Cesium for Omniverse v0.29.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.24.0

CesiumJS 1.143

Cesium ion

Over a decade ago, we showcased RikiTraki, a CesiumJS application built by Ricardo Morin for recording hiking trails. Ricardo was one of the first people to see the potential value of Cesium’s high accuracy 3D terrain rendering for outdoor sports. RikiTraki, a place to upload GPX tracks and photos from hikes, was largely a personal project, but Ricardo made it open to the public—and open source.

When Ricardo released RikiTraki 2.0, which now has hundreds of registered users, we caught up on his latest developments. New improvements to the site are a reflection of the significant investment Ricardo has put into the application; they’re also an illustration of how Cesium has evolved over the last ten years.

RikiTraki allows users to upload GPX tracks from their hikes, which they can review and share in 3D. Rendering on 3D terrain makes it easier to understand a hiker’s experience in the area. Courtesy Ricardo Morin.

RikiTraki 2.0 Tam McArthur Rim

All 3D: In 2015, visitors to RikiTraki would find a 2D world map built with Leaflet and the option to switch to Cesium for 3D. At the time, Ricardo felt that a 2D map was necessary for devices that didn’t have the compute power or support to run Cesium. Now, the entire site uses CesiumJS. With an always-3D view, users can seamlessly zoom in to individual trails or out for a global view. This shift was made possible by years of performance improvements by our CesiumJS team work at nearly every layer of the engine.

Efficient streaming: In its original form, RikiTraki loaded all available tracks at once, which became increasingly impractical as more users contributed data—a classic geospatial challenge. Ricardo solved this challenge by revising the app to request and display only the tracks relevant to the visitor's current view. This same principle is the foundation of 3D Tiles, the OGC community standard created by Cesium for streaming massive 3D geospatial datasets. Instead of downloading an entire dataset, 3D Tiles allows applications to efficiently stream only the portion of the world a user is looking at. And with the recent advancements in 3D Tiles 2.0, developers can now stream not just 3D models but also time-dynamic content, vector data, and continuous datasets with voxels, ensuring CesiumJS is ready for the next generation of global scale apps like RikiTraki.

Visitors to RikiTraki can explore GPX tracks near them. Courtesy Ricardo Morin.

Simplified layout: With the latest version of RikiTraki, side and bottom panels that provide more details, such as the elevation profile of a trail, open only as needed. CesiumJS has similarly advanced to offer a modular structure, giving developers access to what they need, when they need it. 

Personal data: RikiTraki was meant for sharing trails, and viewers have always been able to see paths in their area or across the world. Now, each visitor to RikiTraki also has a personal page to view, manage, and curate their own tracks separately from the public tracks. This dual approach to supporting personal data and offering access to global datasets is the philosophy behind Cesium ion, which allows CesiumJS developers to bring their own data for tiling as 3D Tiles or find global datasets like Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles.

Nambe Loop, New Mexico. For every trail on RikiTraki, visitors can view detailed information about the track. Courtesy Ricardo Morin.

Time dynamic visualization: RikiTraki doesn’t just show a hiker’s entire path at once: an animation draws the route, with the camera tracking the position along the route as it gets drawn. This allows hikers to relive their treks. 4D visualization is a core component of CesiumJS, drawn from our roots in aerospace, that makes Cesium valuable for understanding temporal spatial data. 

3D terrain: CesiumJS has always been 3D first, and from its inception RikiTraki provided visitors with 3D terrain that gave them an intuitive understanding of their hikes. The site originally used elevation values from GPS devices, which were often uncalibrated or inconsistent, so track elevation is now sampled directly from the terrain. The elevation profile of a track gives viewers a quick understanding of the course of the path. High quality terrain in CesiumJS isn’t just for looks: it’s a critical foundation that allows many in our community to perform measurements and analysis.

Trillium Falls, California. RikiTraki places geolocated photos from hikers’ treks at the appropriate spots on the trail. Courtesy Ricardo Morin.

Easy sharing: RikiTraki has always been publicly available on the internet and easy to share with a link. In the newest version, URLs are simple and predictable, clearly listing the user name to link to a personal space, the lat/lon to show a location, or a track ID for a specific trail. Likewise, CesiumJS endures as an accessible, secure way to share your geospatial data.

Open source: Ricardo’s work, like CesiumJS itself, is open source and on GitHub. Ricardo documents the site’s architecture and updates on his blog, and he has contributed in the past to Cesium learning materials. We encourage all members of the CesiumJS community to be active contributors to CesiumJS and the community forum.

"My work has always been open source. For me, it feels good to give something back to the community. If other developers want to see how I built RikiTraki or fork the project and build their own app, they can. That's the strength of an open source community." 

For more than ten years, RikiTraki has provided a way to visualize, remember, and share outdoor experiences. We’re proud of the apps our community builds with CesiumJS and committed to continuously improving the tools you use: subscribe to the release roundup thread on the Cesium forum to get monthly notifications of new releases.

RikiTraki’s Hiking Tracks on the Web Evolve Alongside CesiumJS

In June, we hosted about 400 3D geospatial enthusiasts in Philadelphia for the second Cesium Developer Conference. The excitement was contagious as users and Cesium + Bentley teammates learned from each other and shared their recent work. The many Cesium product announcements included two you can read more about in blog posts from earlier this week: upcoming vector data support in 3D Tiles and expanded BIM/CAD support and metadata queries. And if you couldn’t attend devcon, are curious about sessions you missed, or want to revisit your favorite talks, the video recordings for the entire conference will be posted in a few weeks.  

Read on for recent release notes, and be on the lookout for more announcements in coming weeks, including integration of iTwin Capture into Cesium ion Self-Hosted for 3D model reconstruction from photos. 

The ionosphere was a new dedicated area at the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference for attendees to connect directly with the engineers and product teams building the tools they use every day. 

Keith Bentley (right) presented the Bentley Lifetime Achievement Award to Richard Hipp, creator of SQLite.

Panel: Standards at Scale: Building an Open, Interoperable Geospatial Ecosystem, featured a conversation among Amanda Morgan, Neil Trevett, Tam Belayneh, Ben Irwin, and Scott Simmons.

Developers, creators, and innovators from across the 3D geospatial ecosystem connected in Philadelphia for three days of learning, collaboration, and community.

Sessions spanned aerospace, defense, and simulation; product roadmaps; digital twins and AEC; and next-gen data and 3D workflows.

Social gatherings included the welcome reception, the final night party, and ad hoc hallway chats.

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 1.143 is now available. Highlights of the release include: 

Added support for the KHR_meshopt_compression glTF extension, including the v1 attribute codec and the COLOR filter. #13553 

Added PathGraphics.materialMode. A value of "PORTIONS" allows visualizing the path in segments with different materials specified by intervals or sampling. Each segment material is determined by the material property value at the corresponding simulation time. The default value of "WHOLE" preserves existing material behavior. #13530 

Fixed a bug that caused crashes when using billboards in environments that replace Promise with custom promise implementations. #13475 

A multiphase satellite maneuver visualized in CesiumJS using colored path segments.

Cesium for Unreal v2.28.0 is now available. This is the last release that will support Unreal 5.5. Future versions will require Unreal 5.6+. Highlights of this release include: 

Fixed a crash that could occur when zooming to a tileset with Update in Editor disabled. 

Fixed Gaussian splats not rendering in Standalone Game sessions launched from the editor.  

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.61.0 to v0.62.0. 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

Cesium for Unity v1.24.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added support for rendering glTFs with line primitives. 

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

glTF line primitives visualized in Cesium for Unity.

Cesium for Omniverse v0.29.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include: 

Cesium for Omniverse now requires Kit 110.0 or above (Isaac Sim 6.0.0-dev2 or above). 

Fixed bug where polygon clipping was rendering black instead of discarding. 

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

Users can import iModels from Bentley Infrastructure Cloud to Cesium ion to make them available for streaming as 3D Tiles.  

Users can now convert NetCDF files into 3D Tiles through the voxel tiler. 

Users can now convert GeoJSON data into 3D Tiles through the vector tiler. 

Coming soon: reconstructing 3D reality models from photos, powered by iTwin Capture technology. All of the reality modeling capabilities in Cesium ion SaaS will be available to Self-Hosted users, including the option to create Gaussian splats with LODs. Connect with your account manager to learn more. 

Tweaked IFC swept circular geometry for more consistent rotational offsets. 

Coming soon: fixing an issue where PNTS attributes could have incorrect alignment if compression was turned off. 

NTT Software Innovation Center is conducting research and development on a computing architecture referred to as the “Space Data Center.” As part of the effort to support the design and validation of this architecture, NTT is using CesiumJS.

Inter-satellite communication links visualized in a distributed network architecture. Courtesy NTT. 

At the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference, Cesium announced a Technology Preview introducing two key advancements: broader, streamlined support for BIM/CAD formats in Cesium ion and new API endpoints for querying model metadata. These improvements make it easier to access and use design models in digital twins, reducing the required time, effort, and specialized expertise required.

The completed element inspection app built using the Cesium ion Asset Elements API tutorial.  This screenshot shows a BIM/CAD building model with the CesiumJS view filtered and styled to display the results of a query for doors and windows. 3D model provided by Autodesk and tiled from the Revit source with Cesium ion.

We’ve added a new Cesium ion tiler for the most common BIM/CAD formats:

This tiler and the API endpoints described below are powered by proven Bentley software including iTwin Platform and iModels, now exposed through Cesium ion’s API and user interface.

While Cesium ion’s existing support for tiling IFC and RVT is still in place, the new BIM/CAD tiler offers more convenience—no plugin required for all source file types. It also maintains more model metadata in a backend database that powers our new API endpoints. This unlocks file-based workflows to import design data created with the tools you already use every day. 

We’ve also made it easier to properly locate your model in the real world by choosing the right Coordinate Reference System (CRS) when you upload your model—the first of many planned improvements to eliminate the friction that challenges BIM/CAD workflows.

The Coordinate Reference System (CRS) selector makes it easier to correctly locate your BIM/CAD models when uploading them to Cesium ion.

crs-selector

Many users already share BIM/CAD models with stakeholders using Cesium ion. Our Early Access participants tell us that these changes make it easier and faster: simply upload and tile the source in Cesium ion, add it to a no-code Cesium Story to put it in geospatial context, and share a link with stakeholders. 

Developers of custom applications can leverage Cesium ion’s API as a pipeline to bring BIM/CAD models to their solutions in the open 3D Tiles format, whether they are building with a Cesium client like CesiumJS or Cesium for Unreal, or with other open-source or commercial choices. 

Leverage the richness of BIM/CAD models with new APIs

Design models aren’t just geometry; they’re hierarchical, interconnected, metadata-rich datasets. Models uploaded to Cesium ion frequently embed hundreds or even thousands of per-element properties. Models can contain millions of elements, each with hundreds of properties, resulting in the tileset metadata becoming larger than the geometry when streamed. Embedding all properties would negatively impact streaming performance—with most properties never being used downstream.

To avoid wasted runtime memory usage, Cesium ion takes a different approach. The BIM/CAD tiler creates an optimized 3D tileset containing the geometry with key element properties and enables the full element properties to be searched and queried with the new Cesium ion Asset Elements API. The API provides straightforward methods to request metadata about a model’s elements by type. For example, in the building model application shown above, the developer queried for information about the model elements with types window and door.

As we expand metadata support with the new BIM/CAD Tiler, we’re actively seeking feedback from early adopters on whether they also need options to embed custom, user-selected metadata or export it for use in applications that can’t access ion’s API. 

Using Cesium ion’s REST API, developers can access the metadata properties for elements in a 3D model, returned as JSON as shown here for visualization and interactions.  See the Cesium BIM/CAD Data Guide to learn more.

With CesiumJS and other runtime engines, developers can use the API to build applications for model stakeholders, engineering teams, and other infrastructure professionals to visualize and interact with model metadata in high-precision, element-specific workflows.

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is a leader in digital delivery workflows for massive, multi-phase projects like this overpass. The 3D model provided as Bentley OpenRoads Designer (DGN) files and tiled with Cesium ion. Data courtesy of UDOT.

For example, U.S. state Departments of Transportation are creating purpose-built digital delivery applications like a Project Corridor Viewer, transforming transportation projects into immersive, interactive 3D experiences. These viewers bring engineering data into a Cesium-enabled geospatial context and empower teams to query and search to visualize and analyze the information they need throughout the entire infrastructure lifecycle, from planning and design to construction and operations.

"UDOT has been the pioneer for digital delivery for the DOTs. Now the question isn’t what’s possible...it’s what’s next? As we continue to push beyond models into connected data and digital twins, we’re looking for the next breakthrough that moves our industry forward."

— Nicole Williams, Vice President Kimley-Horn

At the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference, Nicole Williams of Kimley-Horn explained how she wrote the playbook for state DOT digital delivery—from the first 3D model used as a legal construction document to more than 15 paperless projects. She demonstrated that the design-to-operations data gap is a pipeline problem solved by bringing geospatial and engineering together on one platform.

What’s coming next: build richer applications, more easily

We can’t wait to see what users build with these features, but we’re just as excited about what’s coming next.

Throughout this summer and fall, look for:

Ongoing improvements to the tiling pipeline speed and quality for BIM/CAD models. 

The ability to update BIM/CAD models in Cesium ion while maintaining access to past versions.

Change detection APIs to query for the differences between model versions. Visualize what changed over time to power workflows for revision review, optioneering, and communicating changes across distributed teams.

More georeferencing improvements to accurately locate models in the real-world faster, more intuitively, and with fewer extra steps.

Clipping tools in Cesium ion (server-side) and in CesiumJS and Cesium for Unreal (client-side). We are working to eliminate the painstaking steps often required to capture precise model footprints that enable clean visualization of a model placed in real world context.

Precise mouse snapping to model geometry to enable more accurate interactivity, such as picking elements, selection, calculations and visualization of points of measurements on design models streamed from Cesium ion. These enhancements are essential to the design review that is part of digital delivery workflows.

API-enabled filtering for easier and tighter control of what data is displayed in your applications.

After attending the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference keynote on Cesium’s new BIM/CAD capabilities, Dakota Mohan, Digital Delivery Lead at infrastructure design and engineering firm JMT, rapidly built a prototype of design models from Bentley Digital Cities Infrastructure Cloud streamed into CesiumJS. The app enables interactive exploration of a roadway corridor and IFC bridge model with advanced visibility controls, element queries, and attribute-based filtering of construction details like rebar. Dakota presented his work on the very next day at the conference! Video courtesy of Dakota Mohan and JMT. Read more on LinkedIn.

dakota-mohan-jmt-devcon26

We’re grateful for the feedback we’ve already received from Early Access users of the BIM/CAD tiler and our new API endpoints. We’d love to hear from you too; let us know what works for you (or what doesn’t!). Which of the coming features are most important to you? What will you build as we continue to lower the barrier to entry?

Join the conversation on the Cesium Community and help shape the future of BIM/CAD workflows on the open 3D geospatial platform.

At the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference, Dakota Mohan of JMT discusses his rapid experimentation with Cesium’s new BIM/CAD support with Shehzan Mohammed, Head of Product Management for Platform at Cesium, a Bentley company.

Unlock Design Intelligence: Expanded BIM/CAD Support and Metadata Queries in Cesium

人工衛星が取得するデータ量は急速に増大している。将来的には、地球観測衛星だけでも1日あたりペタバイト級のデータが生成されるとも予測されている。こうした膨大なデータをすべて地上に送信してから処理する従来の方式では、通信帯域や地上局数の制約から限界に近づきつつある。 

こうした課題に対し、NTTソフトウェアイノベーションセンタでは「宇宙データセンタ」と呼ばれるコンピューティングアーキテクチャの研究開発が進められている。この取り組みでは、人工衛星上でAI推論などのデータ処理を実行し、重要な情報のみを地上に送信することで、通信効率の向上と迅速なデータ活用を目指している。 

このアーキテクチャの設計や検証を支える可視化の試みとして、Webベースの3D地球可視化エンジンであるCesiumJSが活用されている。

宇宙でAIが動く新しいデータ処理モデル 

その中核の一つとなるのが、衛星軌道および衛星間通信リンクを統合的にシミュレーションできる基盤である。 

従来の地球観測ワークフローは、次のような流れで構成されていた。 

これに対し、NTTが検討している新しいモデルでは、 

重要な情報のみを地上へ送信 
という処理アーキテクチャが採用されている。  

NTTの技術展示イベント「NTT R&Dフォーラム2025」で公開されたデモでは、人工物検知アルゴリズムを用いて重要領域のみを抽出することで、送信データ量を約96%削減できる可能性が示された。 

ハイパースペクトルデータ（疑似RGB画像）: 衛星上で取得された観測データ（ハイパースペクトルデータ）の可視化例。（提供：NTT）

AI処理による重要領域抽出結果（データ削減後）: 同データに対してAI処理を適用し、重要または異常と判断された領域のみを抽出した例。（提供：NTT）

このアプローチは単なる通信効率の改善にとどまらない。 
限られた通信帯域の中で「どの情報を優先して地上へ送るか」を選別できるため、 

インフラの異常検知 
といった迅速な判断が求められる分野での応用が期待されている。  

宇宙データセンタのアーキテクチャでは、単一の衛星ではなく、複数の要素が連携する分散システムが想定されている。 
例えば次のような要素が同時に関係する。 

時間とともに変化するネットワーク構造  

宇宙データセンタの概念を可視化したもので、衛星上でのデータ処理の様子を示している。（提供：NTT） 

Visualization of a space data center concept, showing satellite-based processing in orbit. Courtesy NTT. 
宇宙データセンタの概念を可視化したもので、衛星上でのデータ処理の様子を示している。（提供：NTT）

NTT: space data center concept

NTTでは、宇宙データセンタを構成する衛星群の軌道や通信リンク、軌道上でのAI処理を統合的にシミュレーションできるライブラリも開発している。しかし、衛星数やシミュレーション期間が増えるにつれて、可視化処理の負荷が増大し、研究環境の制約になるケースも見られた。 

この課題に対し、NTTでは大規模な軌道シミュレーションのための可視化環境の構築・検証にCesiumJSを用いた。 

CesiumJSを用いた宇宙システムの可視化 

NTTが可視化の選択肢を比較検討する中で、CesiumJSのいくつかの特徴が有効であることが分かった。 

CZMLによる時間変化を伴うオブジェクト表現 
衛星軌道や通信リンクを自然に表現できる  

Webブラウザ上での高性能レンダリング 
大規模シミュレーションでも操作性を維持できる  

地理空間データとの統合 
地形や衛星画像と組み合わせて地球上の文脈で理解できる  

CesiumJSを用いることで、衛星の軌道、通信リンク、観測対象地点などを3D地球上で直感的に把握できる可視化環境が実現された。 

分散ネットワークアーキテクチャにおける衛星間通信リンクの可視化。（提供：NTT） 

Inter-satellite communication links visualized in a distributed network architecture. Courtesy NTT. 
分散ネットワークアーキテクチャにおける衛星間通信リンクの可視化。（提供：NTT）

NTT: inter-satellite communication links

また、Cesium ionの地理空間データを組み合わせることで、宇宙空間の挙動と地球上の観測対象を同時に把握することが可能になっている。

可視化・分析レイヤとしてのCesium 

本プロジェクトにおいて、Cesiumは可視化および分析のレイヤーとして機能する。 

オンボード処理パイプラインの構築や、前処理・AI推論フローの設計を担っているのは、NTTが開発した low-code / no-code のパイプライン設計ツールである。 

CesiumJS は、そうした処理構成や実行結果を3次元空間上で可視化・分析するためのレイヤとして機能している。衛星軌道、通信リンク、観測地点、センサー由来データやAI推論結果を地形やインフラと統合して表示することで、研究者やエンジニアはシステム全体の挙動を直感的に把握できる。 

Cesiumはパイプラインを「設計する」ためのインタフェースではない。一方で、複雑な宇宙分散システムがどのように振る舞っているかを“観測可能”にし、仮説検証や異常の発見、関係者間での認識共有を支援する。 

このようにCesiumは、NTTの設計ツール群と連携しながら、研究開発を加速する可視化・分析基盤として重要な役割を果たしている。 

研究開発を加速する可視化基盤 

可視化部分をCZMLベースの構成に整理したことで、ソフトウェア構成はシンプルになり、開発効率も向上した。 
その結果、研究チームは開発開始から約2か月でプロトタイプをNTT R&Dフォーラムに展示することができた。 

可視化の実装やレンダリング最適化にかかる負担が軽減されたことで、研究者はより多くの時間を、軌道計算や通信リンク成立判定、分散処理アーキテクチャ設計などの宇宙データセンタの実現に向けた中核機能の研究開発に集中できるようになった。 

現在のプロトタイプでは、主にCZMLを用いた衛星軌道や通信リンクの可視化が中心となっている。将来的に衛星コンステレーション規模が拡大し、より大規模なデータ可視化処理が必要になった場合には、3D Tilesなどの階層的ストリーミング技術の活用も検討されている。 

宇宙で処理し、地上で理解する。その橋渡し役として、空間可視化技術の重要性は今後ますます高まっていくだろう。 

Cesiumでは、NTTのように新しい宇宙コンピューティングアーキテクチャを探求する組織が、複雑なシステムを理解し共有するための基盤としてCesiumを活用していることを嬉しく思います。 

他の航空宇宙企業のCesium活用例についてもぜひご覧ください。 

NTT Explores a Space Data Center Architecture with Cesium for On-Orbit AI and Satellite Network Visualization

The volume of data collected by satellites is increasing rapidly. In the future, even Earth observation satellites alone are expected to generate data at the petabyte-per-day scale. Under the conventional approach of transmitting all of this data to the ground before processing, limitations in communication bandwidth and the number of available ground stations are becoming increasingly significant. 

To address this challenge, NTT Software Innovation Center is conducting research and development on a computing architecture referred to as the “Space Data Center.” In this approach, data processing such as AI inference is executed onboard satellites, and only important information is transmitted to the ground, with the goal of improving communication efficiency and enabling faster use of data. 

As part of the effort to support the design and validation of this architecture, NTT is using CesiumJS, a web-based 3D globe visualization engine. 

A new data processing model in which AI operates in space 

One of the core elements is a platform capable of integrated simulation of satellite orbits and inter-satellite communication links. 

A conventional Earth observation workflow has typically consisted of the following steps: 

A satellite observes Earth’s surface.  

Analysis and processing are performed on Earth.  

By contrast, in the new model being explored by NTT, the processing architecture is: 

Only important information is transmitted to the ground.  

In a demonstration presented at NTT’s technology showcase event, NTT R&D Forum 2025, an object-detection algorithm was used to extract only important regions, showing the possibility of reducing transmitted data volume by approximately 96%. 

Hyperspectral data (pseudo-RGB visualization): Example of observation data (hyperspectral data) acquired onboard a satellite, visualized as a pseudo-RGB image. Courtesy NTT. 

AI-processed result highlighting regions of interest (after data reduction): Example of applying AI processing to the same dataset, extracting only regions identified as significant or anomalous. Courtesy NTT. 

This approach is not limited to improving communication efficiency alone. 

Because it makes it possible to select which information should be prioritized for transmission to the ground within limited communication bandwidth, it is expected to be applicable in fields requiring rapid decision-making, such as: 

A distributed system expanding into space 

The Space Data Center architecture assumes not a single satellite but a distributed system in which multiple elements work together. 

For example, the following elements are involved simultaneously: 

network structures that evolve over time.  

Visualization of a space data center concept, showing satellite-based processing in orbit. Courtesy NTT. 

NTT has also developed a library capable of integrated simulation of the satellite orbits, communication links, and onboard AI processing involved in the Space Data Center. However, as the number of satellites and the simulation duration increased, the computational load of visualization also increased, becoming a constraint in the research environment in some cases. 

To address this issue, NTT conducted development and validation of a visualization environment using CesiumJS for large-scale orbital simulations. 

Visualizing space systems with CesiumJS 

As NTT evaluated different visualization options, several characteristics of CesiumJS proved effective: 

Object representation with temporal changes using CZML: 
Orbital paths and communication links can be represented naturally.  

High-performance rendering in a web browser: 
Operability can be maintained even in large-scale simulations.  

Integration with geospatial data: 
Space systems can be understood in the context of Earth by combining them with terrain and satellite imagery.  

By using CesiumJS, NTT created a visualization environment in which satellite orbits, communication links, and observation target locations can be intuitively understood on a 3D globe. 

In addition, by combining it with geospatial data from Cesium ion, it becomes possible to understand space-based behavior and Earth-based observation targets at the same time. 

In this project, Cesium plays a central role as a visualization and analysis layer. 

NTT’s low-code/no-code pipeline design tool provides the primary interface for configuring onboard processing workflows, including preprocessing steps and AI inference pipelines. 

CesiumJS serves as the visualization and analysis layer that complements this design environment. By visualizing system configurations, sensor data, and processing outputs in a unified 3D context, Cesium enables researchers and engineers to intuitively 

inspect, validate, and reason about complex onboard behaviors more effectively. 

Rather than acting as a pipeline authoring interface, Cesium focuses on making system behavior observable.   

This visualization-driven analysis shortens iteration cycles by helping researchers identify anomalies, evaluate assumptions, and communicate findings across interdisciplinary teams. In this way, Cesium provides a foundational layer that accelerates R&D while integrating seamlessly with NTT’s broader toolchain. 

A visualization foundation that accelerates R&D 

By reorganizing the visualization component into a CZML-based structure, the software configuration became simpler and development efficiency improved. 

As a result, the research team was able to demonstrate a prototype at NTT R&D Forum, in approximately two months from the start of development. 

By reducing the burden associated with visualization implementation and rendering optimization, researchers were able to spend more time focusing on the research and development of core functions required to realize the Space Data Center, such as orbital calculations, communication link validation, and distributed processing architecture design. 

In the current prototype, visualization mainly focuses on satellite orbits and communication links represented using CZML. In the future, as satellite constellation scale increases and larger-scale visualization processing becomes necessary, the use of hierarchical streaming technologies such as 3D Tiles is also being considered. 

Process in space, and understand on Earth. As a bridge between the two, the importance of geospatial visualization technology is expected to grow even further. 

At Cesium, we are pleased to see organizations like NTT—exploring new space computing architectures—use Cesium as a foundation for understanding and sharing complex systems. 

Please also explore how other aerospace companies are using Cesium. 

 Cesiumで可視化する軌道上AIと衛星ネットワーク ――  NTTが探る「宇宙データセンタ」アーキテクチャ

In May, we attended GEOINT Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, USA, and OGC Builder Days in London, UK.  

We’re ramping up to this year’s Cesium Developer Conference—next week!—June 8-10 in Philadelphia. Have you registered to join us? Tracks include Aerospace, Defense, and Simulation; Cesium Core: Product Roadmaps and Advanced Technologies; Digital Twins and AEC Innovation; and Next-Gen Data and 3D Workflows. Learn about 3D Tiles 2.0, vector data, voxels, design review, sensor fusion, emergency management, synthetic training environments, Mars, and more. We look forward to connecting with you at the pre-conference workshops, in the ionosphere, during talks, 1:1, and at receptions, to shape the future of open geospatial together.

Join us for the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference next week.

CesiumJS 1.142 is now available. Highlights of the release include:

Rendering support for vector tiles from 3D Tiles generated by the Cesium ion vector tiles technology preview. Includes support for 3D points, lines, and polygons, with property-based styling and picking. Includes 3DTILES_content_gltf_vector extension for 3D Tiles, and KHR_mesh_primitive_restart and EXT_mesh_primitive extensions for glTF. For more information, see 3d-tiles#825. #13478 

Sandcastle now ships with Cesium Copilot, an in-app AI coding assistant that writes, edits, and debugs CesiumJS code in the same panel as the live preview. Users bring their own keys for Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, or Google Vertex AI; the assistant edits the JavaScript and HTML buffers through a structured apply_diff tool, streams thinking and tool calls live, and can self-fix runtime errors without a manual round-trip. #13188 

Added GeoJsonPrimitive for loading GeoJSON directly into BufferPrimitiveCollections, bypassing the entity/DataSource layer for significantly improved performance with large datasets. #13505 

Added MVTDataProvider for loading Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) directly into CesiumJS as 3D Tiles. Supports per-feature styling via Cesium3DTileStyle, feature picking with metadata (getProperty), and automatic property table encoding via EXT_structural_metadata. #13404 

- BufferPrimitiveCollection improvements: 
    - Added `boundingVolume` constructor parameter to `BufferPointCollection`, `BufferPolylineCollection`, and `BufferPolygonCollection`. For larger animated collections, providing a precomputed bounding volume can eliminate the performance cost of automatically updating the bounding volume frequently. [#13477](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/pull/13477) 
    - `boundingVolume` property is now defined in world space, not local/model space. [#13477](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/pull/13477)  
    - Added `.blendOption` constructor parameter to BufferPrimitiveCollection. 
    - Added `BufferPrimitiveMaterial#color.alpha`. [#13384](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/pull/13384)
    - Added `BufferPointMaterial#outlineColor.alpha`. [#13384](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/pull/13384) 
    - Fixed a bug causing `BufferPointCollection` to not update after changes to point positions. [#13465](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/pull/13465) 

Added support for multiple key modifiers in ScreenSpaceEventHandler.setInputAction. #13307 

Added EdgeDisplayMode enum and edgeDisplayMode property to Model and Cesium3DTileset for controlling how edges from the EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility glTF extension are rendered. Supports three modes: SURFACES_ONLY, SURFACES_AND_EDGES, and EDGES_ONLY (CAD-style wireframe rendering). #13192 

3D vector tiles in CesiumJS visualizing building footprints categorized by construction year in New York City, viewed in Cesium Sandcastle.

Cesium for Unreal v2.27.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include:

Added CesiumVectorTilesRasterOverlay supporting vector data loaded from 3D Tiles tilesets. 

Added support for displaying points in CesiumGeoJsonDocumentRasterOverlay and CesiumVectorTilesRasterOverlay. 

Added support for rendering edges from the EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility extension. 

RikiTraki’s Hiking Tracks on the Web Evolve Alongside CesiumJS

Cesium Releases in July 2026

Unlock Design Intelligence: Expanded BIM/CAD Support and Metadata Queries in Cesium

Cesiumで可視化する軌道上AIと衛星ネットワーク ―― NTTが探る「宇宙データセンタ」アーキテクチャ

Cesium Releases in June 2026

Cesium Releases in May 2026

Introducing 3D Gaussian Splats with Hierarchical Level of Detail Using 3D Tiles