Early bird registration is open for the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference! Save your spot.

Cesium for Omniverse v0.28.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.23.0

CesiumJS 1.139.1

Cesium ion

In February, we attended Geo Week in Denver and discussed interoperability and open standards for Gaussian splats in the RTC AECO Spotlight. This week we’re proud to host the 134th OGC Member Meeting—let us know if you’re in Philadelphia! Plus: two more weeks of early bird devcon registration. 

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 1.139 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Added panorama support via new EquirectangularPanorama and CubeMapPanorama classes, along with GoogleStreetViewCubeMapPanoramaProvider for loading cube map faces from the Google Street View Static API and rendering them in a cube map panorama. #13153 

Added more depth testing options for billboards and labels. #12994 

Added support for more metadata types via property textures in custom shaders. #13135 

Modified Sandcastle application to use a hybrid text and semantic, embedding based search. #13090 

Fixed Gaussian splat race conditions in snapshot/sort updates. #13016 #12965 

Fixed flashing when rendering multiple Gaussian splat primitives. #12967 

Part of a 360-degree panorama image of the interior of Laon Cathedral, France, visualized in CesiumJS. Photo by David Iliff, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cesium for Unreal v2.23.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added support for loading tilesets with the KHR_gaussian_splatting extension. 

Added support for styling with tileset statistics on UCesiumFeaturesMetadataComponent. 

Deprecated AddCamera, RemoveCamera, UpdateCamera, and GetCameras on ACesiumCameraManager. Instead, use the new AdditionalCameras array to directly add or remove cameras. 

Added UsePlayerCameras, UseEditorCameras, and UseSceneCapturesInLevel to ACesiumCameraManager to toggle the automatic detection of cameras in the level for tile selection. 

Added ACesiumCameraManager::SceneCaptures for more explicit control over which ASceneCapture2Ds are used for tile selection. 

Added DetectTransformChanges to UCesiumGlobeAnchorComponent to toggle whether the globe anchor should update itself after changes in its Actor's transform. 

Build now uses the tinyxml2 library from Unreal's SDK on Linux and Windows if it is available. This eliminates a source of conflicts with other plugins that also use tinyxml2. 

Removed Cesium3DTileset::getFeaturesMetadataDescription. This can be directly retrieved from its attached UCesiumFeaturesMetadataComponent instead. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.57.0 to v0.58.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

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

Hines Rowing Center in Conshohocken, PA, visualized in Cesium for Unreal using Gaussian splats produced by iTwin Reality Capture.

Cesium for Unity v1.23.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added CesiumGeoJsonDocumentRasterOverlay, allowing stylized GeoJSON to be rasterized and draped over terrain and other 3D Tiles. 

Added CesiumGeoJsonDocument to parse and manipulate GeoJSON documents in code. 

Added CesiumGeoJsonObject to access individual features, geometries, and collections within a GeoJSON document. 

Added CesiumVectorStyle, CesiumVectorLineStyle, CesiumVectorPolygonStyle, and CesiumVectorPolygonFillStyle structs for styling vector data. 

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

A footprint of a proposed design model projected onto Cesium World Terrain using CesiumGeoJsonDocumentRasterOverlay.

Cesium for Omniverse v0.27.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Cesium for Omniverse now requires Kit 107.3 or above (Isaac Sim 5.1.0 or above). 

Peruse the changelog for the full list of updates, and get started with our Cesium for Omniverse tutorials. 

Download the Cesium for Omniverse extension

Download the Cesium for Omniverse samples

**Cesium ion SaaS**
- Coming this week: additional options for running photo reconstruction jobs. These will make it possible to tune your automated reality modeling pipelines to better meet your requirements. 

**Cesium ion Self-Hosted**
- Coming this week: new version of Cesium ion Self-Hosted that includes recent updates to the Cesium design and reality tilers. 

**3D Tiling Pipeline** 
- The Design and Reality Tilers are now packaged with the tilers and tools in the 3D Tiling Pipeline. Versions have been unified, and all tilers are now on v5.0.1. 
- Added `terrain-and-imagery-tiler`, which produces 3D Tiles 1.1 output. 
- Removed `quantizedmeshto3dtilesconverter`; it has been replaced by `terrain-and-imagery-tiler`. 
- Fixed an issue where invalid attributes could be generated when converting from OBJ to glTF.

    - **Design Tiler** 
      - Improved rendering of IFC elements by giving sub-assembly elements the bounding box of the full assembly. 
      - Added more graceful handling of IFC lines that don’t meet the IFC specification. 
      - Added support for parsing eastings, northings, and orthogonal height from IFC files. 
      - Fixed generation of IFC swept circular geometry for better shading and performance. 
      - Fixed issues processing B-splines in IFC files. 
      - Fixed issues processing some geometries with swept circles. 

    - **Reality Tiler** 

      - Fixed an issue where duplicate vertices in input models could lead to inefficient textures and larger tilesets than necessary. 
      - Fixed a regression where duplicate vertices in the input would be written to tiles, rather than being filtered out. 
      - Significantly reduced memory usage for models with spatially incoherent textures. 

    - **Buildings Tiler**
      - Fixed an issue where some images in a glTF file had an invalid format and/or incorrect mime type. 

Trailamo uses CesiumJS to bring open geospatial data to mountaineers so they can plan safer, more informed routes anywhere in the world with advanced 3D terrain analysis and layered datasets. 

BADASS Studios uses Cesium for Unreal to create a premium digital fan experience for the E1 Series. 

Creating an XR Connection to the E1 Series with Cesium for Unreal

In January, we attended GeoBuiz in Denver and opened the call for presentations and early bird registration for the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference. Looking ahead, we’re thrilled to be a host of the 134th OGC Member meeting in Philadelphia in March. 

CesiumJS 1.138 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Fixed jitter artifacts on Intel Arc GPUs. #12879 

Improved voxel memory usage by reworking Megatexture to use Texture3D. #12570 

Fixed multiple issues causing undefined pick results in 2D/CV scene modes. #13083 

Fixed label sizing for some fonts and characters. #9767 

Volumetric rendering with voxels in CesiumJS was optimized with WebGL2’s 3D Textures for reduced memory usage at runtime.

When adding a CesiumCartographicPolygon to the level via the Cesium panel, the polygon is now created in the current Editor view, rather than at the origin. 

Added ACesiumCartographicPolygon::SetPolygonPoints to shape a polygon spline from a list of positions in cartographic or Earth-Centered, Earth-Fixed coordinates. 

Re-enabled support for tileset water masks on macOS devices. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.56.0 to v0.57.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

Cesium for Unity v1.22.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Fixed a bug that prevented CesiumGoogleMapTilesRasterOverlay from being added to a GameObject in more recent versions of Unity.  

Coming this week: The Design and Reality Tilers will now be packaged with the tilers and tools in the 3D Tiling Pipeline. Versions will be unified, and all tilers will be on v5.0.0. 

WorldLens uses Cesium for Unity to deliver high-performance, immersive VR experiences that stream global geospatial data to Meta Quest.

Blenheim Palace leveraged 3D Tiles created through the Cesium Design Tiler and Add-In for Autodesk Revit to create a digital twin in CesiumJS that has IoT integration to enable smart heritage conservation, predictive maintenance, and sustainability.

Blenheim Palace Performing Smart Conservation with Cesium

To modernize and synchronize operational-level planning, Sandtable uses CesiumJS, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium ion to combine traditional military planning documents and immersive geospatial context.

Over the last 20 years, technology and the nature of conflict have changed more rapidly than US defense policies and military procedures. To modernize and synchronize operational-level planning, Sandtable uses CesiumJS, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium ion to combine traditional military planning documents and immersive geospatial context.

For operational wargaming in the COA analysis step of the MDMP, as well as mission rehearsal, Sandtable Navigator provides a 4D environment built with Cesium for Unity. Pictured here are friendly and enemy units at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, USA. Courtesy Sandtable.

For operational wargaming in the COA analysis step of the MDMP, as well as mission rehearsal, Sandtable Navigator provides a 4D environment built with Cesium for Unity. Pictured here are friendly and enemy units at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Courtesy Sandtable.

Sandtable: COA Analysis

Founded in 2024 by US Army veterans and researchers, Sandtable pairs AI with human judgment in its Mentat and Navigator prototypes to facilitate mission analysis, course-of-action (COA) development, and operational wargaming with more data, detail, and speed.

Planning, collaboration, and rehearsal tools tend to involve 2D imagery, spreadsheets, printed documents, a physical sand table, and the risks that come with putting a group of key people in the same place simultaneously. The company’s push to bring time-dynamic 3D to military planning results in interactive environments that fuse data types and sources to support planning and assessment for both human teams and autonomous systems, no matter where they are. 

During COA DEV, planners using Sandtable Mentat create, visualize, and share unit symbology, operational graphics, viewshed, and ranges of weapon systems in 4D. Courtesy Sandtable. 

“What we’re simulating and planning—like drones, counterdrone technology, and electromagnetic warfare—exists in 3D space in reality, and we need to be able to represent reality. That requires Cesium,” said Sandtable COO Brady Moore. 

And reality is complex: data comes from myriad sources, and conditions shift over time. With AI, the platform helps surface patterns, compare options, and stress-test assumptions, so commanders can focus their judgment where it matters most.

Planners drag and drop MIL STD 2525D symbols from predefined combat power data to build enemy SITEMPs and friendly COAs in Mentat. Courtesy Sandtable.

Planners drag and drop MIL STD 2525D symbols from predefined combat power data to build enemy SITEMPs and friendly courses of action in Mentat. Courtesy Sandtable.

Sandtable: Enemy SITEMPs and Friends COAs

Cesium is deployed across Sandtable’s solution to accelerate key phases of the military decision-making process (MDMP), particularly mission analysis, COA development, and rehearsal, with authoritative geospatial context and efficient data delivery:

Mentat, built with CesiumJS, incorporates written orders, concept sketches, and open datasets, e.g., for soil density and composition, on top of real-world terrain in a browser for rapidly adjusting COAs with AI.

Navigator uses Cesium for Unity for COA analysis and mission rehearsal in a shared virtual environment, wherever participants are, on a variety of devices. Instead of merely rehearsing plans produced in Mentat, Navigator feeds insights back into the planning environment—enabling continuous refinement rather than one-time execution.

Sandtable Mentat allows planners to determine which factors about the terrain are relevant to operations and visualize them together or separately. Courtesy Sandtable. 

With detailed geospatial data from Cesium ion and a range of public and government sources (for example, NOAA and USDA datasets), warfighters and autonomous vehicles know not only where hills and trees are but also microterrain features relevant to mobility and line of sight. This is important because factors like height of vegetation determine what a drone can—or can’t—see (depending on available data resolution and source quality). This data is primarily 3D Tiles, quantized mesh, and KML/KMZ, optimized, hosted, and streamed via Cesium ion for efficiency and interoperability. Cesium ion also enables Sandtable to be data agnostic, because 3D Tiles is an OGC community standard, and can use the Army's own Well Formed Format data when available. Sandtable uses Cesium ion SaaS while connected to the internet and anticipates leveraging Cesium ion Self-Hosted in future disconnected or denied environments, as well as secure enclaves.

Sandtable Mentat develops its own Modified Combined Obstacle Overlay (MCOO) using CesiumJS to visualize layers. Sandtable’s detailed datasets help determine terrain trafficability. Other terrain data includes canopy height, land use, soil attributes, slope, and elevation. Courtesy Sandtable.

Sandtable Mentat develops its own Modified Combined Obstacle Overlay (MCOO) using CesiumJS to visualize layers. Sandtable’s detailed datasets help determine terrain trafficability. Other terrain data include canopy height, land use, soil attributes, slope, and elevation. Courtesy Sandtable.

Sandtable: Modified Combined Obstacle Overlay (MCOO)

Critical to Sandtable’s work is embedding with the very people who will use the platform. During the Army’s xTechOverwatch competition in October 2025, the team tested Mentat on a tablet in the field with soldiers during the day and adjusted the capabilities and interface each night, returning the next day with an improved product. Sandtable developers were able to take feedback from concept to functional visualization and analysis in hours rather than days. This speed of development is enabled by adaptable, streaming-ready 3D Tiles and open-source runtimes. (The company’s CEO, Brian Hamilton, is a Cesium Certified Developer, and Sandtable was among the competition’s winners.)  

Watch Sandtable CTO Brent Lance’s 2025 Cesium Developer Conference talk to learn about the role Cesium plays across Sandtable’s solution for the MDMP. 

Military Planning Using Agentic AI and Simulations

Mentat and Navigator have been deemed Awardable on the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace, making them eligible for government procurement and tightening collaboration between government and industry.

Use Cesium ion to securely fuse high-resolution imagery and terrain with unit-specific data for actionable information and collaboration. Get started with a community account.  

Author’s note: Sandtable’s COO, Brady Moore, is a former Cesium employee. 

Sandtable Modernizes and Synchronizes Military Planning with Cesium

In December, the team was in Orlando for I/ITSEC and Exton for our quarterly refactor. Then came all the jolly action with the Cesium-powered NORAD Tracks Santa app. 

Today, we opened the call for presentations for the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference. Submit your talk ideas, and we look forward to seeing you in June! 

CesiumJS 1.137 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Fixes for positioning in workflows that delete and recreate labels. 

Fixes for texture coordinates in large billboard collections.

CesiumJS rendering a large collection of billboards with high precision, using data from the iTwin Feature Service.

Cesium for Unreal v2.22.0 is now available. Note that this release removes support for Unreal Engine 5.4; Unreal Engine 5.5 or later is required.

Other highlights of this release include:

Replaced the "Auto Fill" button on UCesiumFeaturesMetadataComponent with "Add Properties". This allows metadata properties and feature ID sets to be selectively added to the component, rather than adding them all in bulk. 

Added EnableDoubleSidedCollisions to ACesium3DTileset to allow intersections and collisions with geometry to also work when hitting "back" faces. 

Added an optional glTF model post-processing stage after the tile loading step to modify their models before they are displayed. 

Added support for refreshing Cesium ion login tokens after they expire and the refresh token is still valid. 

Fixed a material generation bug on UCesiumFeaturesMetadataComponent where user-made connections to If nodes were not preserved. 

Fixed deprecation warnings when compiling with Unreal Engine 5.5+ by replacing deprecated GetInputsView() calls with FExpressionInputIterator. 

This release also updates cesium-native from v0.55.0 to v0.56.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

A list of metadata properties available in the New York region of Cesium OSM Buildings.

Cesium for Unity v1.21.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Setting CesiumGeoreference.ellipsoid at runtime will now correctly update the Georeference and associated transforms. 

Fixed a bug that could cause Cesium3DTileset::Update to be called more than once per frame in the Editor. 

Further improved stability when Unity reloads the AppDomain, such as when editing scripts or entering Play mode. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.55.0 to v0.56.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

Cesium for Omniverse v0.26.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Fixed loading KTX2 textures with mipmaps.

Reduced memory usage when processing IFC files. 

Added support for nested IFC properties. 

(experimental) Added support for geospatially locating IFC exports from Archicad. 

Fixed a stack-overflow issue when processing some IFC elements on Windows. 

If an IFC property has multiple data types, the data will be cast to the most general type. 

Fixed an issue where a CRS origin could be applied incorrectly if the origin was set from the command line and also found in a sidecar file. 

Virtual City Systems uses CesiumJS to power open source 3D urban planning tools like VC Map and VC Solar, enabling scalable, interactive city modeling and analysis for municipalities. 

Engineering design and consulting firm WSB is using Cesium-powered geospatial capabilities in Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect to ensure design flaws are caught early.   

In 2025, NORAD Tracks Santa turned 70. Cesium is proud to help track Santa each Christmas Eve since 2012. 

Last month we attended both FOSS4G NA and the LSAS Aerospace and Defense Workshop, where we presented and met with the community. And we’re currently at I/ITSEC! Come by to meet with our team and see demos curated specifically for the modeling, simulation, and training community.

We’ve also welcomed new team members, including Don McCurdy, creator of glTF Transform and glTF.report. We shared his recent conversation with Sean Lilley, our lead engineer behind 3D Tiles, discussing how we can advance 3D Tiles and glTF in an open ecosystem.

CesiumJS 1.136 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Fixed depth testing bug with billboards and labels clipping through models #13012

Billboards using imageSubRegion now render as expected. #12585

Improved scaling of SVGs in billboards #13020

Fixed unexpected outline artifacts around billboards #13038

Added scene.pickAsync for non GPU blocking picking using WebGL2 #12983

Improves performance of terrain picks via new terrain picking quadtrees #8481

This month we made performance improvements in CesiumJS for terrain picking by using a quadtree acceleration structure.

Cesium for Unreal v2.21.1 is now available. Note that this is the last release of Cesium for Unreal that will support Unreal Engine v5.4. Future versions will require Unreal Engine v5.5+.

Fixed a bug that prevented UCesiumPrimitiveFeaturesBlueprintLibrary::GetPrimitiveFeatures from retrieving the features of instanced meshes.

In addition, this release updates cesium-native from v0.54.0 to v0.55.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native.

Cesium for Unity v1.20.0 is now available. Importantly, this month we added a highly requested feature: experimental support for web builds!

Improved stability when Unity reloads the AppDomain, such as when editing scripts or entering Play mode.

Fixed incorrect association of the iOS libraries with the iOS platform, which could cause errors when packaging for other platforms.

Exceptions thrown by delegates implemented in native code are now correctly propagated back to the managed caller. Previously, this scenario could cause crashes and undefined behavior.

Delegate wrappers for native functions now use SafeHandle to ensure the native function will not be destroyed by the garbage collector while it is running.

Added Azure Maps 2D imagery assets as a Technology Preview.

Cesium ion now supports setting an asset's height for individual slides in Stories.

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

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. 

Forensic Rock uses Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to rapidly reconstruct accident scenes with high-fidelity geospatial data for legal visualizations.

Forensic Rock Accelerates Accident Reconstruction with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles

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 

ガーナとトリニダード・トバゴにおけるAI都市再構成とCesiumによる3D可視化

2025年、国連宇宙部（UNOOSA）と英連邦事務局が共同で推進する「Commonwealth Digital Twin Project」において、Cesiumが重要な役割を果たしました。本プロジェクトは、気候変動の影響を受けやすい英連邦諸国を対象に、AIと衛星データによる3D都市モデルと洪水・高潮シミュレーションを構築し、住民の防災力を高める国際的な試みです。

洪水リスクが高い2カ国を対象に

初期対象として選ばれたのは、西アフリカのガーナとカリブ海のトリニダード・トバゴ。いずれも近年洪水被害のリスクが高まっており、かつ現地政府や関連機関が協力的であったことから選定されました。今後は、同様の課題を抱える他の英連邦諸国にも水平展開が想定されています。

AIで生成された都市モデル × 国連防災シミュレーション

このプロジェクトでは、日本のスタートアップ企業SpaceData社が、Vantor社（旧Maxar社）の高解像度衛星画像（30cm級）を用い、AIによる自動処理によってLOD1〜LOD3レベルの都市モデルを生成しました。これにより、空港や港など主要なインフラのデジタルツインが構築され、洪水や高潮による災害シミュレーションも実装されました。一方、洪水・高潮の影響評価には、国連宇宙部の国連防災緊急対応衛星情報プラットフォーム（UN-SPIDER : the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response）の技術監督のもと、災害シミュレーションとガーナ及びトリニダード・トバゴのステークホルダーへの展開が実施されました。今後はこれらのデジタルツインを活用し、浸水シナリオに応じた避難ルートの最適化や避難建物の指定など両国の避難計画の立案や更新に寄与することが期待されます。

「使える3D」への橋渡し：東京大学・渡邊英徳研究室 Watanave Labの役割

この都市モデルや防災シナリオを、誰でもブラウザ上で閲覧・操作できる形で可視化したのがCesiumです。実際の可視化と3D Tiles変換を担ったのは、東京大学大学院 情報学環 渡邊英徳教授の研究室　Watanave Labです。

LOD付きの都市モデルを受け取った研究室では、BlenderやUnityなどの中間ツールも活用しつつ、Cesium ionによる3D Tilesへの変換を実施。その後、Cesium Stories上に成果物をまとめることで、住民・行政・研究者が“視て理解できる”デジタルツインが完成しました。

ガーナ・ジェームスタウン漁港の海面上昇による影響シミュレーション(Cesium Stories)

トリニダード・トバゴ空港における海面上昇による影響シミュレーション（Cesium Stories）

ガーナ・ジェームスタウン漁港およびトリニダード・トバゴ空港における海面上昇の様子（Cesium Stories）

SpaceData社との役割分担：処理の高度さと可視化の手軽さ

このプロジェクトの先進性は、SpaceData社の高度なAI処理能力と東京大学 Watanave LabによるCesiumを活用した手軽かつ強力な可視化機能の連携にあります。

SpaceData社の処理：光学衛星画像からAIで自動抽出、構造化されたLOD付き建物データを生成。これは属性情報付きのメタデータ構造を持ち、将来的な災害分析にも活用可能。



東京大学 Watanave Labでの処理：SpaceData社によって生成された3DデータをCesium ionで軽量な3D Tiles形式に変換・高速配信し、ブラウザだけで閲覧可能な状態に展開。さらに時間軸・シナリオ・地形・属性情報との連動も可能。



とくにCesium Storiesの機能は、技術知識がなくても地元行政や教育関係者が操作・説明できるUIを備えており、今回のような国際防災協力のビジュアル表現に最適です。

ArcGISとの役割分担と今後の展望

なお、この成果はArcGIS Onlineとのハイブリッド運用も想定されています。ArcGISは属性分析・専門的な防災解析に活用され、Cesiumはその可視化・共有・住民説明・多国間連携に最適なプラットフォームとして位置付けられています。

国連宇宙部担当者は、「今後、英連邦諸国の他地域への展開においても、このCesium + SpaceData + 東大モデルをひとつの標準構成として検討したい」と述べており、本事例はグローバル展開の第一歩となる可能性を秘めています。

この取り組みは、単なる技術実証にとどまらず、洪水など災害のリスクが高い地域に、AI・衛星・3D技術を届けるという社会的意義を持っています。

Cesiumは、今後も国際社会における現実に根ざした3D活用を支援し続けていきます。

あなたのプロジェクトにも、Cesiumを。3D都市表示、リスクの可視化、共有がすぐに始められます。是非　Cesium ionアカウントに登録してみてください。

Harnessing 3D with Cesium for Disaster Resilience: International Collaboration among the United Nations, the University of Tokyo, and SpaceData


 AI-driven urban reconstruction and 3D visualization in Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago

In 2025, Cesium played a vital role in the Commonwealth Digital Twin Project, a joint initiative led by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Commonwealth Secretariat. The project aims to build 3D urban models and simulate flood and sea level rise using AI and satellite data in Commonwealth countries (former British dependencies) that are especially vulnerable to climate change, helping to strengthen community-level disaster resilience.

The first countries selected for the pilot phase were Ghana in West Africa and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean—both facing increasing flood risks and demonstrating strong cooperation from local governments and stakeholders. The project is expected to scale to other Commonwealth countries facing similar challenges.

AI-generated urban models + UN-based flood simulation

In this project, the Japanese startup SpaceData used Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence)’s high-resolution satellite imagery (approximately 30 cm) and AI-based automated processing to generate city models with levels of detail (LOD). This enabled the construction of digital twins of key infrastructure such as airports and ports, as well as the implementation of disaster simulations for flooding and storm surges.

For flood and sea level rise risk assessment, simulation was conducted by integrating the urban models with Digital Elevation Models (DEM), following methods recommended by the the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER). This made it possible to identify vulnerable zones and visualize their potential impact.

From data to usable 3D: The University of Tokyo’s Watanave Lab

Cesium was used to visualize the 3D urban models and disaster scenarios in a browser-accessible, interactive format. This transformation was led by Professor Hidenori Watanave’s research lab at the University of Tokyo’s Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies.

The lab received the LOD-structured city models, used intermediate tools such as Blender and Unity, and converted the data into 3D Tiles with Cesium ion. This conversion step was conducted entirely within Cesium ion, ensuring that the resulting tiles were optimized for web-based streaming and visualization.The results were then presented using Cesium Stories, providing a digital twin accessible to residents, government officials, and researchers.

Cesium Releases in March 2026

Cesium Releases in February 2026

Sandtable Modernizes and Synchronizes Military Planning with Cesium

Cesium Releases in January 2026

Cesium Releases in December 2025

VRAI Delivers Virtual All-Domain Environment with Cesium for Unreal

Cesiumが拓く、3D可視化による防災の未来：国連・東京大学・SpaceDataの国際連携