Registration is now open for the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference! Save your spot.

Cesium for Omniverse v0.25.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.16.1

CesiumJS 1.130

Latest news

I’m delighted to announce a new cohort of Cesium Ecosystem grantees. These recipients impressed us with their commitment to the 3D geospatial ecosystem by strengthening integrations and lowering the barrier to entry.   

Java Mission-planning and Analysis for Remote Sensing (JMARS) is an open source, widely adopted tool for planetary data analysis, available to NASA scientists, mission teams, and the public for over two decades. The Planetary Parfait project from the JMARS team will turn Cesium Moon Terrain into a tool to collect planetary data, support collaborative analysis, and assist astronaut training. The result will be an open source generalizable system that reconciles various coordinate systems and map projections, enabling seamless integration of custom science data layers with Cesium Moon Terrain. 

Imagery and quantized mesh support from Cesium ion to 3D Tiles plugin for Three.js

This follow-up grant to Garrett Johnson will focus on expanding the 3DTilesRendererJS project’s support for basic geospatial visualizations (topographic lines) and available data formats (TMS, QMesh) for Three.js. Expanding on quantized mesh support, support for Cesium ion imagery will be added to the 3D Tiles renderer, affording users access to Cesium’s bathymetry, night, Bing, and more image data sets on the quantized mesh terrain in Three.js. The result of this grant will increase the geospatial capabilities of Three.js while also connecting Cesium ion more closely with the Three.js ecosystem.

We’ll share updates on these projects in the coming months. If you have an idea to expand the 3D geospatial ecosystem by increasing interoperability or improving access, submit an application for a Cesium Ecosystem Grant! The application window closes May 31, 2025, and will reopen July 1, 2025! 

Cesium Announces New Cohort of Ecosystem Grantees

GEOINT Symposium is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s where the geospatial intelligence community comes together to share how we’re advancing national security through geospatial innovation, and Cesium is proud to once again sponsor and participate. 

Next week, May 19-21, you can find us in St. Louis at BOOTH 2231, where we’ll showcase the latest from Cesium’s 3D geospatial platform, from open standards to secure, mission-ready deployments, from seabed to space.

Visit Cesium in BOOTH 2231 at GEOINT Symposium 2025.

our Moon Lander Game, built with Cesium for Unreal and Cesium Moon Terrain,

One World Terrain Well Formed Format, powered by 3D Tiles, and

daily partner demos, including Ansys, Sedaro, The Weather Company, and C3.AI.

Working in a disconnected or classified environment? We’ll also highlight Cesium ion Self-Hosted and how it's supporting high-side workflows today.

You’ll also get a look at CesiumJS, Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, Cesium for Omniverse, and the new 3D Tiles for Godot plugin, developed through our ecosystem grant program.

Don’t miss Patrick Cozzi’s keynote on Monday, May 19, at 1:30 p.m. in the Government Hub, and the USGIF Modeling, Simulation & Gaming Working Group on Tuesday, May 20, at 4:15 p.m.

And, of course, join a great crew from across the geospatial community at the Cesium Reception Monday night at the Marriott St. Louis Grand, from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. 

Stop by BOOTH 2231 or reach out to schedule time with the team. We look forward to connecting with you at GEOINT.

The Cesium Design Tiler now preserves metadata from Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) when tiling into 3D Tiles. This capability has been a popular request from our community and will enable new workflows in architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) projects combining the built and natural environment in a 3D geospatial context. 

Metadata support includes IFC attributes, property sets, and properties. Property sets are groups of related properties displayed under a common heading. When IFC data is converted into 3D Tiles, this common heading is prepended to the name of each property in the set, ensuring a unique name for each property within the tileset.

IFC attributes, property sets, and properties within 3D Tiles. Data source: BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International—accessible via GitHub.

Users can combine IFC metadata with styling and filtering in CesiumJS to show and hide content based on properties such as IFC class name, globally unique identifier (GUID), or other fields. This enhanced interactivity enables users to focus on the most relevant elements of a complex design model. 

Filtering model content based on IFC class name and GUID in CesiumJS. Data source: BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International—accessible via GitHub.  

Filtering model content based on IFC class name and GUID. Data source: BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International—accessible via GitHub.  

Cesium Design Tiler: IFC Metadata Filtering

IFC metadata can also be used to shade content based on length, area, volume, and other properties. Shading helps AECO project stakeholders visualize and understand the underlying metadata, so they get the insights they need from the model. 

Color ramp shading based on an IFC length property in Cesium for Unreal. Data source: BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International—accessible via GitHub.

The Design Tiler is available via Cesium ion SaaS and Cesium ion Self-Hosted 1.6, and we’ll share its performance in an upcoming blog post. 

Create a Cesium ion account and upload your IFC data to unlock the potential of your design data as 3D Tiles. 

Cesium Design Tiler Now Supports IFC Metadata

We are excited to announce the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference!  

The in-person event, June 23-25 in Philadelphia, PA, USA, is designed to enable the community to connect and share their latest innovations and experiences featuring open technologies that reflect the diversity and impact of the ecosystem, such as geospatial capabilities for 3D creation engines, CesiumJS, iTwin, 3D Tiles, and open data. The conference will be hosted by Bentley Systems and will feature presentations and speakers from across the open geospatial community. 

Philadelphia, home of the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference.

The conference will reflect the inclusiveness and range of the application of geospatial developer technologies applied to digital twins in AEC, the aerospace industry, gaming and simulation, and many other domains. This inaugural event will feature technically oriented, community-driven tracks and a limited-space pre-conference day. 

We encourage the community to submit a lightning talk or full talk, actively participate in sessions, and celebrate openness and interoperability with hundreds of developers and creators at the event. The submission page is here, and the submission window will close February 28, 2025. 

General conference registration will open up in February. 

We’re excited to be able to host the event this year! The community has guided Cesium’s progress, and we look forward to working together to make connections and grow the open ecosystem further through the conference. 

Use this form to submit your presentation, or drop us a line at hello@cesium.com to tell us what matters most to you. 

Updated February 24, 2025: We extended the talk submission deadline after initially publishing this blog.

Present at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference

Cesium VP of Business Development and Sales Operations Danny Williams has received a Patriot Award from Pennsylvania Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), an office of the US Department of Defense. This award recognizes extraordinary support for employees in the National Guard and Reserve.

The Patriot Award recognizes the combined commitments of Danny and Cesium.

Brady Moore, formerly Director of Mission Support at Cesium and a Major in the US Army Reserve, nominated Danny for the award. Brady serves as an Innovation Officer at 75th Innovation Command in New York City, where he specializes in Dense Urban and Subterranean operations.

“Danny provided exceptional support for my Reserve service. His vocal appreciation created a positive and supportive work environment, and he made sure my responsibilities were covered and my return to work was as smooth as possible,” Brady said.

Major General Wes Craig, Pennsylvania Chair Emeritus and Southeast Area Chair of ESGR, presented the award to Danny at the Cesium office in Philadelphia in December 2024. “It would be difficult for those in the uniformed services to perform their mission without employer support,” he noted.

Wes Craig, Danny Williams, and Brady Moore during the award ceremony.

“We are very honored to be recognized with this award and support those who serve in the Reserve Forces. We appreciate the values, leadership, and unique skills servicemembers bring to the workforce. I’ve worked with veterans and members of the Guard and Reserve throughout my career and have always appreciated the perspective and dedication they bring to their work,” Danny said.

Cesium recognizes that experience comes in many forms and development is continuous. Interested in joining us? Take a look at our open roles.

Danny Williams Honored with Patriot Award

Cesium has partnered with NORAD since 2012 to provide updates on Santa Claus’s real-time location in 3D on Christmas Eve. Millions of children and their grownups tune in via the CesiumJS-powered app each December 24.

Santa’s previous journeys have taken him over New Zealand on the way to the International Space Station.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), based in Colorado, USA, defends North America by tracking objects flying in and around its airspace. NORAD tracks Santa one night a year, while providing warnings and defense year round. The NORAD Tracks Santa program was born in the 1950s from a call from a child meant for a department store—but who would know better than NORAD about where the flying Kris Kringle is? This is the program’s 69th year.

All curious Santa-trackers with an internet connection can follow the jolly old elf’s progress online on December 24. Continuous location information from NORAD sensors, an accurate virtual globe, a 3D model of Santa’s sleigh, the star map, and special effects like snow bring this dynamic data to life, visualized in CesiumJS.

Cesium founder/Bentley Systems Chief Platform Officer Patrick Cozzi highlighted the NORAD Tracks Santa program during Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure conference in October 2024.

NORAD Tracks Santa at Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure 2024

Savvy readers might be wondering how NORAD tracks someone who moves faster than starlight and how Cesium visualizes those rapidly changing locations at any given time. You can geek out with us over the computer graphics and geospatial tech behind the app in this post. 

We’re happy to volunteer our time to continue this festive work in a serious way. Track The Big Guy and your favorite reindeer all day on December 24.

Follow Along as NORAD Tracks Santa with Cesium

Join Cesium at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Florida, from December 2-5! I/ITSEC is the world’s largest gathering of professionals in modeling, simulation, and training, and we’re excited to be a part of it once again.

Stop by BOOTH 221 for Cesium demos curated specifically for the modeling, simulation, and training community.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect:

 I/ITSEC is a great opportunity to engage directly with our leadership and engineering teams. We look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions and demonstrate the latest capabilities from Cesium. 

We will also be hosting a Cesium Happy Hour at our booth on Tuesday from 3-5PM.

Announced last year at I/ITSEC, Cesium ion Self Hosted provides an offline capability for hosting, tiling, and streaming massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets. When Cesium customers need to move their solution to the high side or a disconnected environment, Cesium ion Self-Hosted is the way to go. 

At I/ITSEC this year, we will feature a dedicated station where you can get hands-on experience with Cesium ion Self-Hosted. Like what you see and want to try it out in your environment? You can sign up for a free 30-day evaluation of Cesium ion Self-Hosted right at the booth.

Cesium ion, the solution for hosting, tiling, and streaming 3D geospatial data, is now available for your own environment as Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Cesium ion Self-Hosted

Explore Cesium Global 3D Content and Tiled Partner Data

We’ll also have all the Cesium Global 3D Content offline locally in our booth. This is the same data we ship to our Cesium ion Self-Hosted customers for hosting in their own local environment. 

Interact with these datasets in a Cesium Story hosted locally by Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Cesium Moon Terrain: the first complete, accurate, and readily-accessible 3D dataset of the moon.

Cesium World Bathymetry:  a global bathymetry and topographic terrain tileset that enables 3D visualizations, simulations, and analytics for use cases like oil and gas exploration, navigation for unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs), managing offshore wind farms, and analyzing essential climate science.

Japan 3D Buildings and Regional Terrain Data: Providing a foundation for building digital twin applications and solutions in Japan.

Vexcel 3D Cities: High-quality 3D data models for more than 60 metro areas across the globe available for offline use with Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Live demos of Cesium’s open source plugins for today’s leading creation engines like Unreal Engine and Unity

Built on open standards and APIs, these plugins combine the 3D geospatial capability of Cesium and 3D Tiles with today’s leading creation engines.

Cesium for Unreal - Integrated with Unreal Engine Editor, Actors and Components, Blueprints, and other UE features to enable a high degree of interactivity, physical realism, and photorealism to create amazing experiences.

Cesium for Unity - Cesium for Unity is tightly integrated with Unity making it possible to visualize and interact with real-world content in editor and at runtime. The plugin also has support for Unity game objects, physics, collisions, and character interaction.

Cesium for Omniverse - Cesium for Omniverse enables users to visualize and interact with a full-scale, high fidelity WGS84 globe within NVIDIA Omniverse to create, visualize, and analyze simulations in their precise 3D geospatial context.

Cesium Native - Cesium Native powers Cesium's runtime integrations and is an open source foundational layer for any 3D geospatial software, especially those that want to stream 3D Tiles.

A First Look at Cesium’s all new Design Tiler

To improve workflows and capabilities that place architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) content in a 3D geospatial context, Cesium has developed a new Design Tiler and Revit Add-In, now available for early access and feedback via our AECO Tech Preview Program.

These tools transform IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) and Revit files into 3D Tiles, the OGC community standard created by Cesium for streaming massive 3D geospatial datasets

Cesium has developed a new Design Tiler and Revit Add-In, now available for early access and feedback via our AECO Tech Preview Program. These tools transform IFC and Revit files into 3D Tiles, the OGC community standard created by Cesium for streaming massive 3D geospatial datasets. Join us in connecting architecture and geospatial.

Connecting Architecture and Geospatial: AECO Tech Preview Program

CesiumJS Example with One World Terrain’s Well Formed Format based on 3D Tiles: 

The past year has seen many great developments for 3D Tiles, including its use by NBC Sports for broadcast coverage of the Paris Summer Games. 

At I/ITSEC, we will be showing how we continue to evolve this OGC Community Standard developed by Cesium including specific enhancements that are part of the U.S. Army’s One World Terrain Contract. Stop by our booth to see live demos of new features in the One World Terrain Well Formed Format (WFF),  an extension of 3D Tiles.

Once again Cesium will bring partners into the booth to showcase how they are utilizing the Cesium Platform. Stay tuned for specific days and times these demos will be shown. 

Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), Gaming Research Integration Learning Laboratory (GRILL)  -  Presenting Glimmer, a VR application with Cesium Moon Terrain. (Wed. 1:30-6 pm; Thurs. 9:30 am- 3 pm)

Battle Road - Presenting AtomEngine, an Earth-scale realtime multiplayer simulation using Cesium World Terrain as well as their custom Cesium for Godot integration. (Tues. noon-6:30 pm; Wed. 9:30 am-1:30 pm)

Reveal - Presenting Farsight, a mobile first platform providing surveillance video, 2D, and 3D geospatial data for use in decentralized, comms-limited environments. (Tues. 2-6:30 pm; Wed. 1-30-6 pm)

Brightline Interactive - Presenting SpatialCore, Leveraging USD to bring AI to 3D environments with Cesium geospatial context. (Mon. 2-6 pm; Tues. noon-2 pm)

LuxCarta - Presenting BrightEarth, a web service that uses AI-enhanced production techniques offering high resolution building and tree extraction from from a range of sub-meter imagery sources rendered with CesiumJS. (Mon. 2-6 pm; Wed. 9:30 am-1:30 pm)

Northrop Grumman - presenting Helix, which uses Cesium for Omniverse to visualize generated synthetic training data. (Thurs. 9:30 am-3 pm)

Stop by BOOTH 221 or reach out to schedule time with the team. We look forward to connecting with you in Orlando!

Cesiumは、Japan 3Dコンテンツをアップデートしました。このコンテンツには、新たに Japan Regional Terrainが加わりました。このデータセットは、国土地理院 (GSI) が公開している基盤地図情報に基づいています。 Japan Regional Terrainデータセットは、1mから10mの解像度で日本の高解像度地形面を提供します。Japan Regional TerrainとJapan 3D Buildingsデータセットの組み合わせは、デジタルツインアプリケーションとソリューションを構築するための基盤を提供します。 

また、Japan 3D Buildingsもアップデートしました。 Japan 3D Buildingsは、 国全体の単一データセットで、 日本の国土交通省PLATEAUプラットフォームのオープンソースCityGMLデータセットから派生したものです。

アップデートには以下が含まれます： 

利用可能な高解像度地形に合わせて、建物の高さを更新

PLATEAUのCityGMLデータで利用可能な橋梁要素の追加

これらのアップデートは、都市計画、開発提案、複数の建築設計オプションの提示、現実的な日照・日影調査のためのデジタルツインビジュアライゼーションの作成において、Japan 3D Buildingsの全体的な精度と使いやすさの向上に役立ちます。

Japan 3D Buildingsに2,000以上の橋梁要素が加わりました。

このアップデートは、日本の国土交通省のPLATEAU 3D都市モデルデータからコンパイルされ、日本全国にある2,300万以上の3D建物と2,000以上の3D橋梁が含まれています。 この3Dデータは、Cesium ion Asset Depotを通じて、Cesium ion Stories、Cesium JS、またはUnreal、Unity、Nvidia Omniverse用のランタイムで使用できる単一のタイルセットとして提供されます。

CesiumJSで地形と橋を更新したJapan 3D Buildings。

このリリースは、前回のJapan 3D Buildingsに続き、Cesiumの重要なパートナーであり、Cesium Certified DeveloperでもあるPacific Spatial Solutions (PSS)社の協力によって実現しました。PSSは、地理空間に関する深い知識と優れたデジタルツイン技術を持ち、協力的なアプローチが評価されている信頼性の高い団体であり、日本政府からも重要なデータセットの管理を任されています。

「Cesium社がCesium ion のアセットとして配信する国交省PLATEAUの3D都市モデルと、この度リリースされた高解像度のPLATEAU地形データとともに利用すれば、これまで個人や企業では実現困難であった高精度の3Dデータの活用が劇的に簡単になります。だれでも高精度3Dデータが活用できる時代の到来です！」Pacific Spatial Solutions 株式会社　代表取締役 今木 洋大 様

Japan 3D BuildingsとJapan Regional Terrainデータセットは、Cesium ion Asset Depotで直接ご利用いただけます。アクセスするには、Cesium ion にサインインするか、サインアップして、「My Assets 」に追加してストリーミングを開始してください。

最新のデータを、自己環境でストリーミングしたい場合には、セールスチームにお問合せ下さい。Japan 3D Buildings と Japan Regional Terrain データは Cesium ion Self-Hostedでも利用可能です。

Cesium has released updates to our available Japan 3D Content. Our content offerings now include Japan Regional Terrain data. This dataset is based on the Fundamental Geospatial Data published by Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI). The Japan Regional Terrain dataset provides a high resolution terrain surface of Japan with resolutions ranging from 1m to 10m. The combination of Japan Regional Terrain with Japan 3D Buildings provides a foundation for building digital twin applications and solutions. 

We’ve also updated Japan 3D Buildings. Japan 3D Buildings is a single, countrywide dataset derived from Japan’s MLIT Plateau Platform open source CityGML datasets. The update includes: 

Updated building heights that align with available high resolution terrain

Addition of bridge features available in PLATEAU’s CityGML data

These updates will improve the overall accuracy and usability of Japan 3D Buildings in the creation of digital twin visualizations for urban planning, development proposals, presenting multiple building design options, and realistic sun and shadow studies.

Japan 3D Buildings now includes over 2,000 bridge features.

This update is compiled from Japan’s MLIT PLATEAU 3D City model data and contains more than 23 million 3D buildings combined with over 2,000 3D bridge features across Japan. This 3D data is made available in a single tileset available through the Cesium ion Asset Depot that can be used with Cesium Stories, CesiumJS, or our runtimes for Unreal Engine, Unity, and NVIDIA Omniverse.

Japan 3D Buildings with updated terrain and bridges in CesiumJS.

We’d like to recognize our valued partner and Cesium Certified Developer, Pacific Spatial Solutions (PSS), whose expertise in geospatial and digital twin technology has been instrumental in this release. They previously supported us in releasing Japan 3D Buildings. PSS’s deep knowledge and collaborative approach have made them a reliable partner, earning the trust of the Japanese government in managing critical datasets.

“Together with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's PLATEAU 3D city model distributed by Cesium as a Cesium ion asset and the recently released high-resolution PLATEAU terrain data, the use of high-precision 3D data, which has been difficult for individuals and companies to achieve, will become dramatically easier. The era in which anyone can utilize high-precision 3D data has arrived!” - Hiroo Imaki, President, Pacific Spatial Solutions

The Japan 3D Building and Japan Regional Terrain dataset are available directly in the Cesium ion Asset Depot. To access, sign into Cesium ion, or sign up, and add them to “My Assets” to start streaming. 

Contact our sales team to learn how you can stream this data from your own environment. Japan 3D Buildings and Japan Regional Terrain data can also be licensed with Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Japan 3D コンテンツのアップデート

We are excited to announce that Battle Road will create an open source Cesium plugin for the Godot Asset Library with support from a Cesium Ecosystem Grant. 


Battle Road is the developer of AtomEngine, a platform for simulation and modeling at planet scale, and has experience working with both Cesium and Godot technologies. Godot Engine is the largest cross-platform, free, and open source game engine. Enabling Cesium in Godot will bring performant and precise 3D data to an expanded global audience and is in line with our commitment to an open ecosystem for developers.

“Our open source plugin to integrate Cesium with Godot will enable developers to bring real-world 3D geospatial data into an accessible, flexible game engine,” said Josh Henderson, CEO and co-Founder of Battle Road. “This opens up a whole new range of possibilities for innovation in gaming, simulations, education, and other real-world applications across industries.”

AtomEngine, Battle Road’s platform using both Godot and Cesium.

Battle Road will create the Cesium plugin for Godot using Cesium Native, our open source library that powers runtime integrations in Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium for Omniverse.  

The Cesium plugin for Godot will bring a base WGS84 globe and experience to the Godot community, including global imagery and support for Cesium World Terrain and Cesium World Bathymetry. Included in the plugin will be 3D Tiles 1.0 and 1.1 mesh and point cloud support, giving users access to the streamable, optimized format designed to tap the potential of today’s ever-growing collection of 3D geospatial data. Beyond data interoperability, Battle Road will build interactivity (physics), platform support, and learning content to make the plugin open and accessible for the Godot community.

Work is underway, with plans to make the plugin available in early 2025.

Applications for Cesium Ecosystem Grants will reopen on October 1, 2024. The grant program is Cesium’s $1 million commitment to advancing openness and interoperability in 3D geospatial. 

If you or your organization are increasing ecosystem interoperability, supporting open source software and open standards, or creating educational advancements that address challenges and opportunities in 3D geospatial, you may be eligible for a grant. Visit Cesium Ecosystem Grants to learn more. 

We look forward to supporting this and other contributions to the open source and 3D geospatial community.

Cesium Ecosystem Grant Supports Development of Cesium Plugin for Godot

Each quarter, Cesium holds a company-wide meeting we call “the Refactor.” Borrowed from the software term that means improving the design of existing code, we gather as a team to refactor the strategy, the roadmap, and the operations of Cesium.

The Refactor is an expanded version of our weekly company-wide demo days, providing an opportunity for everyone at Cesium to revisit our vision, report on shared goals, and get up to speed on company news, finances, and activities. Together we welcome new team members, celebrate accomplishments, review lessons learned, and plan for the future. We also share lots of demos, from what we’re working on internally to Cesium projects built by the community.

2024 summer Refactor and event highlights.

Each quarter, Cesium holds a company-wide meeting we call, “the Refactor.” Borrowed from the software term that means improving the design of existing code, we gather as a team to refactor the strategy, the roadmap, and the operations of Cesium.

Cesium Refactor Summer 2024

This summer, we held our latest quarterly Refactor at Cesium Headquarters in Philadelphia. Team members flew in from across the country—and across the world—for the meeting and surrounding events.

The Cesium team gathered at HQ in Philadelphia. 

Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi opened the day with a welcome address and trip report from his experience at the DoD Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC). JCOC enables business and community leaders to gain first-hand experience through operations and interactions with troops and military leaders across the US armed forces.

Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi in Alaska at the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC).

Special guest speaker, Desa Burton, Executive Director of Zip Code Wilmington, gave the opening keynote. Zip Code Wilmington is a non-profit coding bootcamp in nearby Delaware, established to support the economic development of the state by providing accessible software development training to high-potential individuals. 

She shared her career journey, including service as a US Navy Surface Warfare Officer, intellectual property attorney, and adjunct law professor.

Desa Burton, Executive Director of Zip Code Wilmington, gave the opening keynote. 

In the afternoon, Patrick hosted a fireside chat with Peter Rabley, CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Patrick and Peter discussed the importance of interoperability and open standards in the geospatial ecosystem. Peter laid out his plans for the future of OGC, including bolstering support for research academics, increasing speed to standardization, and an increased focus on member success. 

Newly installed CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Peter Rabley, with Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi. 

Team members presented on recent highlights including the addition of new datasets, Japan 3D Buildings, Vexcel 3D Cities, and Cesium Moon Terrain. We also celebrated open source CesiumJS reaching 10 million lifetime downloads, our first Federal Technical Exchange Meeting, improvements to Cesium ion Self-Hosted, and SIGGRAPH. For more of the latest Cesium news, check out the Cesium blog. 

Team member Ashley Rogers presented on custom ellipsoids ahead of the launch of Cesium Moon Terrain.

Events throughout the week included team building activities such as ax throwing and archery, as well as our annual summer picnic.

Special guest Benjamin Franklin entertains team members at the annual summer picnic in Franklin Square. 

Cesium team members from Business Development and Communications.

Watch the video for some Refactor highlights. If you would like to participate in the next Cesium Refactor, join the team! Keep your eye on our careers page to explore our open roles.

Globe view of UNICiv, showing sites from 1800 BCE - 1500 CE. The Legananny Dolmen in Ireland is selected.

Interactive digital maps display detailed contemporary geographic information, increasingly in 3D, for navigation, exploration, and virtual travel. What the world looked like near the beginnings of human civilization, however, is more difficult to discover, search, and visualize. Cesium Research’s most recent publication, UNICiv: A Universal Navigation Interface to Civilization, explores Cesium’s ability to support 3D models of ancient and historic sites within their geographical and temporal context.

Developed over the summer by Cesium's Yuhan Liu and led by Dr. Norman Badler, Head of Research, UNICiv is an extensible, universal, spatio-temporal interface that leverages Cesium for Unreal and 3D Tiles to visualize structures of the distant past. As a demonstration and education tool, UNICiv’s applications range from cultural heritage to urban planning. The UNICiv publication has been accepted as a full research paper to the Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage (GCH 2024). 

GCH is the premier technical meeting for novel digital technologies in the cultural heritage domain, fostering discussions in AI, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, and Human-Computer Interaction.

UNICiv offers over 30 explorable 3D models of historic and archaeological sites around the world, displayed collectively on a single interactive globe. These models are produced by archaeologists, independent artists, or research projects from institutions and nonprofits. Sites range in time from 8000 BCE to 1500 CE. Examples include Neolithic monuments like Stonehenge, ruins of Bronze Age villages, and Greco-Roman temples. These models have been curated and imported into Cesium for Unreal through Cesium’s integration with Sketchfab. The models are imported into Unreal using Cesium’s plugin and placed on top of Cesium World Terrain with Bing Maps Aerial imagery.

Users can explore the past in 3D using UNICiv’s interface. Start by navigating a Cesium globe where ancient structures are highlighted as pins. The timeline interface indexes sites that appear on the globe. When users select a site, they are taken on a flight path to its geolocated model, where they can use traditional game controls to explore. Users can build their personalized list of sites to save, compare, and present their findings. Additionally, some locations offer reconstructed visualizations that can be overlaid on current-day ruins, providing a unique perspective on how these ancient sites once appeared.

Perspective view of the reconstructed Old Temple at Pachacamac in Peru. Site list controls set to Common Era (0-1500 CE). Cesium World Terrain shows the present-day view of the Lima Province. Model courtesy of Aline Normoyle, Clark Erickson, and Norman Badler, used with permission.

La Motilla del Azuer, 3D Model from Global Digital Heritage on SketchFab. Tour site list shows manually added fortification sites.

Amphitheatre of Butrint, 3D Model by Ørjan Sandland, imported from Sketchfab (CC Attribution). Simultaneous Site List shows all sites with reconstructions (not pictured) available to view. The Albanian mountains are part of Cesium World Terrain with Bing Maps Aerial Imagery.

Temple of Apollo - Naxos Greece, 3D Model by Vasilis Haroupas on SketchFab. Simultaneous Site List shows all available BCE models. Terrain from Cesium World Terrain with Bing Maps Aerial Imagery.

From incorporating more models to iterating on user experience, UNICiv is an ongoing research project with exciting directions for future work. A significant task for the future would be to incorporate and reverse-engineer significant geographical changes to experience the natural environment experienced by the earth’s earliest inhabitants. In the meantime, UNICiv provides a uniform, 3D geospatial, contextualized interface to the re-discovered past.

The UNICiv publication was one of eight full research papers accepted to the 22nd Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage 2024. The Cesium research team is excited to present at the conference, which takes place September 16–18, 2024, in Darmstadt, Germany.

UNICiv is a powerful tool for visualizing temporal change on a global scale, especially in cultural and historical preservation. Initial user evaluations have highlighted UNICiv’s significant potential for advancing archaeological demonstration, education, and exploration. Furthermore, the UNICiv interface becomes increasingly adept at capturing the development of human civilization as more 3D models are integrated into it. Thus, the Cesium research team plans to soon provide open access to the UNICiv resource and welcomes collaborations and user contributions. Contact Dr. Norm Badler to express your interest in UNICiv.  

For help getting started on your own project with Cesium for Unreal, visit the Learning Center. 

Cesium Research's Universal Navigation Interface to Civilization (UNICiv) Accepted for Publication and Presentation at Eurographics Conference

Today, we are thrilled to share that Cesium Moon Terrain, the first readily accessible single, comprehensive 3D Tileset of the Moon, is now available.

Cesium Moon Terrain is composed of precise terrain and imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) program and other sources, and is provided as 3D Tiles, the Open Geospatial Consortium Community Standard created by Cesium.

Cesium Moon Terrain is the first complete, precise, and readily-accessible 3D Tileset of the Moon. Sign up or Sign in to Cesium ion to explore. 

Learn more at Cesium.com

Cesium Moon Terrain

“We launched Cesium Moon Terrain as an accurate and interoperable 3D Tiles canvas to support the international interest in lunar exploration and building structures on the moon's surface,” said Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi. “Cesium Moon Terrain will enable engineers, system integrators, and digital content creators to build simulations, mission plans, and real-time operations experiences.”

Cesium Moon Terrain visualized in Cesium for Unreal

Cesium Moon Terrain was recently demonstrated at the Digital Twin for Lunar Development Workshop held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The workshop brought the space enterprise community together to focus on advancing digital twins for NASA and the creation of an open, interoperable platform for a lunar digital ecosystem.

As early adopters, Ansys has utilized 3D Tiles in both their Systems Tool Kit (STK) and their RF Channel Modeler software to help users easily incorporate geospatially accurate datasets into their digital mission modeling and systems modeling engineering capabilities. Users are able to directly understand impacts of terrain in challenging locations such as lunar polar regions to accurately analyze communications system designs.

The Copernicus Crater, visualized in Cesium for Unreal

Another early adopter, Buendea, is collaborating with the NASA Advanced Operations Concept Lab on developing the XR Operations Support System (XOSS) to support real-time simulations on the Moon and Mars. Buendea is interested in Cesium Moon Terrain for its potential to enhance their ongoing projects.


“We’re excited about the potential of Cesium Moon Terrain to accelerate our work, including our efforts with NASA, to accurately plan and simulate explorations of the lunar surface,” said Julian Reyes, Founder of Buendea.

Cesium's Dave Braig presenting at the Digital Twins for Lunar Development Workshop at NASA's JPL

To access Cesium Moon Terrain, sign up for an account, or sign in to Cesium ion and add the tileset to your Asset Library from the Cesium ion Asset Depot. Once added, create a Cesium Story, incorporate the data into a web application with CesiumJS, or build advanced visualizations with Cesium for Unreal and Cesium for Unity.

Each of these visualization engines have been updated to enable non-WGS84 based ellipsoids to support an accurate representation of the lunar surface for analysis and measurements. Cesium Moon Terrain is also available for Cesium ion Self-Hosted. 

With Cesium Moon Terrain, users can leverage the same workflows and functionality already available in our open source runtime engines. Use Cesium Moon Terrain as a base layer to place models of habitats, vehicles, or rovers on the lunar surface.  If you have your own high resolution terrain data, clip and inset it within Cesium Moon Terrain so that your projects can live within a single continuous 3D surface rather than multiple separate project areas. 

NASA's ambitious Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon and eventually land them on Mars. With this, along with initiatives from SpaceX, Boeing, BlueOrigin and others, the demand for an open, interoperable, standards-based platform has never been greater. Cesium Moon Terrain meets this demand, providing a versatile foundation for countless applications.

We look forward to seeing your projects built with Cesium Moon Terrain! Sign up or sign in to get started.

We’ve been thrilled with the response to Cesium ion Self-Hosted since its initial release in December – a big thank you to everyone who provided feedback so far. We hope our updates have made Cesium ion Self-Hosted an even more valuable and easy-to-adopt hub for 3D geospatial workflows that leverage the flexibility and power of 3D Tiles. Here are some of the highlights since v1.0.

Access to Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Bing Imagery

We’re especially excited to announce that our v1.3 release enables Cesium ion Self-Hosted users to include Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Bing imagery in their workflows and applications. Those of you familiar with this data from our SaaS platform already understand how impactful it can be. For example, users can include Google 3D cities in their Cesium Stories – no-code geospatial presentations. Or, they can combine Bing Maps Aerial imagery with Cesium World Terrain and their own data to create the foundation for a high-resolution, precise 3D digital twin. 

Accessing Google and Bing data is easy – just configure a secure connection between a Cesium ion SaaS account and a Cesium ion Self-Hosted account. Any Self-Hosted environment that can connect to the Web can also stream Google and Bing data with SaaS. 

Cesium ion SaaS quotas apply to the use of Bing and Google data with Self-Hosted. Contact your account manager if you need a monthly quota increase.

The hybrid “Web + Closed Network” approach to making Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Bing imagery available in Cesium ion Self-Hosted

Customers license Cesium ion Self-Hosted and Cesium 3D Global Content to jumpstart their 3D geospatial projects, and they regularly ask us for access to Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and high-resolution imagery like Bing’s to get them to the finish line more quickly and with high visual quality. We’re thrilled to now be able to say “yes” to many of these requests.

Cesium ion Self-Hosted with Bing and Google data assets added from Cesium ion SaaS

Existing customers can get started with hybrid data today by upgrading to Cesium ion Self-Hosted v1.3. Not yet a Self-Hosted customer? Contact us to learn more.

Geocoding is a capability that allows user-entered locations to be converted to coordinates, typically so the user can be navigated to that place. Cesium ion SaaS provides geocoding in several user interfaces.

When Self-Hosted is connected to a SaaS account:

Geocoding is available in the Self-Hosted user interfaces for Clips, Stories, and the Location Editor for My Assets. 

Geocoding is available through the Cesium ion Self-Hosted API so you can include geocoding features in your own solutions.

Your Cesium ion SaaS quota applies to the use of geocoding with Self-Hosted. Contact your account manager if you need a monthly quota increase.

Self-Hosted v1.2 added clipping, announced previously for use in SaaS. Clips allow users to download 3D geospatial data as 3D Tiles or glTF to add real-world context to streaming or disconnected applications. For example, users can bring their architectural visions to life in offline presentations or keep security personnel safe with disconnected geospatial intelligence while they navigate dangerous situations.

As of v1.2, Self-Hosted users can import source data from Amazon S3 and export tiled asset data to S3, making it easier to integrate tiling into broader workflows and automated processes. See our documentation for more details.

Self-Hosted v1.3 also includes bash scripts for running the tiling pipeline via command line as an alternative to running it in Docker.  While Docker is still required, this will be easier and more convenient for users unfamiliar with Docker. See our documentation for more details.

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