Cesium for Omniverse v0.29.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.25.1

CesiumJS 1.145

Cesium ion

In this month’s releases, we’re moving vector tiles, clipping polygons, design models, and asset management forward:  

This release contains our vector tiles technology preview, representing significant progress towards our implementation of 3D Tiles 2.0. You can now complete end-to-end vector workflows by uploading common vector data file formats into ion for tiling and then streaming those tiles to CesiumJS and Cesium for Unreal. Use the CesiumJS styling language to dynamically style those vectors in your applications. See our blog post for all the details. 

We’ve also improved CesiumJS clipping polygons based on similar techniques used in our vector tiles implementation. You can now create detailed clipping regions over large geographic areas. 

In the coming days, Cesium ion will introduce new capabilities for working with design models (BIM/CAD with Database), including an API to list the changes between two versions of a model. Keep an eye out for our blog post! The Cesium ion release will also include a new asset management model that separates source files from tiled assets, giving users greater control over storage usage today while laying the foundation for future capabilities, such as retiling data without reuploading source files. 

The full OpenStreetMap road network for Philadelphia, styled by road class.

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 1.145 is now available. Highlights of the release include: 

As part of the vector tiles technology preview, added support for draping clamped vector tile polygons and polylines onto 3D Tiles, with a new heightReference option and matching read-only property on BufferPrimitiveCollection. You can now drape your vectors onto terrain and 3D Tiles. #13653

ClippingPolygons now use an algorithm, based on the techniques used for vector tiles, that vastly improves quality across distance scales. You can now clip regions of the world across multiple miles with accurate vector cutouts. Warm-up cost is also modestly decreased. #13654 

ClippingPolygons now have support for specifying holes (aka islands) within each polygon for complex clipping tasks. This works in inverse clipping workflows as well. #13660 

Added experimental IonSnapService for server-side snap-to-geometry against Cesium ion assets backed by a BIM/CAD Database model, and the SnapService interface it implements. This enables building features such as measurement of design geometry with CAD-level precision and accuracy. #13682 

A GeoJson footprint of Sweden used as a clipping polygon on the globe, now with support for holes (excluded regions) inside the clipping polygon. 

Cesium for Unreal v2.29.1 is now available. 

This release updates cesium-native from v0.63.0 to v0.64.0. 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 v1.25.1 is now available. Highlights of this release include: 

Fixed a NullReferenceException that could be thrown if a CesiumCreditSystem was destroyed before it was ever enabled. 

Fixed a bug where CesiumCreditSystem would not unsubscribe from delegates on disable, causing duplicate subscriptions when re-enabled. 

In addition to the above, this release updates cesium-native from v0.63.0 to v0.64.0. See the changelog for a complete list of changes in cesium-native. 

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

**Cesium ion SaaS** 

- Exciting new features for working with design models are coming to Cesium ion this week! Watch for our blog post.  
- In the next few days we will release improvements to how assets are managed in Cesium ion. The source files for tiled data will be managed separately from the tiled assets, which will immediately give users more control over their Cesium ion storage quota. It will unlock more enhancements in future releases, such as the ability to retile without reuploading source files.  
    - Note: This change will result in a recalculation of account storage totals. As a result, we will also increase the storage quotas for each Cesium ion tier. Look for more details through email and in your Cesium ion account.  
- Updated the vector tiler to accept new formats. Also changed the enum for the SourceType that runs the vector pipeline from `GEOJSON` to `VECTOR_DATA`. [Read more in the vector tiles technology preview blog](https://cesium.com/blog/2026/09/02/vector-tiles-technology-preview-cesium-and-3d-tiles/). 

**Cesium ion Self-Hosted**

Cesium ion Self-Hosted 1.11.0 is now available. 

- Added the ability to run self-hosted reconstruction jobs using iTwin Capture. To learn more, contact Cesium sales.  
- Added support for labels. 
- Design tiler: added IfcSpace relations to element properties in IFC metadata. 
- Fixed a bug with `features.deleteSources` where the sources volume wasn’t being cleaned correctly. 
- Point cloud tiler: fixed an issue where PNTS attributes could have incorrect alignment if compression was turned off. 
- Design tiler: tweaked IFC swept circular geometry for more consistent rotational offsets. 
- Reality tiler: fixed a race condition that could lead to subtree files with content/availability bits incorrectly set to zero. 

**Vector tiler**

- New vector tiler available as a technology preview. 

**Design tiler**

- Fixed an issue where texture scales can be wrong when using Meshopt compression. 
- Changed `noData` value for float-type metadata to `-9999.0`, from `0`. This makes collisions with real metadata values less likely. 

Global river flows dataset from HydroRIVER. Showing North American view with fine LODs.

CalTa’s TRANCITY ARCADE uses Cesium ion, 3D Tiles, and Cesium for Unreal to create interactive applications for education, training, safety awareness, facility guidance, and communication. 

The Acceleration Agency is building a web-based CesiumJS digital twin for the Port of Corpus Christi that will serve ArcGIS data to secure external partners during emergencies. 

Hopeworks uses Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to place Blender models in geospatial context for Camden city planning.

インフラ分野では、現実の施設や現場を3Dデータとして取得し、管理する取り組みが急速に広がっている。 CalTaのTRANCITY ARCADEは、Cesium ion、3D Tiles、Cesium for Unrealを基盤として、教育や訓練、安全理解、施設案内、コミュニケーションのための体験型アプリケーションを実現している。 

工事現場の３Dモデルをゲーミフィケーションコンテンツに使用　(提供：CalTa株式会社) 

点群、写真測量、3Dモデル、Gaussian Splattingなどの技術により、鉄道、発電所、都市空間、公共施設といった複雑な環境を、これまで以上に高精度にデジタル空間へ再現できるようになってきた。 

こうしたデータは、施設の構造を把握し、設備同士の関係を理解し、安全上の注意点を学ぶために活用されている。また、若手技術者に対して、普段は簡単に立ち入ることのできない施設の全体像を伝えたり、地域やステークホルダーにインフラの役割や価値を分かりやすく共有したりすることにも役立っている。 

CalTaとキャドセンターが共同で開発するTRANCITY ARCADEは、、この問いに対する一つの答えである。インフラの3Dデータを、教育、訓練、安全理解、施設案内、コミュニケーションのためのインタラクティブなアプリケーションへ展開し、人々が学び、理解し、共有し、現場での判断に活かせる環境を実現している。 

TRANCITY ARCADEは、写真、点群、3D Gaussian Splattingなどの現実世界のデータから生成された3D空間をもとに、移動ルート、クイズ、インタラクティブなオブジェクトなどを配置し、体験型コンテンツを構築できるプラットフォームである。 

TRANCITY Nebulaで管理される現場データを、Cesium ionを通じて大規模3Dデータとして最適化・配信し、Cesium for Unrealによって地理空間の文脈を保ったままUnreal Engine上のリアルタイム体験へ接続する。 

TRANCITY ARCADE：インフラデータを体験型アプリケーションへ 

従来のTRANCITYやTRANCITY Nebulaは、インフラの3Dデータを取得し、管理し、共有するための基盤として重要な役割を果たしてきた。現場を記録し、点群や3Dモデルを管理し、関係者が同じ空間情報を参照できるようにすることは、インフラデータ活用の出発点である。 

TRANCITY ARCADEの注目すべき点は、TRANCITY Nebulaで取得・管理・共有しているインフラデータを活用し、TRANCITY ARCADEと連携させることで、教育や体験のためのアプリケーションへ展開できる点にある。 

ARCADEでは、現場から取得された3Dデータを、単に閲覧する対象として扱うのではなく、利用者が目的に応じて体験を設計できる空間として扱う。再現された施設や現場の中に、移動ルートを設定する。特定の設備や危険箇所にクイズを配置する。視点を切り替えながら施設全体を理解する。インタラクティブなオブジェクトを通じて、紙資料やスライドでは伝わりにくい現場のスケール感や注意点を学ぶ。 

ここで重要なのは、「ゲーム化」そのものではない。インフラ現場における学習や教育は、単に知識を覚えることではなく、空間の関係性を理解し、状況を判断し、実際の行動に結びつけることが求められる。TRANCITY ARCADEは、現場データをそのような学びの場へ変えるためのアプリケーションである。 

橋りょう点検をテーマにしたゲーミフィケーションコンテンツ　 (提供：CalTa株式会社) 

J-POWERの現場で見えてきた、教育・安全・施設理解のユースケース 

TRANCITY ARCADEの実用性を示す例として、J-POWERにおける取り組みがある。発電所のような大規模インフラ施設では、現場を理解すること自体が簡単ではない。設備は広範囲に分散し、構造は複雑で、すべての場所を自由に見学できるわけではない。安全教育においても、実際のリスクを現場で体験させることには限界がある。 

J-POWERでは、発電所などのインフラ資産を対象に、CalTaと共同でCesium for Unrealを用いたゲーミフィケーションコンテンツの開発・検証を進めている。若手社員や新任者が、施設の全体像を早く理解する。。管理者が、設備や空間の関係性を直感的に説明する。こうした用途において、3D空間は、学習と判断を支える環境になる。 

安全教育の観点でも、このような体験型アプローチには大きな可能性がある。容易に現場へ行くことができない場所や、安全上立ち入りが制限される環境であっても、インタラクティブなクイズなどを通じて、状況理解や学習を行うことができるからである。単に手順を覚えるのではなく、「なぜ危険なのか」「どこに注意を向けるべきなのか」を体験を通じて理解できることは、安全意識の向上にもつながる。 

現実の現場で失敗することは許されなくても、体験空間の中では学ぶための試行錯誤ができる。普段は立ち入ることが難しいインフラ施設を、地域住民や一般のステークホルダーに分かりやすく伝える手段にもなり得る。インフラは社会に不可欠でありながら、その役割や仕組みが一般の人々には見えにくい領域である。 

現実世界の施設を地理空間の文脈を保ったまま体験できることは、インフラの専門家だけでなく一般の人々にとっても、施設や周辺環境への理解を深めることにつながる。Cesiumは、その文脈を維持しながら現実世界のデータをインタラクティブなアプリケーションへ接続することで、こうした体験を支えている。 

TRANCITY ARCADEは、産業向けの3D体験がどこへ向かうのかを示している。それは現実の施設、実際の業務、そこに関わる人々の学びや理解に寄り添うものである。より楽しく、より能動的に、より安全に学べる環境を作ることは、企業にとっても、そこで働く人々にとっても、地域社会にとっても意味がある。

J-POWER と CalTa が検証を進めているゲーミフィケーションコンテンツの画面イメージ（提供：J-POWER）

J-POWER と CalTa が検証を進めているゲーミフィケーションコンテンツの画面イメージ（提供：J-POWER）
Gamified content being developed and evaluated by J-POWER and CalTa. Courtesy J-POWER.

③動画（JPOWER QUESTのプレイ画面）

CalTaとキャドセンターがつなぐ、インフラ知見とリアルタイム3D実装 

この取り組みを支えているのは、CalTaとキャドセンターそれぞれの異なる強みである。CalTaはインフラ現場のデータと業務理解を持ち、キャドセンターはリアルタイム3D表現とインタラクティブな体験設計を実装する力を持っている。TRANCITY ARCADEでは、この二つの専門性がCesiumの地理空間技術と結びつき、現場データを実際に使えるアプリケーションへと展開している。 

やGoogle Photorealistic 3D Tilesのような技術検証、都市空間や施設空間の表現、インタラクティブな体験設計において、開発者としての実装力を持っている。 

CalTaが持つインフラデータ活用の知見と、キャドセンターが持つリアルタイム3D実装力は、 

Cesium ion：3Dデータのホスティング、タイル化、ストリーミングを行うプラットフォーム 

 3D Tiles：大規模な3Dデータを効率的かつ最適化された形で配信・利用するためのフォーマット 

Cesium for Unreal：ゲームエンジン上で3D地理空間エコシステムを活用可能にするプラグイン 

といったCesiumの技術と地理空間基盤の上で結びついている。 TRANCITY ARCADEのもう一つの特徴は、ノーコードアプローチにある。移動ルートやクイズ、インタラクティブなオブジェクトの配置を、専門的なゲーム開発の知識がなくても行うことができる。 

こうして、現場データ、地理空間技術、業務理解、体験設計が統合され、教育や訓練に活用できる産業向けアプリケーションが実現している。 

TRANCITYARCADEでのゲーミフィケーションコンテンツ作成状況　(提供：CalTa株式会社) 

TRANCITYARCADEでのゲーミフィケーションコンテンツ作成状況 (提供：CalTa株式会社) 
Gamified content being created in TRANCITY ARCADE. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

④動画（TRANCITYARCADEでゲーミフィケーションコンテンツ作成状況）

記録された現場から、学びと行動につながる空間へ 

3Dデータの価値は、記録や管理の中だけで完結するものではない。人が理解し、学び、判断し、行動できる形になったとき、その価値はさらに広がる。 

TRANCITY ARCADEは、インフラデータを「見る」ための3Dから、「使う」 

ための3Dへ展開し、教育、安全理解、施設理解といった具体的な業務価値を実現している。Cesiumは、現実世界の3Dデータを地理空間の文脈を保ったまま実用的なアプリケーションへつなぐ基盤を提供している。詳しくは Cesium ionを参照されたい。 

CalTa’s Trancity Arcade Turns Infrastructure Data into Spaces for Learning, Judgment, and Communication with Cesium for Unreal 

Across the infrastructure industry, organizations are increasingly capturing and managing real-world sites and facilities as 3D data. CalTa’s TRANCITY ARCADE uses Cesium ion, 3D Tiles, and Cesium for Unreal to create interactive applications for education, training, safety awareness, facility guidance, and communication. 

 A 3D model of a construction site used in gamified content. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

With point clouds, photogrammetry, 3D models, and Gaussian splatting, complex environments such as railways, power plants, urban spaces, and public facilities can be recreated in digital space with high fidelity. Teams use this data to understand the structure of a facility, grasp the relationship between different pieces of equipment, learn safety considerations, help younger engineers understand the full context of a site that is not easily accessible, or communicate the role and value of infrastructure to local communities and stakeholders. 

TRANCITY ARCADE, jointly developed by CalTa and CAD CENTER, extends infrastructure 3D data so people can learn, understand, communicate, and make better decisions in the field. Cesium-powered TRANCITY ARCADE is a platform for creating experiential content by placing routes, quizzes, and interactive objects within 3D spaces generated from real-world data, such as photographs, point clouds, and 3D Gaussian splatting. 

Site data managed in TRANCITY Nebula is optimized and streamed as large-scale 3D data through Cesium ion, then brought into a real-time Unreal Engine experience through Cesium for Unreal while preserving geospatial context. 

TRANCITY ARCADE: Turning infrastructure data into experiential applications 

TRANCITY and TRANCITY Nebula have played an important role as platforms for capturing, managing, and sharing infrastructure 3D data. Recording sites, managing point clouds and 3D models, and enabling stakeholders to refer to the same spatial information are foundational steps in making infrastructure data useful. 

What makes TRANCITY ARCADE noteworthy is that infrastructure data captured, managed, and shared through TRANCITY Nebula can be used in connection with TRANCITY ARCADE and extended into applications for education and experiential learning. 

In ARCADE, 3D data captured from the field is not merely something to view. Instead, it becomes a space where users can design experiences according to their purpose. Users set movement routes inside a recreated facility or site, place quizzes at specific equipment or risk points, switch viewpoints to understand the entire facility, and use interactive objects to learn scale, context, and safety considerations that are difficult to convey through paper documents or slides alone. 

The goal is not gamification itself. In infrastructure training and education, learning is about more than memorizing information; it requires understanding spatial relationships, recognizing situations, and connecting that knowledge to real-world action. TRANCITY ARCADE turns site data into this kind of learning environment.

Gamified content themed around bridge inspection. Courtesy CalTa Inc. 

Use cases for education, safety, and facility understanding at J-POWER 

A good example comes from J-POWER. At large-scale infrastructure facilities, like power plants, understanding the site itself is not easy. Equipment is distributed across wide areas, structures are complex, and not every location can be freely accessed. In safety education, there are also limits to what risks can be experienced directly in the field. 

J-POWER is working with CalTa to develop and evaluate gamified content using Cesium for Unreal for infrastructure assets, such as power plants. New employees and younger engineers can learn the full context of a facility more quickly. perspectives. Managers can explain relationships between equipment and spaces more intuitively. For these scenarios, 3D space becomes an environment that supports learning and judgment. 

Experiencing real-world facilities while preserving their geospatial context can help both infrastructure professionals and the public better understand facilities and their surrounding environments. Cesium helps make these experiences possible by connecting real-world data to interactive applications while maintaining that context.

This type of experiential approach has significant potential for safety training. Even in places that are not easy to visit in person, or environments where access is restricted for safety reasons, users can build situational understanding and learn through interactive quizzes and related experiences. Rather than simply memorizing procedures, users can understand through experience why something is dangerous and where their attention should be directed. Even when failure is not acceptable in the real world, an experiential space allows people to learn through trial and error. 

These experiences are not limited to internal training. They can also help communicate infrastructure facilities that are usually difficult to access to local communities and general stakeholders. Infrastructure is essential to society, but its role and mechanisms are often difficult for the public to see or understand. 

TRANCITY ARCADE offers a practical example of how industrial 3D experiences can be applied today, as experiences connected to real facilities, real work, and the real people who learn from and engage with them. Creating environments that make learning more engaging, active, and safe has value for companies, for the people who work there, and for the communities around them. 

Gamified content being developed and evaluated by J-POWER and CalTa. Courtesy J-POWER.

Connecting infrastructure expertise with real-time 3D implementation 

TRANCITY ARCADE brings together complementary strengths: CalTa’s infrastructure data expertise and CAD CENTER’s real-time 3D implementation capabilities. In TRANCITY ARCADE, these two areas of expertise are connected through Cesium’s geospatial technology to turn site data into a useful application. 

CalTa has worked on capturing, managing, and using site data in railway and infrastructure domains and provides a platform for handling infrastructure 3D data through TRANCITY Nebula. TRANCITY ARCADE is an extension of this work: it takes infrastructure data accumulated for management and visualization and extends it into applications for education and experience. 

CAD CENTER has long worked on 3D city models, digital twin visualization, and real-time 3D expression. It has implementation expertise in technologies such as Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles, as well as in spatial visualization, facility environments, and interactive experience design. 

CalTa’s knowledge of infrastructure data use and CAD CENTER’s real-time 3D implementation capabilities come together on a geospatial foundation built with Cesium: 

Cesium ion, the platform for hosting, tiling, and streaming 3D data; 

3D Tiles, the format for efficient and optimized data; and 

Cesium for Unreal, the plugin for unlocking the 3D geospatial ecosystem for game engines. 

Another key characteristic of TRANCITY ARCADE is its no-code approach. Routes, quizzes, and interactive objects can be configured without specialized game development expertise. 

With CalTa, CAD CENTER, and Cesium coming together in TRANCITY ARCADE, site data, geospatial technology, domain understanding, and experience design are integrated, enabling an industrial application for education and training. 

Gamified content being created in TRANCITY ARCADE. Courtesy CalTa Inc. 

From recorded sites to spaces for learning and action 

The value of 3D data expands when it reaches people in a form that supports understanding, learning, judgment, and action. 

TRANCITY ARCADE extends infrastructure data from “3D for viewing” to “3D for using,” creating concrete operational value in education, safety awareness, and facility understanding. Cesium provides the foundation for connecting real-world 3D data to practical applications while preserving geospatial context. 

Get started with your own Cesium ion account. 

インフラデータを、学び、判断し、伝えるための体験空間へ 

In July, we released Sandcastle Copilot, an AI-assisted chat panel built into Sandcastle so developers can create, edit, and debug CesiumJS sandcastles; introduced CAD-style workflow extensions for glTF and 3D Tiles 2.0 to deepen and enhance the ties between infrastructure and interoperability; opened a joint office with Bentley and Seequent in Tokyo as a hub for the 3D geospatial ecosystem; and posted the recorded sessions from the 2026 Cesium Developer Conference, so the community can explore ideas at any time. 

In this month’s releases, we’re continuing to advance our work on BIM and CAD support and vector data in 3D Tiles by: 

Adding support for glTF extensions across Cesium viewers to support CAD-style rendering of design models. These extensions let engineering and design models render with the fills, lines, and points they were authored with. 

Adding support for clamping lines and polygons to terrain to drape vector datasets for accurate visualization. 

Improving performance and fixing bugs to enable loading even larger design models. 

A CAD model rendered in CesiumJS with visible edges drawn without any surfaces (wireframe style).

CesiumJS 1.144 is now available. Highlights of the release include: 

To improve CAD-style rendering, CesiumJS adds support for the Bentley-contributed BENTLEY_materials_planar_fill glTF extension, bringing planar polygon fill with depth sorting and coplanar ordering that keep overlapping surfaces from flickering. 

Vector rendering now supports clamping vector polylines and polygons to terrain with screen-space-constant width lines and per-feature styling through Cesium3DTileStyle. This allows massive, tiled visualization of datasets like road connectivity, rivers, and census blocks that correctly overlay on top of terrain. 

Picking of metadata from WMTS imagery providers now works when the imagery layer is draped on 3D Tiles. 

Added a new Controller framework for creating custom camera controllers. It is more configurable and composable than the preview ScreenSpaceCameraController and is designed to serve asset inspection use cases, including underground models. 

Models using the EXT_mesh_primitive_edge_visibility extension now load with significantly less JavaScript heap (up to 19x less memory). 

2D polygons and lines draped over Cesium World Terrain.

Cesium for Unreal v2.29.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include: 

Cesium Native and Cesium for Unreal added support for the Bentley Systems point style extension, enabling rendering points as circles with varying pixel diameters via the BENTLEY_materials_points_style glTF extension. 

GeoJSON Point and MultiPoint geometry is now rasterized and visualized alongside lines and polygons when loading vector tiles, useful for marking POIs or other locations in your scenes. 

Removed support for Unreal Engine 5.5. Unreal Engine 5.6 or later is now required. 

Points with varying diameter, visualized in Cesium for Unreal on top of Cesium World Terrain draped with Google Maps 2D Contour imagery.

Cesium for Unity v1.25.0 is now available. Highlights of this release include: 

You can now use Cesium for Unity on Linux x86-64. 

Added support for building and running the plugin in Unity 6.5. 

Fixed a bug that prevented the Cesium ion troubleshooting window from opening for a CesiumGeoJsonDocumentRasterOverlay. 

An ion Token Troubleshooting window, opened for a GeoJSON footprint draped on Cesium World Terrain.

Available this week: reconstruct 3D reality models from photos, with technology powered by iTwin Capture. Connect with your account manager for information and access. 

We removed an internal memory limit in the design tiler that could stall tiling on complex IFC files. The trigger was hard to predict from a file's size or contents, so more of these files now tile without hanging.

RikiTraki 2.0 allows users to upload and share hikes they’ve gone on. RikiTraki has evolved alongside CesiumJS for over a decade, including improvements to performance, modularity, and scaling.  

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

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.

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. 

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

Added support for rendering glTFs with line primitives. 

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.

Cesium Releases in September 2026

インフラデータを、学び、判断し、伝えるための体験空間へ

Cesium Releases in August 2026

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 Releases in June 2026