球規模のボリュームデータを扱うアプリケーションの構築が可能になります。

現在私たちは、glTFをボクセルのペイロード形式として活用しながら、楕円体・直方体・円柱型のボクセルを3D Tiles仕様の出発点として開発を進めています。

これにより、地中・地表・大気・宇宙空間など、さまざまな領域における体積データの表現と活用が可能になります。

 詳細はVoxels拡張仕様のドラフトをご覧ください。

CesiumJSでボクセルを使用して、メキシコ湾の海水温を表現

3D Gaussian Splats（3Dガウシアン・スプラット）

近年のコンピュータグラフィックス分野で最も注目を集めている技術の一つが、3D Gaussian splats（3Dガウシアン・スプラット）です。

高解像度のリアリティメッシュや点群は、自然環境のデジタル化に非常に優れた手段ですが、ケーブル、樹木、鉄棒、通信塔といった一部の情報の捉え方には限界があります。

その点、3D Gaussian splats は、極めて高い再現性を保ちつつ、視覚的なディテールを精緻に再現できる優れたソリューションであることが証明されています。

私たちは現在、3D Tilesのペイロードタイプのひとつとして3D Gaussian splatsを追加することに取り組んでいます。

これに伴い、iTwin Captureで使われている技術をCesium ionに統合し、Gaussian splatsのモデリングとタイル化を可能にする計画も進めています。

さらに、glTFコミュニティと連携し、glTFに対応した3D Gaussian splat拡張仕様の策定にも取り組んでいます。

3D Tilesで表現した3D Gaussian splats（左）と、Reality Mesh（右）との比較。特にワイヤー、パラボラアンテナ、支柱、足場といった細長い形状の表現力に注目。

ジオメトリの強調表示とカスタマイズ機能

Bentley Systemsは、3D Tilesの初期採用企業の一つであり、インフラの詳細モデルに必要な3Dビジュアライゼーション機能を強化するための拡張機能を独自に開発してきました。CesiumがBentleyの一員となったことで、こうした拡張機能やランタイム実装を統合し、コミュニティ全体に提供する機会が生まれています。現在私たちは、以下のような表現機能の追加に取り組んでいます：エッジ表示とワイヤーフレーム、線の描画とマテリアル設定（線幅、パターン、色など）、ポイントサイズのカスタマイズ、注釈表示用のビルボード、その他多数の拡張機能

glTFの EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility 拡張を用いてエッジをハイライト表示した、iTwin.js 上の3D Tilesetの例。

暗黙面を使うことで、パイプ、柱、梁、ボックス、球体、円柱といったパラメトリック（数式で定義される）形状を表現できるようになります。

さらに、他の暗黙面と組み合わせて使用することで、三角形メッシュでは表現が難しい複雑なジオメトリの作成も可能になります。

この手法の主な利点は、ストレージ効率の向上と解析精度の向上にあります。

というのも、これらの面は三角形メッシュによって近似されるのではなく、数学的に厳密な形状として保持・描画されるため、ジオメトリ的な誤差が発生しないのです。

私たちは現在、Microsoftが導入した glTF の暗黙的形状拡張（implicit shapes extension）を基盤として、この機能の実装を進めています。

3D TilesにおけるBISセマンティクス（意味情報）の対応

3D Tiles仕様は、ジオメトリに属性や分類情報を付加する詳細なメタデータをサポートしています。このメタデータ仕様は、さまざまな粒度・産業・ユースケースに対応したセマンティクス（意味情報）を付与できるように設計されています。

とくに建築・エンジニアリング・建設（AEC）業界においては、オブジェクトのクラス（種類）に適用可能な標準化された分類語彙（タクソノミー）の整備が求められています。こうした分類の意味を標準語彙として明示的に定義しておくことで、AI によるデータ検証、データ連携、分析、インタラクションなどにおいて、後続処理に有効活用できるようになります。

たとえば、ユーザー独自スキーマ内の「あるクラス」が 「ドア(door)」 を表している場合、それを IFC（Industry Foundation Classes）、Uniclass、あるいは BIS などの標準語彙に対応づけておけば、他のデータ利用者が容易に扱うことが可能になります。

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