Cesium for Omniverse v0.25.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.16.2

CesiumJS 1.131

Media & Entertainment

The English Premier League reigns supreme among domestic football leagues (soccer in the US), celebrated for its elite talent, fast-paced matches, and unmatched reach. Belgium-based Boost Graphics uses Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to create a series of dynamic 3D map animations, known as locators, that provide a fresh perspective on the geography of the league's stadiums across the United Kingdom for a global TV audience of around 3.2 billion.  

Boost's locator guiding Premier League's TV audience along the River Tyne to the home of Newcastle United, St. James Park. Courtesy Boost Graphics.

Boost Graphics/Premier League: Newcastle United, St. James Park, UK

Tim Van Dingenen, Boost’s technical motion design team lead, explained that the locators are part white-knuckle ride and part geography lesson. “Viewers can learn more about the area of England where the game is being played, and the journey there,” he said. “And we wanted their experience to look as good as something you could capture with a drone or helicopter.” 

The Premier League approached Boost with the project in June 2023, requiring detailed visualizations for each of the league's 20 stadiums. They sought 80 videos, in short and long formats for varying broadcast time, and both day and night versions to match the time of the match.  

And the Premier League required all 80 videos before the start of the 2023-24 season, giving Boost two months to complete the project.  

Boost's Premier League locators come in two versions, tailored for use based on timing of the game. Courtesy Boost Graphics.

Boost has been building 3D maps since 2015, starting with visualizations of the Tour de France for European and US broadcasters. Van Dingenen estimates that building those visualizations took 15-30 hours for each of the race's 21 stages to download a mix of satellite and open-source terrain, landscape, and land mass data, including buildings, forests, and water features. Combining and loading the data into the expansive and detailed scenes required 120 gigabytes of RAM.

Creating interactive 3D visualizations became easier for Boost when Google replaced manually modelled buildings with photogrammetry-based models in Google Earth. It became easier, more realistic, and more performant with Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles.  

Built on open standards and APIs, Cesium for Unreal combines the 3D geospatial capability of Cesium with the high-fidelity rendering power of Unreal Engine, unlocking the 3D geospatial ecosystem for game engines. Cesium for Unreal enabled Boost to integrate multiple data formats, including photogrammetry and purchased BIM models, into their Premier League locators. This capability proved particularly useful in visualizing a completed Everton Stadium, which was undergoing construction while Boost was completing their project.  

Boost was well covered with the other stadiums. Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles offer high-resolution 3D maps in many of the world's populated areas. “You put in the GPS coordinates of where you want to work, and Cesium just immediately loads in everything,” said Van Dingenen. 

Photorealistic 3D Tiles use the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard 3D Tiles format. This format, created by Cesium, efficiently streams massive amounts of data.  

The Boost team made their deadline, with several days to spare. “We did about 90 days of work in 30 days,” said Van Dingenen. He estimates that Cesium for Unreal and accessing Photorealistic 3D Tiles saved Boost around US $75,000 in labor hours. 

Boost's team working with Photorealistic 3D Tiles in Unreal Engine. Courtesy Boost Graphics.

Pairing Photorealistic 3D Tiles with Unreal Engine allowed Boost to replicate natural light, shadows, and fine surface detail viewers would notice in the real world. “We couldn’t have done this without Cesium,” Van Dingenen said while demoing a night fly-over of Everton Stadium, featuring streetlights shimmering off the River Mersey.

Boost Graphics is working on a fresh batch of animations for the 2025-26 Premier League season, which kicks off in August.  

Follow the Cesium for Unreal tutorials to bring immersive 3D geospatial to your Unreal Engine projects.

Boost Graphics Uses Cesium to Give Premier League's Global Audience a Geography Lesson

On any given Sunday, Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles are used to orient and immerse FOX Sports' football fans.

Atlanta to Hollywood on FOX NFL SUNDAY. Courtesy FOX Sports.

FOX NFL SUNDAY Atlanta to Hollywood

For FOX NFL SUNDAY, the XR team builds virtual 3D cities to highlight team locations and then fly to the studio in Los Angeles, where the crew of analysts and Hall-of-Famers comments on the matchups of the day. These immersive 3D models are a new feature this season, enabling FOX Sports to visualize specific skylines and customize them with lighting and atmosphere each week for the best production quality and value. Designed for city scale, Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles show viewers the details they would encounter in the real world and reduce FOX’s need to acquire data in other ways.

FOX Sports' XR team uses Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to build virtual 3D cities to highlight game locations, like the Steelers-Falcons matchup in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Courtesy FOX Sports.

The NFL's 32 teams have 30 full-time stadiums and cities among them, plus the occasional international trip. Because Google Maps Platform’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles pull from Google's extensive high-resolution imagery, FOX Sports is well covered with game locations, and draping this imagery over 3D mesh and formatting it as 3D Tiles provides accurate geospatial context for fans, optimized for streaming for the on-air graphics team.

FOX Sports' XR specialists combine Photorealistic 3D Tiles; their own 2D imagery; and 3D models of clouds, water, watercraft, and hand-modeled trees in Unreal Engine, fusing these disparate datasets of varying sizes, georeferencing them, and streaming them via Cesium ion and Cesium for Unreal. Fans see a polished, realistic scene that seamlessly transitions to commentators in the studio.

“In the past, we’ve used aerial imagery, but we have not encountered a tool that has allowed us as much flexibility and detail as Cesium. We put a high value on our production quality, bringing out the most in our brand,” said Zac Fields, SVP of Graphic Technology at FOX Sports. “Beyond a cool visual, it’s very informative, showing cities around the world with context.”

After seeing the matchup location, the viewer flies to the studio in Los Angeles. Courtesy FOX Sports.

FOX NFL SUNDAY airs at 12 p.m. ET. Fields plans to extend the Cesium/Google combo to other sports, like international soccer and Major League Baseball. 

Learn to add Photorealistic 3D Tiles to your Unreal Engine project, and bring both art and information to your viewers.

Cesium Orients and Informs FOX Sports Football Fans

DiscovAR Dublin, Dublin’s first AR 3D map, uses Cesium for Unity and Google Maps Platform’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles to go beyond traditional guidebooks and internet searches, bringing hidden gems to the city’s explorers on their mobile devices.

DiscovAR Dublin brings real-world 3D data to users to immerse them in the city’s culture, either in Dublin itself or from their homes across the world. Courtesy Peel X.

DiscovAR Dublin brings real-world 3D data to users to immerse them in the city’s culture, either in Dublin itself or from their homes across the world.

DiscovAR Dublin

DiscovAR Dublin was released in summer 2023 and is the fourth experience in the Dublin Discovery Trails app, developed by Peel X. The app won second prize at the European Cultural Tourism Network awards in October 2023.

The other experiences in the app—Balbriggan Heritage Trail, Castleknock Heritage Trail, and Doors into Docklands—rely on 2D to share the area’s rich history. DiscovAR Dublin brings real-world 3D data to users to immerse them in the city’s culture, either in Dublin itself or from their homes across the world. Highlighted locations include Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum, the Guinness Storehouse, and 14 Henrietta Street, a restored 18th century home.

Rather than creating their own separate apps, multiple Dublin stakeholders put their resources into Dublin Discovery Trails, including local authorities, tourism, and the smart city program. 

“These projects are never about downloads and ROI; they’re about user experience and pushing the boundary of the tech,” said Barry Rogers, Dublin City Council member who oversees tourism technology projects. “Cesium enabled us to push boundaries with this experience for our city.”

The Little Museum of Dublin, viewed in DiscovAR Dublin from a hillside in Devon, UK. Courtesy Peel X.

With Cesium for Unity, Google’s Geospatial Creator, and Photorealistic 3D Tiles via Google’s Map Tiles API, Peel X designed DiscovAR Dublin to stream massive 3D datasets as 3D Tiles to users’ iOS and Android devices, balancing a smooth rendering process with bandwidth conservation. Peel X noted Unity’s integrated development environment for building this 3D tourism experience and its ease of output to the mobile marketplace, all helping to get DiscovAR Dublin into the hands of curious travelers. Accurate locations and geospatial context are vital for truthfully representing the city’s landmarks and history and for wayfinding among the attractions. Gamifying a tour of Dublin and presenting the experience in 3D helps with connection for in-person visitors, mobile-only visitors, and even residents. 

Peel X’s Jon Martin, lead developer, and Jessica Wright, managing director, shared their curiosity about the role the metaverse may play in tourism and urban planning in the future. 

“Peel X plan to explore further uses of Cesium within products and outputs over the coming months, not only to enhance existing work but drive new routes to market and offer new solutions to clients. Cesium opens up digital twin capabilities and allows us to blend existing data feeds into a real-time shared experience that will aid complex remote geospatial conversations globally,” Martin and Wright said.

Future 3D experiences in Dublin Discovery Trails could include aerial tours and added interactivity.

Gamifying a tour of Dublin and presenting the experience in 3D helps with connection to the city. Courtesy Peel X.

With cultural information and immersive 3D, DiscovAR Dublin promotes exploration and piques interest for future visits. 

What are you building with Cesium for Unity? Follow our guide to add Photorealistic 3D Tiles to your project.

DiscovAR Dublin Highlights the City’s Hidden Gems with Cesium for Unity

The Red Bull X-Alps 2023 started this week, and you can watch it from anywhere in the world with a live tracking app built on CesiumJS. 

Live tracking the Red Bull X-Alps in 2023.

Red Bull X-Alps 2023 - LIVE TRACKING

This is the twentieth anniversary of the World’s Toughest Adventure Race, a nearly two week long race for the world’s best hike-and-fly athletes, who hike, run, and paraglide across the Alps. Champion Christian Maurer, who has won the previous seven races, will be back to compete against new and returning athletes from around the planet.

Hiking the Red Bull X-Alps. Image © zooom / Lukas Pilz.

While only thirty athletes and their supporters compete, anyone can participate in an immersive digital experience by live tracking the race in an app built by zooom productions with CesiumJS. 

The live tracking app shows the real-time location of athletes. Image © Red Bull X-Alps.

During the last Red Bull X-Alps, the interactive site had more than 4 million visits, not to mention the many more people getting updates on YouTube and social media. 

The race is complex and dynamic. Athletes pass 12 turnpoints in five countries, but between those turnpoints they adapt their routes to the terrain and weather, and given the extended distances and time involved, anything can happen.

Route of the Red Bull X-Alps 2023. Image courtesy Red Bull X-Alps. 

Viewers following the race in real time in the CesiumJS app can view athletes' positions, on land or in air, on a 3D map, along with metrics such as speed, altitude, and remaining distance. 

The athletes wear advanced GPS trackers so viewers can see their precise location–and current mode of travel. Image © Red Bull X-Alps.

“Live Tracking of the race provides fans with an immersive digital experience of this unparalleled race through some of the world’s most picturesque terrain. Cesium was the best framework to achieve our goals.” 

The race began June 11 and will run for nearly two weeks. 

Viewers can join athletes in the cockpit with a first person point of view. The app is built on CesiumJS, and basemaps are provided by Esri. Image © Red Bull X-Alps.. 

To visualize your own GPS tracks or other data in Cesium, check out our CesiumJS Quickstart tutorial. 

Live Tracking Red Bull X-Alps 2023 with CesiumJS

The latest episode of Building the Open Metaverse featured Michael Kass alongside hosts Patrick Cozzi of Cesium and Marc Petit of Epic Games. 

Michael Kass is a Senior Distinguished Engineer at NVIDIA and the overall software architect of NVIDIA Omniverse, NVIDIA's platform and pipeline for collaborative 3D content creation. Prior to NVIDIA, he was a Senior Principal Engineer at Intel, a Distinguished Fellow at Magic Leap, a Senior Research Scientist at Pixar, and a Principal Engineer at Apple Computers. Dr. Kass is also a champion juggler, dancer, and the winner of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement. 

Dr. Kass shared the origin of Omniverse, the vision behind USD, and current work on its optimization in a deep technical discussion. 

“Our idea of the metaverse is that you're going to have some description of the virtual world, which we think the right way to do that is USD. We think that's the way they connect all the metaverses together. And then, having done that, you want to visualize it in a variety of different ways. So, the science fiction literature is all about virtual reality or augmented reality, but there are people who are going to want to interact with these worlds through traditional desktop screens or tablets or anything else. And we want to support it all,” he said. 

Following that, he offered his advice for trying and succeeding at new things: 

“Just expect to be really bad at the new thing when you start it. And don't worry about that. People spend so much of their intellectual and their emotional energy worrying about whether they'll ever succeed at whatever it is, or whether they're being ridiculous, and what people think about them, and if you just avoid that, don't worry about that and just pay attention to what you want to learn and clear your mind of those other thoughts, then it's remarkable how much more progress you can make. So just follow your interest, do it, don't worry, and you'll make a lot more progress than you ever thought you could.”

In conclusion, the conversation turned back to the theme of the podcast and the importance of open standards. 

“I think it's really important for it to take off that it's about open standards like we've been talking about. This is way too big an idea for any one company to try to own and it's way too big, there are too many moving pieces. So I'm simultaneously kind of impressed at how much progress we've made so far, and humbled by how much remains to get to the vision that we have. And the only way we can get to where we want to get to is by harnessing the efforts of so many different people and organizations and putting them all together," Kass said. 

Listen, watch, or read the full episode, or subscribe to the podcast. 

Building the Open Metaverse: Collaboration with NVIDIA Omniverse

The Cesium for Unreal plugin brings geospatial to game engines, making it possible to create high fidelity digital replicas of the real world in Unreal Engine. From visualizing construction site surveys to national park tours, developers can give users access to high resolution virtual environments for insights that aren’t otherwise possible. 

But access to real world data doesn’t limit you to replicating the existing world. Unreal developers can project into the future by visualizing future building developments, analyzing potential solar energy installations, or simulating flight paths. 

Developers can also travel back in time to see what once was in a particular location. Light Heavy Industries, a multimedia design and technology consulting firm, is doing just that with Cesium for Unreal. They’ve created a replica of a fleet of ships that has all but disappeared. 

The Ghost Fleet at Mallows Bay, recreated in Cesium for Unreal by Light Heavy Industries. 

Mallows Bay in Cesium for Unreal by Light Heavy Industries

Mallows Bay

Mallows Bay is a United States national marine sanctuary where the remains of over 100 wooden steamships known as the Ghost Fleet now provide habitats for a variety of local wildlife. 

Photograph from Mallows Bay today, courtesy of Duke University's Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab. 

Most of the ships were built for use in World War I, but the war ended before the ships could be used and they were brought to Mallows Bay, where their metal engines and propellers were to be salvaged. A century later, only a handful of these ships rise much above the waterline.

Few period photos exist that depict the full extent of the fleet at its peak, so we turned to Cesium and Unreal to see what that landscape might have looked like. This is the Future of History. 

With just skeletons of the ships in the water, there’s little to give visitors a sense of the extent of the fleet. To create that visualization, Light Heavy Industries used Cesium for Unreal. 

They started with contemporary and archival aerial imagery datasets, including a comprehensive survey of the site by Duke University's Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab. Light Heavy Industries added these datasets to Cesium ion for streaming into Unreal Engine through the Cesium for Unreal plugin.

In Unreal Engine, Light Heavy Industries placed ship models at the location of the wreck outlines visible on aerial imagery to bring the ships back to life. 

They were able to then accurately position models of Ferris-class cargo vessels, which are typical of most of the ships in the fleet, at the locations where visible wreck outlines can be seen today. There are approximately 85 of these wrecks in all. 

Cesium World Terrain and Unreal Engine’s rendering effects simulate the whole environment of the fleet. 

Light Heavy Industries used Cesium's accurate terrain, in conjunction with Unreal Engine’s water capabilities, volumetric clouds, and exponential height fog, to complete the environment. They then built motion sequences, from which they created a demonstration video. 

Combining water, lighting, and atmosphere effects from Unreal Engine with real-world accuracy from Cesium helps users better imagine what was once here. 

To create your own simulations in Unreal Engine with high resolution terrain, download the Cesium for Unreal plugin. 

Surfacing Long Lost Shipwrecks with Cesium for Unreal

Reality Maps has built a high resolution digital twin of Golf Club Ruhpolding. Ruhpolding, a resort town in Germany, attracts tourists from around the world for both winter and summer outdoor activities. The virtual replica of the golf course, which is built on CesiumJS, captures the beauty, not just of the course itself, but of the surrounding mountains. The app is designed to encourage visitors to book a trip and also supports golfers in planning a visit.

The interactive digital map, created from a fusion of multiple aerial photomosaics and terrain datasets, offers detailed information about the course, each hole, and visitor amenities.

A high resolution digital twin of Golf Club Ruhpolding created by Reality Maps using CesiumJS.

Golf Club Ruhpolding in CesiumJS

Reality Maps created the 3D photogrammetry model from two scans they performed: a fixed wing drone survey of the whole area and a second scan with the Inspire drone of just the resort hotel (which was still under construction during the initial scan). 

The Ruhpolding scan was originally requested to support the robots that cut the grass on the course. 

Using RealityCapture, they created 3D meshes from the scans. In the app, the Alps that surround Ruhpolding come from another dataset collected by Reality Maps. 

The vivid colors of the model are thanks to color enhancement Reality Maps performed on the aerial imagery before texturing.

Reality Maps performs custom scans for customers to digitize their spaces for tourism, navigation, and for smart cities. Reality Maps makes many of these scans, like the scan of Golf Club Ruhpolding, available on the web with Cesium. 

To share your own datasets with Cesium, follow our tutorial to tile your 3D content with Cesium. 

Reality Maps Builds Digital Twins of Golf Resorts in Cesium

The Red Bull X-Alps 2021 race starts this week, and you can watch it from anywhere in the world with a live tracking app built on CesiumJS. 

The Red Bull X-Alps 2019 in the app built on CesiumJS. 

Red Bull X-Alps - Live Tracking 2019

The World’s Toughest Adventure Race is an incredibly intense endurance race through the Alps. When they can, athletes paraglide; otherwise they are running or climbing a route that takes them through many of Europe’s highest mountains.  

Given the terrain, there’s not a lot of roadside fans cheering on the athletes. Instead, the best way to follow the action is with the Live Tracking built by zooom productions with CesiumJS. In fact, because the race has always supported remote fans, it wasn’t disrupted by the pandemic like so many other events have been.

Hannes Maier, Head of Digital at zooom productions, explained why they selected Cesium: 

"Providing live updates in a 3D environment is a critical part of our race planning. Cesium allows us to deliver an unrivaled digital experience for audiences on any browser or device around the world." 

With the app, fans can follow the race online, including seeing athletes’ current GPS position together with detailed terrain models, as well as statistics about athletes’ speed and altitude. The custom-built app uses Esri's World Imagery, which can be served in Cesium through the interoperability of the Cesium and Esri platforms.

The race begins June 20 and will run for nearly two weeks. The Prologue to the race, a 30 km single day race that you can also view with the live tracker, begins June 17. 

Watch the Tenth Red Bull X-Alps Live with Cesium

Light Heavy Industries, a multimedia design and technology consulting firm, is using Cesium for Unreal to develop a virtual reality experience for the National Museum of Industrial History. The project, Echo of Steel, explores the history of Bethlehem Steel, once one of the largest steel producers in the world. 

Echo of Steel exploration of Bethlehem Steel created by Light Heavy Industries for the National Museum of Industrial History, a Smithsonian affiliate.

Preview of Echo of Steel, created by Light Heavy Industries, for the National Museum of Industrial Industry with Cesium for Unreal.

Echo of Steel

“My partner Jim Robb and I began experimenting with the Cesium for Unreal plugin a few days after its release and were amazed at how easy it was to get started. It took only a couple of hours to geolocate our project with Cesium and start experimenting.” 

Prior to the release of Cesium for Unreal, getting any terrain into the model in Unreal Engine involved numerous steps and several different software tools. Adding additional layers or data meant repeating the entire process. With Cesium for Unreal, they were able to add Cesium World Terrain to Echo of Steel in a matter of hours, placing their models in the surrounding terrain. 

Cesium for Unreal made it possible to add high resolution terrain to the model of Bethlehem Steel. 

The project looked good, but was it accurate? To test out the accuracy of the landscape they created a simulation that explored the effects of river flooding on the site. 

Simulation of a 1955 flood at Bethlehem Steel. 

The Bethlehem Steel site is situated on the banks of the Lehigh river, which provided water, cooling, and transportation essential for the plant's operation, but also brought numerous floods, including one in 1942 that crested nearly 26 feet above normal. 

Using Unreal Engine's water system, they created a flood layer and positioned it at the crest's elevation, allowing it to interact with the Cesium-generated terrain. Compare the simulated flood with period photos of the 1942 flood.

1942 photograph of Lehigh river flood at Bethlehem Steel, courtesy of the National Canal Museum.

Simulation of 1942 flood in Cesium for Unreal, created by Light Heavy Industries with Cesium for Unreal.

Light Heavy Industries is still at work on this project and there is more to come. The virtual experience focuses on a high resolution model of Bethlehem Steel built from CAD files, GIS files, archival blueprints, photogrammetry, and current and period site photos. The experience is enhanced by oral histories, anecdotal accounts, and images from the National Museum of Industrial History’s collections. 

Participants will be able to dial in any set of circumstances to experience the plant at day or night, in any season or weather conditions, or even during flooding.

This immersive experience aims to capture not just the space of the steel plant itself, but the look of the sky with the haze generated by the steel operations, the sounds of the plant in operation, and its evolution over time, from the plant’s origins in the 1840s to the present. Echo of Steel will allow users to freely explore the virtual world, so the global context provided by Cesium provides an essential part of the complete experience.

Global terrain and imagery supports the free exploration allowed in the game. 

When complete, Echo of Steel will be available in a VR lab at Pennsylvania’s National Museum of Industrial History. To accommodate pandemic restrictions, Light Heavy Industries is also developing a version of the experience for home use on a conventional computer screen and also an AR version that interprets the physical site on mobile devices as part of an in-depth self-guided walking tour.

Bethlehem Steel Flood Simulation with Cesium for Unreal

Radio Garden visitors navigate a CesiumJS globe to find and listen to radio stations by location. The map invites users to explore connectedness, and uses physical imagery rather than political boundaries and labels, just as radio signals themselves cross borders. The site features a growing collection of more than 17,000 radio stations.

Radio Garden began when the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision invited Jonathan Puckey to develop a museum installation for a research project called Transnational Radio Encounters. Rather than build just a museum exhibit, Puckey put together a free, interactive platform streaming radio stations from around the world.

Because of continued worldwide interest from millions of monthly visitors, in 2019 Jonathan Puckey decided to turn Radio Garden into a company. Together with a small team, he is working towards releasing the next major version, with CesiumJS at its core.

The platform has earned a number of awards, including a 2017 Webby Award for Best Streaming Audio.

Listen to Live Radio Stations around the Globe with Radio Garden

This is a guest post by Tim Jules Hull about his app globaltimoto, which visualizes his motorcycle journey around the world to document local games and sports. The 3D visualization in the app has gone through a number of iterations, from Shockwave to NASA Web WorldWind, before moving to CesiumJS.

I’m Tim Jules Hull, a British computer games developer turned games explorer. Since 2003 I have been traveling around the world on a motorcycle documenting indigenous games and sports culture.

I record traditional games and sports through writing, sketches, photos and videos, which include interviews with the games’ participants. The intention of the project is to learn about culture through traditional play, capture data and promote interest in the subject matter. The long term goal is to create a radically interactive museum of indigenous games culture, be that a virtual, mixed or real space experience.

globaltimoto with CesiumJS: zoomed in and tilted to view of 3D watercolour world with mountains in the distance.

globaltimoto is home to all the research data that I have captured and generated over the years. Last year I rebuilt the site using Cesium, to track my travels and research in a 3D custom map, showing the map markers, clusters and path that I was looking for. In this blog post I’ll walk you through the iterations of my website and why I landed on using Cesium in the most recent version.

Version 1.0 built in 2003 was a Shockwave 3D object with fully interactive and animated 3D globe.

Version 2.0 built in 2005 was pure HTML/CSS and did away with 3D since there was no native browser support.

Version 3.0 conceived in 2012 but built in 2018 was only made possible with Cesium.

Back in 2003 there was no native browser support for 3D. I really wanted to display my journey across a 3D globe, partly because I wouldn’t expect anything less after ten years in video games. A 3D visualization would look cool in a website, and I always disliked the Mercator projection, which gives a very distorted view of the world.

There was only one way to appease my ambition: go against all convention and use a Shockwave 3D object! Yikes—I can hear you all tremble in your boots at the thought of such a horror, powering a website with a plugin. I went ahead and built it anyway.

I created the entire globe and all its separate country objects in 3D Studio Max, one vertex at a time. Each country object had a unique material, which allowed me to select countries to get mouseover labels and to launch country specific views on click. The globe was animated, had horizon fogging, a journey path and even animated objects to point to my current location. The visitor could grab the globe to spin it and zoom.

In 2005 I realized the error of my ways and built a flat HTML/CSSversion of the site using Dreamweaver. I now had two versions of the site, and yes, you could choose from a 2D or 3D view of the site. This made my life even more complex, managing two versions of a site at the same time, all whilst traveling. It got to the point that I didn’t update the site anymore because the mountain of work required made it unappealing.

Version 3.0: 3D again with WorldWind and now CesiumJS

Eventually in 2012 I hid my old site behind a one-pager, with an iFrame containing a Umap and a slider with links to just my latest videos. It was at this time that I began to hope again for 3D supporting browsers, and seeing HTML3D, thought it was time to start designing a new site. However it was still too early for browsers to do all the things I had in mind. Only in 2018 did it seem like a real possibility.

By this time several technologies had been created that I found very appealing. Map tiles had come a long way and Stamen map tiles were particularly eye catching. In particular I liked Stamen’s “watercolour” tiles, which turn even the most mundane locations into beautiful splashes of watercolour. The new site I was designing was intended to have a sketch and watercolour look about it, since I like to draw and paint with watercolours myself. So the Stamen tiles seemed like a perfect match.

Yet those tiles on a 3D sphere still have a very flat appearance. I was very much used to seeing 3D landscapes in video games and was very pleased to see that a technique to draw height, based on elevation data from tiles, was also possible. I began to imagine and mockup how a combination of these tiles might appear, and I really liked the cartoon 3D video game style that it resulted in.

At this time I looked at Cesium, but got stuck because there was an issue with clamping polylines to terrain elevation, and I really wanted a polyline representing the journey’s path. However, NASA Web WorldWind already had this working and offered their elevation tiles as a built-in service. So I started experimenting with NASA Web WorldWind instead. Eventually, I threw in the towel with WorldWind for various issues:

Their tile services were very patchy, often going down.

The browser caching of tiles and subsequent rendering of the tiles had lots of issues resulting in huge chunks of the globe not being rendered, or taking many minutes to render, which was completely unacceptable.

There was a lack of project support and a very small community of active developers.

nwww tile lag

NASA Web WorldWind tile caching and rendering issue.

Ultimately it might have been possible to use external tile sources to mitigate the issue of patchy tile service, but because there was so little response to the browser caching and rendering issues, it was impossible to proceed.

After a month or so of driving into a brick wall with NASA, I checked back with the Cesium forum to see if there had been any movement with clamping polylines to terrain. To my astonishment the issue had been resolved, and my hopes were raised once more.

Journey path clamped to the ground elevation data.

Compared to NASA Web WorldWind, Cesium has a much more active community and many people really pushing to make it a viable web technology. There are lots of examples and demos that give you a quick insight as to what is possible and the code required to make it happen. Importantly, whenever I got stuck, it didn’t take too long for someone to come to my aid with very concrete solutions, workarounds, or likelihood of a fix in future builds.

On the whole Cesium has provided a technical solution to all the main requirements I was seeking:

custom tile source (layers.addImageryProvider + Stamen watercolour)

elevation tiles (createWorldTerrain + MapTiler hills)

It is also important to mention how the app is able to filter post types on the map, via switches for categories.

Filter buttons here only displaying “Game” posts on the map.

One of my favorite features is a timescrub control allowing a visitor to drag the journey start and end dates to update the time sensitive path and markers.

Another important, but less talked about feature I like in Cesium is the ability to customize the help popup, which gives the visitor an indication of what the view controls are. Being able to style this exactly the way I want it, helps tie the interface to my own GUI style.

I just checked back with NASA Web WorldWind, and lo and behold they are going to suspend the project from April 5, 2019. If you’re looking for a way to create customized apps for your 3D data, I recommend Cesium for sharing your 3D projects.

Developing globaltimoto: Moving to CesiumJS, after NASA Web WorldWind and Shockwave

Ever wonder how NORAD is able to track Santa Claus’s progress around the globe on Christmas Eve?

Since 2012, Analytical Graphics, Inc. has used CesiumJS and Bing Maps to power the Santa tracker for NORAD Tracks Santa ®. Today, the popular website attracts more than 20 million visitors wanting to keep tabs on Santa during his magical Christmas Eve journey.

CesiumJS plays an important role in bringing NORAD Tracks Santa to children and parents around the world. Its innovative mapping technology is used to show Santa’s current position on a 3D globe with realistic global terrain, oceans, and imagery. Billboards are used to indicate locations that Santa has already visited, and camera flights smoothly transition the view when users click on a location to view videos of Santa in flight or Wikipedia articles about the areas he’s visited.

Every Christmas Eve, Track Santa's Progress Around the Globe with Cesium and NORAD Tracks Santa®

POP MOVIE is a free web platform offered by the POP COMPANY. Its goal is to provide a diverse library of 360° video experiences that are freely available to anyone, anywhere. Membership is free, so any anyone can join and submit their own 360° content.

POP MOVIE uses the Cesium library to provide location-based information for the 360° videos submitted to the platform. This allows each video to have a corresponding geo-location indicating where it was recorded. POP MOVIE also offers a Cesium-powered POP GLOBE, allowing viewers to browse the collection of 360° video from around the world.

For more information, contact support@pop.company.

ayvri, originally developed byNICTA, offers interactive visualization of GPS logs for sporting activities. 3D visualizations are built with CesiumJS, with terrain powered by Cesium ion.

ayvri serves sporting events, from the Tor des Géants ultramarathon to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc to the Wings for Life World Run. They offer race preview scenes, live-tracking in 3D, and post-race replays, including race-day photos. Events organizers can embed 3D scenes in their own website and apps.

Individual users can also upload GPS track logs (from a smartphone or sports GPS tracker) to be visualized on a 3D map directly in a web browser. They can view multiple GPS tracks at once, synchronize video, photos, and annotations, and share online.

Interactive Visualization of Sporting Activities with ayvri

GeoFS started nearly six years ago. With the increasing quality of aerial images offered by Google Earth and as an aviation (and simulators) enthusiast, I felt frustrated that no flight simulator made good use of this data and decided to build my own. The goal of GeoFS was, and still is, to give users simple access to flying within these environments and the chance to enjoy the view. GeoFS grew more sophisticated as more people started to enjoy it, too. Today, it offers about sixteen aircraft ranging from the Piper Cub to Concorde and A380. Some aircraft are fitted with virtual cockpit rendering.

GeoFS is massively multi-player: users can see and chat with other players. Is also includes joystick support, autopilot, wind system, sound and light effects, replay mode, a map of restricted airspace, and a selection of over 30,000 referenced runways to take off from. The physics engine aims to be as realistic as possible while trying the keep the experience enjoyable for every skill level.

The application was originally built on top of the Google Earth plugin and has only recently been ported to Cesium. Porting to Cesium has been relatively straightforward. My code base abstracts enough of the underlying API to allow for an easy replacement. One of the best things resulting from the migration was that GeoFS now runs (and rather well) on mobile platforms. Running a native web technology is also much more logical and comfortable: using a Javascript debugger was a real burden with the NPAPI plugin but is as natural as it should be when using Cesium. Some major differences, however, led to some parts of GeoFS being entirely rewritten. For example, what are known as “Overlays” in the Google Earth plugin had to be replaced (this turned out to be for the best) with native HTML/CSS3 animations. Complex aviation instruments are being rendered with this technique, and performance was a concern but proved, eventually, to be very satisfactory.

Cesium is a relatively young platform, and the inevitable quirks had to be dealt with. But this is where the open source approach is making a real difference: I could easily browse through the code to understand problems, and even fix them myself if needed. And of course, much improvement and growth is expected in the near future. The API documentation has proven to be very good, and there are now plenty of examples to get inspiration from. Overall performance and stability are very satisfying, without much effort put into optimization.

Access Global, Photorealistic Flight Simulation with GeoFS

Jumplogis an application for skydivers that allows users to manage their skydiving logbook online, share it with friends, and access it from any DZ (drop zone) in the world, using desktops, tablets, or smartphones. The site initially used the Google Earth plugin for 3D visualization of the jumps but has migrated to Cesium.

Users can sync with Paralog and Paralog Mobile, add GPS and freefall logger data, manage rigs online, and receive repack reminders by email. They can also sign jumps online or send signature requests by email. Real-time animation for jumps recorded with GPS is coming soon.

Take a tour of the demo account to explore the site.

Visualize Skydiving Jumps Recorded by GPS devices with Jumplog

Since 2004, Paralog has been used to judge wingsuit performance competitions.

In 2008, the Paralog Performance Competition added online real-time judging and online sharing of the results. The site initially used the Google Earth plugin for 3D visualization of the flights but migrated to Cesium in response to the announced end-of-life and limited availability of this plugin. Migration went smoothly, and resulted in an improved user experience since Cesium does not require users to install a plugin. Additionally, thanks to Cesium the site is now available on all major platforms including Linux, smart phones, and tablets, and has a number of improved features, including integration between the charts and 3D views through JavaScript.

For 12 years, Paralog and the Paralog Performance Competition have supported wingsuit performance flying with more than 70 successfully judged competitions and more than 8,800 processed wingsuit performance flights. Paralog now also has real-time playback.

In 2015 the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) International Parachuting Commission (IPC) adopted the rules developed by and for the Paralog Performance Competition as the official international rules for wingsuit performance flying by choosing Paralog and the Paralog Performance Competition website as the official judging system.