Cesium for Omniverse v0.24.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.13.1

CesiumJS 1.123

Technical

Cesium ion SaaS handles a wide range of functions and serves a global user base, requiring rapid updates and bug fixes. To deliver at this pace, Cesium minimizes the time developers spend away from feature development. An automated testing and deployment pipeline is key: It allows developers to focus on adding value for users while automation handles the operational aspects of deployment.

Although setting up an automated CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous deployment) pipeline involves a large up-front investment in engineering resources, the long-term benefits are substantial. The efficiency gained through reduced development friction and accelerated deployment far outweighs the initial cost. In this blog, we share Cesium ion’s automated CI/CD pipeline, which closely follows AWS’s recommended practice and enables several deployments a day. This enhances our ability to deliver consistent value to our users.

The first step is to run automated tests, which include unit and end-to-end tests, to ensure the new code is up to our engineering standards. Our CI infrastructure, powered by Github Actions, is responsible for running these tests for every commit on all repositories that are part of ion. Beyond testing, GitHub Actions also handles code containerization, linting, and automated security scanning. The extensive coverage of these automated tasks enables us to ensure each commit is a deployment-ready update to Cesium ion.

Once the above CI checks pass on a pull request, and the code has been through a pull request review process, the next step is to execute our CD pipelines. Cesium ion operates three deployment environments: development, staging, and production. We manage these environments with two distinct CD pipelines. We use a branching strategy for our repositories, in which the main branch always contains the latest changes, while the production branch represents what has been deployed. Changes to the development environment are automatically deployed with every merge to the main branch, providing us with an always up-to-date environment to test the latest functionality. Because the CI directly kicks off the development environment pipeline, it is easy to point the development pipeline to a feature branch and deploy it to do testing in a realistic environment before merging the code to main. The second pipeline manages deployments to staging and production. It is triggered automatically anytime a commit is made to the production branch in any one of our repositories. See the graphic below for details about how these pipelines deploy:

Deployment pipeline for infrastructure and application code for Cesium ion SaaS.

The containerized images from the above CI steps are pushed to AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) for deployment. In the development environment, these images are directly pushed to the development AWS account. For staging and production environments, the images are pushed to a “SharedServices” AWS account, which manages cross-account permissions and deployment processes. 

All of the infrastructure within our AWS accounts is stored in AWS CloudFormation templates (Infrastructure as Code). The CD pipeline also updates various AWS components, including policies, alarms, notification topics for services like RDS PostgresQL, Elastic Container Service (ECS) clusters, Route 53, AWS WAF, CloudFront, and AWS Batch. These CloudFormation templates are deployed to the respective AWS account through the CI in the infrastructure repository. Updates to these container images in ECR or CloudFormation templates trigger an AWS CodePipeline execution. The pipeline uses the new images to update the AWS ECS cluster and the CloudFormation templates to update policies and infrastructure settings. The pipeline first applies necessary infrastructure updates before deploying the updated images to AWS ECS. We have automated rollbacks and alerts configured to address any issues if a new container instance fails to start. 

The development and staging pipeline, managed by “SharedServices,” first pushes all updates out to staging, and then, as a second step, performs the updates in production. For quality control, we have included a review step between the staging and production deployments, though our setup allows for automated production deployment if necessary. In addition to managing container images and infrastructure updates, our CD pipeline performs several other tasks. For our front end, which consists of statically hosted files, the pipeline handles compilation and transpilation during CI, with the files then pushed directly to the respective accounts. For our AWS Lambda and Lambda@Edge functions, the pipeline generates a hash based on the function code and compares it with the existing production version. If there is a mismatch, the updated lambda function is pushed when the pipeline is triggered. The primary reason for doing deployments only when we detect code changes is to speed up overall deploy time.

With our streamlined process, deploying changes to Cesium ion SaaS is extremely easy. Developers simply need to merge changes to main and production branches of the respective repositories, click a button, and make the feature available to millions of users worldwide.

Experience features from the advanced pipeline by signing up or signing in to your Cesium ion account.

Author’s note: Many thanks to my colleague Jeshurun Hembd for his significant contributions to these results.

To elevate the look of Cesium apps on the web, we’ve shipped key updates to glTF rendering over the past few CesiumJS releases, including improvements to the glTF physically based rendering (PBR) material model and tone mapping. 

We've focused our efforts on enhancing the initial impressions of glTF and 3D Tiles, particularly for visualizations where a diverse array of material types can significantly impact the digital representation. We're aiming for more than just pretty pictures—fundamentally our goal is to improve the user's understanding of complex 3D geospatial scenes. Lastly, we are committed to ensuring consistent model appearances with other apps in the glTF and 3D Tiles ecosystem, essential for data portability across different platforms and products.

glTF modern office by Kerkstra Precast via Sketchfab, in CesiumJS with updated PBR material model, tone mapping, and lighting.

Achieving a balance among visual quality, performance, and accuracy in a web-based environment like CesiumJS presents a unique set of challenges.

Browser-based limitations: Unlike native applications such as Unreal Engine or Unity, CesiumJS operates within the constraints of a browser. This impacts how much control we have over optimizing graphics processing and memory usage.

Runtime data streaming: In geospatial apps like CesiumJS, data is streamed at runtime rather than a designer constructing a pre-authored level with detailed lighting information. Since dynamic adjustments and computations at runtime are required, performance is top of mind.

Scalability and precision: CesiumJS is designed to handle millimeter-precision data up to global extents and from underground perspectives to views of outer space. Determining default parameters without losing detail or performance proves tricky.

During this push for better visual quality, our ubiquitous use of glTF was a huge asset. CesiumJS renders models with .gltf or .glb files and 3D Tiles which directly link to .gltf or .glb files. Working within the glTF ecosystem provided us with foundational tools, particularly an extensive library of sample models and open source reference implementations, such as the PBR shaders available in the glTF-Sample-Viewer repo from Khronos.

Let’s discuss the impact the improvements to the PBR material model and tone mapping have on glTF rendering in CesiumJS.

glTF 2.0 introduced physically based rendering (PBR) as a core feature, allowing for a simple, standard set of parameters to simulate real-world lighting interactions, materials, and surface properties. With PBR, a developer or artist without knowledge of rendering pipelines or shaders can build a material that accurately responds to lighting conditions, reflections, and shadows.

Key fixes and updates were to reflective properties of a physically based material in CesiumJS. 

Updated the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), a function that defines how incoming light interacts with opaque surfaces, from a Schlick-Smith approximation model to a microfacet-based model yielding more physically plausible results.

Added approximate multiple scattering for diffuse light and reflectivity fixes, ensuring better energy conservation when light is scattered or reflected off of a surface.

These updates result in brighter looking models—good news, as we were seeing complaints of glTF models rendering too dark—and more consistency with the rest of the glTF ecosystem. Moreover, these updates greatly improved the appearance models with supported glTF PBR Next extensions recently implemented in CesiumJS: KHR_materials_specular extension, KHR_materials_anisotropy extension, and  KHR_materials_clearcoat extension.

After: Pot of Coals glTF sample model. Note the more realistic specular highlight on the burnt copper surface, improved reflectivity at grazing angles, and overall increased brightness of the model.

Tone mappers come into play as a last step of the PBR rendering process. They are functions that scale PBR output—linear values approximating real-world light energy, which may range orders of magnitude beyond what a monitor can display—down to a smaller device output range. 

CesiumJS previously tone mapped models, atmosphere, and the globe using ACES, a film industry standard but one that could often result in desaturated, dimmed appearances. We’ve replaced our default with the Khronos standard PBR Neutral Tone Mapper. That means more consistency of color appearance across the glTF ecosystem, which includes e-commerce vendors for whom accurate color representation is essential.

This new tone mapper widens the gamut of possible displayed colors and, in particular, helps brighten and slightly staurate the appearance of many models.

Left: Cesium Air glTF model with ACES tone mapping. Right: Cesium Air glTF model with Khronos PBR Neutral tone mapping. Note the brighter whites and more saturated greens and blues.

Left: San Miguel 3D Tileset with ACES tone mapping. Right: San Miguel 3D Tileset with Khronos PBR Neutral tone mapping. Note the brighter whites and more saturated greens and blues.

As we continue to build upon CesiumJS's visual capabilities, our enhancements to the PBR material model and the introduction of the Khronos PBR Neutral Tone Mapper have already gone a long way to improving our browser-based rendering quality. These updates enhance scene realism and consistency, address user feedback about dark models, and more closely align with standards of the glTF ecosystem.

Stay tuned for our next blog post on CesiumJS visual quality, which will focus on steps we’ve taken to enhance lighting and better match the current environment.

We encourage you to explore these updates and share your feedback in this community thread. Your insights are crucial as we continue to refine the visual quality of CesiumJS.

Leveling Up glTF Rendering in CesiumJS: PBR Improvements and Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping

3DTilesRendererJS is a library originally developed at NASA/Caltech-JPL for rendering 3D Tiles  in Three.js. The project was released as open source and is now maintained by Garrett Johnson, who worked there for more than a decade. 

In April 2024 Garrett Johnson was awarded a Cesium Ecosystem Grant to expand support in 3DTilesRendererJS for new 3D Tiles metadata extensions and to enable data overlays useful for understanding 3D Tiles Mars terrain data from NASA JPL. Those improvements have now been implemented; this post by Garrett describes the work completed.

This year I was grateful to have been awarded a Cesium Ecosystem Grant to enhance 3DTilesRendererJS, an open source library originally developed by NASA/Caltech-JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) for rendering JPL-generated Martian datasets. The project enables efficient rendering and interaction of 3D Tiles in Three.js, an open-source, cross-browser JavaScript library for 3D graphics in a browser. Thanks to the work supported by the grant, the library now supports glTF metadata extensions from 3D Tiles 1.1 and alternate tile texture overlays. These new features will enable end users to implement more robust AEC and GIS applications with 3D Tiles and Three.js. 


3DTilesRendererJS now supports the glTF `EXT_structural_metadata` and `EXT_mesh_features` extensions. The mesh features extension allows for parsing and reading associated IDs with varying levels of granularity in a model, which can subsequently be used for looking up more complete data. And the structural metadata extension gives users the ability to look up detailed, structured data based on embedded identifiers, including those from mesh features.

Visualization of structural metadata and mesh features from 3D Tiles 1.1 is now possible in Three.js with the San Francisco Ferry Building.

The plugins for the `EXT_structural_metadata` and `EXT_mesh_features` extensions compatible with Three.js’ `GLTFLoader` are located in the [src/three/loaders/gltf](https://github.com/NASA-AMMOS/3DTilesRendererJS/tree/master/src/three/loaders/gltf) project directory, along with associated type definitions exported from the package. To use the plugins they must be registered to a `GLTFLoader` instance used for loading the files after creating the `TilesRenderer` instance for loading a tileset:

```javascript
import { 
    TilesRenderer, 
    GLTFMeshFeaturesExtension, 
    GLTFStructuralMetadataExtension, 
} from '3d-tiles-renderer';

// ... 

// Create a tiles renderer and intialize a GLTFLoader with both
// metadata extensions

const tiles = new TilesRenderer( url );
const loader = new GLTFLoader( tiles.manager );
loader.register( () => new GLTFMeshFeaturesExtension() );
loader.register( () => new GLTFStructuralMetadataExtension() );
tiles.manager.addHandler( /(gltf|glb)$/g, loader );
```

Once the tiles are loaded the data from the extensions can be accessed via the `meshFeatures` and `structuralMetadata` fields in the associated objects' `userData`. These fields can be accessed when hovering over or clicking on a tile after a raycast, for example, to display metadata tables or highlight the object by id:

```javascript
const triangle = new THREE.Triangle();
const barycoord = new THREE.Vector3();
const invertedMatrix = new THREE.Matrix4();
domElement.addEventListener( e => {
    
    // ... set up raycaster
    
    const hits = raycaster.intersectObject( scene ); 
    if ( hits.length > 0 ) {
        
        const { object, face, point, faceIndex } = hits[ 0 ];
        
        // ... calculate the barycoord of the point on the geometry face
        
        const { meshFeatures, structuralMetadata } = object.userData;
        if ( meshFeatures && structuralMetadata ) {
            
            // get the metadata features and property table indices
            const features = meshFeatures 
                .getFeaturesAsync( faceIndex, barycoord );
            const tableIndices = meshFeatures 
                .getFeatureInfo().map( info => info.propertyTable );
                
            // read and log the structural metadata
            const data = structuralMetadata 
                .getPropertyTableData( tableIndices, features ); 
            console.log( data );

        }
        
    }

} );
```

Two 3D Tiles datasets from Cesium ion are available for demonstration here; to use the demo please retrieve the trial ion access token from the Cesium repository. Refer to the example implementation for code showing how to use custom materials for tileset brushing and reading data, and see supporting documentation for API documentation and function definitions.


To support the implementation of the new extensions, a variety of contributions were made to the broader Three.js ecosystem to enable improved performance for reading data from textures and to add new math utilities. Changes were made to allow copying texture subframe data to the GPU to avoid stalls from uploading a whole texture. This allows for only uploading and reading a single pixel of data so it can be quickly read back when querying mesh features and structural metadata textures without blocking page interactivity.

Likewise, thanks to initial work from @sciecode on Github, GPU texture data buffers can now be read back to the CPU asynchronously in Three.js. This is used for reading texture-encoded metadata values without waiting for remaining GPU work to complete, allowing for a significantly smoother user experience when reading the values.

And lastly, a new Matrix2 core math data type has been added to the library. Matrix2 is a type supported by glTF and WebGL vertex attributes, in addition to being used to store metadata values and is now available to be used and expanded on in Three.js.

At NASA JPL, texture overlays are used on top of terrain geometry to help provide more context for robotics and science operations. The texture overlay plugin is designed to support loading one or more replacement textures for a set of tiles to display alternate data overlays–including properties like slope, roughness, or error metrics. This feature will extend to other pre-processed texture data visualizations for photogrammetric tilesets should they provide alternate textures per-tile. By providing the ability to replace textures for the full tileset rather than using a 2D projection, overlay detail can be included across the full extent of the tileset, including concave geometry surfaces. For this demonstration a Martian tileset was produced using NASA JPL tools and data from the Mars 2020 mission using slope magnitude as an example overlay. In practice NASA JPL uses a variety of these kinds of precomputed texture skins to aid with operations on Mars, including displays for robotic kinematic reachability or surface roughness.

Check out the demo for the data overlay, which shows loading ten wedge tilesets with slope magnitude overlay textures. One or more of these alternate textures can be blended with the original using custom shaders or used as opaque replacement textures for the tiles.

Texture overlay of Mars data showing multiple sets of overlays including slope magnitude. Left: original textures, center: blended slope visualization, right: opaque slope texture overlay.

To produce a sample dataset for this feature and ensure functionality for the practical operational use case, the open source NASA-AMMOS/Landform project, used internally by JPL to generate merged and per-wedge 3D Tiles datasets for Mars 2020 missions operations, was used to generate the sample terrain. Color imagery and alternate image products from the official NASA JPL Planetary Data Systems (PDS) data archive were used, which hosts historical data from a variety of NASA missions for download. For the sake of demonstration only a single alternate set of textures highlighting slope magnitude have been produced, though other alternate textures can be generated from available PDS data.

Documentation for the TilesOverlayPlugin is available on the plugins documentation page. If your dataset contains alternate sets of textures, the plugin can be instantiated and textures applied to tiles materials like so:

```javascript

import { Tiles Renderer } from '3d-tiles-renderer';
import { TextureOverlayPlugin } from './examples/plugins/TextureOverlayPlugin.js';

// ... 

const tiles = new TilesRenderer ( url );
const plugin = new TextureOverlayPlugin( {
    textureUpdateCallback: ( scene, tile, plugin ) => {
        
        // Retrieve the loaded texture layers for this tile
        const slopeTexture = plugin.getTexturesForTile( tile ).slope;
        scene.traverse( child => {
            
            if ( child.isMesh ) {
                
                // Replace the original texture with the new one 
                child.material.map = textures.slope;
            
            }
        
        } );

    },
} );

// Set up a new layer textures to trigger when a new tile geometry is loaded
plugin.registerLayer( 'slope', url => {
    
    // Adjust the tile geometry url to load the associated texture
    const url = tileUrl 
        .replace( '/tilesets/', '/textures/slope/' ) 
        .replace( /\.glb$/i, '.png' );
        
    // Load the texture and fix the texture settings
    return new TextureLoader()
        .loadAsync( url )
        .then( tex => {
            
            tex.colorSpace SRGBColorSpace;
            tex.flipY = false;
            return tex;
        
        } );
    
} );

tiles.registerPlugin( plugin );
```

To support this work, a new extensible plugin system was added to the `TilesRenderer` class, which has subsequently been used for the development of other new plug-and-play features for 3D Tiles.

The addition of a new TilesRenderer plugin system for tile overlays has enabled a new addon architecture for 3D Tiles rendering. Previously a full subclass of the TilesRenderer class would need to be made, making it very difficult and brittle to use multiple extended classes at once. 

The new TilesFadePlugin has been added to smooth the transition between tile levels of detail by modifying materials to add dither animation when fading in and out. The TilesCompressionPlugin compresses loaded tile geometry data and reduces texture mipmap usage, which can improve GPU memory usage by over 30% in some cases. And the UpdateOnChangePlugin can improve performance per frame by only triggering tileset traversal when the camera or tileset has changed.


These plugins and others are available in the examples and core directory of the project. In the future, plugins could be added for other features including Three.js BatchedMesh support, tile geometry modification, new 3D Tiles features, and other user plugins.

With the work enabled by this grant the NASA-AMMOS/3DTilesRendererJS project now supports a variety of new features expanding the utility for scientific as well as architectural use cases. The tiles renderer project has benefited greatly from reports and contributions from the community to improve it over time so please feel free to provide feedback on the new features and try it out and let us know what you think.

Learn more about the Cesium Ecosystem Grants program and other ways Cesium engages with the broader community to see how you can get involved. 

Enhancements to the Three.js 3D Tiles Renderer

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

Pull requests and code reviews are an intrinsic part of software development at Cesium, but they can also be one of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects. Our continuous integration (CI) processes aim to automate developer overhead, improve code quality, and increase confidence in our monthly releases before any code goes into the main branch. Every code commit is automatically built and tested, catching conflicts or errors early in development so developers can resolve them quickly. 

As maintainers of a large open-source project like CesiumJS, we face somewhat unique challenges in comparison to most codebases. To start, the JavaScript library for 3D geospatial visualization is extensive–just under 250,000 lines of source code and over 275,000 lines of test code. We must ensure code quality and consistency across contributions from a diverse group of external developers, and across a heterogeneous codebase consisting of JavaScript, HTML, GLSL, TypeScript definitions, API reference docs, developer docs, and more.

Since we initially set up the first CesiumJS CI pipeline using Travis CI, the demands on that pipeline have grown. We’ve replaced outdated build tooling, expanded quality checks, and added additional workflows. While Travis CI served us well in the early stages, Cesium grew as an organization and we started to run into scalability challenges: cost, speed, and fragmentation in CI tools used across different teams. 

Since Cesium was already deeply integrated with GitHub for issue tracking and code reviews, switching to GitHub Actions streamlined our processes. This move across the organization allowed the CesiumJS repo in particular to speed up our CI runs and to implement reusable actions across our repositories.

In our CI workflow, we focus on efficiency by running multiple jobs in parallel. This approach helps us speed up the integration process and ensures comprehensive coverage across key areas of development. 

Diagram of the CesiumJS CI process using GitHub Actions to run multiple jobs in parallel.

The status of each job is shown in the PR using commit statuses, signaling to the reviewer that the PR should not be merged until all jobs pass. Build artifacts such as logs, coverage results, and deployments are linked for easy access by the developer and reviewer.

Status results display in each PR, so status is immediately understood.

Automated builds confirm the project's stability. 

We bundle the JavaScript source code into two main distributions that are shipped with CesiumJS: 1) a developer build, unminified and designed for debugging, and 2) the production release build, which is fine-tuned for performance, including minification and stripping debug pragmas. Using esbuild for bundling allows us to reduce our build times, enabling quicker iterations without sacrificing quality.

Running the custom script to generate the release zip file is valuable as it contains the two distributions, developer documentation, and tools like Sandcastle, helpful for developers to test functionality and experiment with CesiumJS. 

We also generate the npm package for distribution via package managers. 

Tests validate functionality across supported environments. 

We use Jasmine and Karma for unit testing, which helps verify that each component of our software performs as expected. Tests are run against both the development and release builds.

Additionally, we conduct smokescreen tests on the build artifacts to confirm package.json configurations. This lets us catch compatibility issues across various platforms, such as Node.js LTS and web browsers early in the process.

3. Static Analysis and Code Quality Metrics

Static analysis and formatting checks ensure code consistency and quality. 

We use tools like ESLint for JavaScript linting and markdownlint for Markdown files to catch syntactic and stylistic errors before they are merged. Prettier enforces a uniform code format across all contributions. Additionally, we track code coverage by instrumenting the code using istanbul to ensure that tests adequately cover new and existing code, and finally count the lines of source and test code using cloc.

Automatic deployments make the latest builds readily available for testing and review. Each build is uploaded to an S3 bucket, allowing developers to access and review functionality and documentation without needing to build locally. We publish build artifacts, the zip file, and npm package, which simplifies integration testing with other applications such as Cesium ion. 

Keeping security in mind, we need to make sure only authorized sources deploy to AWS, so these deployment steps are restricted based on the author’s commit status.

Looking ahead, we plan to enhance our CI process with several key improvements. We’d like to incorporate end-to-end screenshot tests using Playwright to ensure visual consistency across releases, which developers currently run locally. Additionally, we aim to improve code quality through inline documentation linting, spellcheck, and other static validations to catch errors before they make it to production. We are also exploring the numerous potential integrations with GitHub Actions to further automate our release processes.

We are committed to continuously improving the CesiumJS CI process and value input from the developer community. If you have suggestions or would like to contribute, please start a conversation on GitHub. Your insights can help improve our workflows.

CI for CesiumJS: A Deep Dive into Our GitHub Actions Workflow

Cesium ion Self-Hosted is our solution for geospatial workloads that require isolated environments detached from the public internet or that require an application to be hosted in the cloud behind a user’s own identity provider. Cesium ion Self-Hosted is a Kubernetes based application that provides feature parity with Cesium ion SaaS by leveraging the same code base. The next evolutionary step in our product line, Cesium ion Self-Hosted caters to both small and large enterprises, empowering them with greater control over Cesium’s offerings. In this blog we provide an overview of the architecture behind the Kubernetes application.


As stated in our blog post describing the architecture of Cesium ion SaaS, Cesium ion is an amalgamation of small pieces that each perform a distinct function. Each piece is containerized individually for consistency between development and production. In the AWS deployment of our SaaS product, we use Amazon ECS to orchestrate spinning up, tearing down, and doing other management of the containers. For our self-hosted implementation, we keep the same architecture, but we can’t rely on Amazon services. We also need to integrate Cesium ion Self-Hosted into our users’ diverse environments, cloud providers, and infrastructure.


Kubernetes is a widely used open source container orchestrator that allows for declarative configuration of resources. Container orchestrator in this context means an automated system that spins up, tears down, and regularly checks resources based on the configuration provided. For our use case, Kubernetes acts as a drop-in replacement for AWS and was the obvious choice to use in the self-hosted product. Kubernetes scales across our users’ existing operations and provides them with a platform-agnostic solution.


Since many of our users already have sophisticated Kubernetes clusters set up, they would find it difficult to integrate pre-defined Kubernetes objects from Cesium. We needed some way of allowing users to specify their custom requirements in a configuration file and have our application change its behavior based on those requirements. We decided to leverage Helm, a package manager for Kubernetes, which allows a user’s desired configuration to be supplied to our application through a top level configuration file. This also makes bringing up the entire Self-Hosted application extremely easy since it only requires one command to install. Similarly, updates are also streamlined through Helm as it handles tearing down old deployments and spinning up new ones with just one command. 

This diagram illustrates a high level view of the architecture that gets deployed in a Kubernetes cluster.

Differences between the architectures of Cesium ion SaaS and Self-Hosted

SaaS and Self-Hosted, while providing similar functionality, diverge due to their different deployment environments, necessitating different implementations. For instance, in our SaaS architecture blog we detailed how AWS S3 was perfect for our use case of storing a large amount of small files. But for a Self-Hosted product that is operating in an offline environment, backing up everything on a system like S3 is not possible and using services that imitate S3 can come with substantial financial cost. Below are some examples of differences between the two environments and the solutions we came up with for these deployment modes:

In a Self-Hosted Kubernetes based environment, we need to provide a way for users to write data locally on their volumes mounted to the pods in the cluster. For this reason, we decided to implement a SQLite based solution. Since tiled assets can get extremely large, saving them as a “pile of files” on a file system can become challenging to manage. Instead, we decided to go with SQLite databases, facilitating ease of tiling and management of outputs.

Because these assets are stored in SQLite databases, we have developed a custom asset server written in Node.Js and Restify that handles serving these assets. It also manages authentication and authorization using temporary JWT credentials supplied from the API Server. Self-Hosted customers can expose the asset server with a CDN of their choice for edge caching to provide a similar setup to the one we have on SaaS.

The asset server also serves static assets like CZML, KML, GeoJSON, and glTF and images required by Cesium stories. The asset server is containerized and defined as a Kubernetes Deployment object. It is made to maximize performance by leveraging available CPU cores within its pod and dynamically scale instances based on resource utilization. It performs caching of individual elements stored in its asset databases by using an LRU (Least Recently Used) strategy.
 


For our Self-Hosted offering, the API server leverages the same code as SaaS and performs an additional function: it accepts source asset files through an HTTP multi-part upload. The HTTP multi-part upload functionality replaces uploads done directly to AWS S3 in SaaS. The API server container is used within a Kubernetes deployment that scales the API server’s pods based on resource usage. These pods are exposed through individual ClusterIP services behind a Kubernetes ingress, an API object that exposes routes from outside the cluster to services within the cluster. TLS (Transport Layer Security) can be configured to work with this set up to provide secure HTTPS deployments. 

The API server is backed by a SQL database to store asset and user information. Since the API server works with any SQL based database, users retain the flexibility of selecting their preferred SQL database provider to integrate with the API server. 


In Cesium ion Self-Hosted, we need some way of launching jobs for heterogeneous source data that all require different hardware configurations. This requirement is the same in SaaS, where we use AWS Batch to do this. In Self-Hosted we use Kubernetes Jobs that act as almost a drop in replacement for AWS Batch by providing a similar level of functionality. It allows us to run jobs in isolated containers while placing new jobs in a queue until resources become available.

Since the API server handles source file uploads, the same volume is mounted to the tiling container, which now has access to the source data. The tiling pipeline then processes this data and outputs SQLite files in cases of imagery, terrain, and 3D Tiles workloads. The reason for choosing databases is to allow the assets to be easily manageable by not placing millions of tiny files on a volume. This also makes it easy to ship over 470 million tiles in a single file to our customers as part of our global data offering. 


Cesium ion Self-Hosted defaults to single-user mode, which runs without a built-in authentication system and assumes all site visitors are the same user. To address authentication needs, Self-Hosted users have the option to integrate with their SAML providers, affording administrators control over user access within their organizations. This approach not only ensures ease of integration with enterprise authentication software but also enhances security compared to custom authentication implementations.



The API server, asset server, and front end SPA are all defined as Kubernetes deployments, allowing for horizontal scaling to accommodate high request usage. Each of these pods is exposed through a service sitting behind a Kubernetes ingress, enabling external user access. The tiling pipeline on the other hand runs in individual pods executed through Kubernetes Jobs. Shared volumes for both asset sources and tiled assets are mounted onto the API server and tiling pipeline. This approach simplifies the tiling process by eliminating the need to copy and move assets between volumes. Similarly, the tiled assets volume is also mounted onto the asset server to prevent duplication and optimize asset serving.

Lastly, Cesium ion Self-Hosted includes a PostgreSQL Helm chart provided by Bitnami, allowing users to swiftly set up a database instance, further enhancing deployment ease and efficiency. This instance can be replaced by a user-managed PostgreSQL instance.

Long before we released Cesium ion Self-Hosted, we'd been crafting it to suit customer use cases that ion SaaS can’t support. We continue to add new features as part of our roadmap to empower users with greater control over their workflows. Reach out to us to learn more about incorporating Cesium ion Self-Hosted into your environment.  

The State of Cesium ion Architecture: The Infrastructure behind Cesium ion Self-Hosted

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.

Tiler Performance and Quality Improvements

We made multiple tiler updates since December, including:

Significant performance improvements for the reality tiler

Point cloud tiling now supports and preserves all point record format field data (metadata). See our blog post for more details.

Performance and other improvements for the buildings tiler for KML and CITYGML

In addition to streaming Google and Bing data to Self-Hosted, since December, Cesium announced the following new data offerings that can be licensed for use with or without Self-Hosted:

Cesium World Bathymetry and a corresponding version of Cesium OSM Buildings

Cesium Japan 3D Buildings - Sapporo City in Cesium for Unreal

Vexcel 3D Cities data of NYC in Cesium for Unreal.

For information on other Cesium ion Self-Hosted enhancements and fixes, see the full Cesium ion Self-Hosted change log.

We’re proud of how valuable our customers tell us Cesium ion Self-Hosted is to their organizations, and we want to continue advancing. Contact us through your account team or on our community forum to let us know about other ways we can improve Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Cesium ion Self-Hosted Updates: S3 Integration, Google and Bing Data Available Through Streaming, and More

Since its inception, Cesium ion has served the 3D data and visualization requirements of millions of users. Cesium ion enables users to upload heterogenous 3D data and converts it into web streamable formats through computationally intensive jobs known as tiling. It then allows them to seamlessly stream this content in real time into a multitude of viewing engines while efficiently managing access to it. Currently ion manages over 40 million requests daily while storing over 100TB of data, with this number always growing. The architecture underpinning this data intensive application has been carefully crafted and bettered over the years. 


To build up to ion’s architecture, let’s take a step back and look at a non-exhaustive list of requirements we are trying to achieve: 

Uploading: As a platform that champions open interoperability, allow users to efficiently upload diverse source 3D data, including content from third parties like Sketchfab, from around the globe.

Tiling and Pipelines: Enable users to convert their uploaded source data into a web-streamable format and enable them to archive, clip, and export this data.

Hosting and Streaming: Facilitate hosting and streaming of globally curated 3D content, such as Cesium World Terrain, Cesium World Bathymetry, and Cesium OSM Buildings. Additionally, host user-uploaded tiled data and stream it while enabling users to manage authorization.

Functional API: Provide users with the ability to programmatically leverage Cesium ion’s capabilities listed above via an API.

Frontend interface: Ensure Cesium ion’s functionalities are accessible to non-technical users through an intuitive interface.

Security: With users entrusting us with their data, it is crucial that security is front and center in our considerations. This involves not only implementing security best practices in our application code but also extending these practices to our infrastructure.

A list of tiled assets represented on the ion UI.

The following section tries to provide a high level overview of the architecture representing the inner workings of the publicly exposed sides of ion.

A bird's eye view of Cesium ion’s architecture.

Cesium ion’s API server lies at the heart of the application. The server manages user and asset metadata such as tiling progress, asset type, and user usage, while also facilitating source data uploads, executing tiling jobs and authorizing access to tilesets. It utilizes temporary credentials to allow users to upload directly to S3, providing highly available and quick uploads all around the world. 
 
The API server itself is a Node.js based application that follows REST principles. It is containerized with docker and deployed through AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) behind an Application Load Balancer. It is backed by a PostgreSQL database instance from AWS RDS for metadata storage. 


Since our user’s applications are often products that are derivatives of ion, resilience and availability are essential qualities. The above architecture ensures that we are providing a highly available API to our users through health checks, autoscaling, and load distribution.


Tiling, as stated above, is the process of converting user uploaded source data into web compatible formats like 3D Tiles, KML and GLTF. Since ion accepts a wide variety of formats, each of these conversions has its own distinct hardware requirements while tiling. The tiling pipeline also handles archiving, clipping and exporting user data. Due to the requirement for variable hardware per job, we leverage AWS Batch to perform these functions.


AWS Batch allows us to customize hardware requirements for each job and runs them in environments blocked off from each other. This ensures that user data remains safe and isn’t tampered with by another running job. AWS Batch also places jobs into a queue until they can be executed in a compute environment, allowing ion’s tiling process to be extremely scalable by leveraging the asynchronous nature of Batch’s queue.

At present, Cesium ion's storage accommodates approximately 3 trillion distinct objects. Managing such a large amount of files on a file system can lead to considerable complexity. Hence, we utilize S3 for our storage solution, allowing assets to be served as a static collection of files.

We employ CloudFront, the CDN provided by AWS, which caches requests at edge locations close to the user and utilizes temporary JSON Web Tokens to validate user requests directed towards our assets. These authorization checks are handled by Lambda@Edge functions for optimized response times. Hosting our assets in AWS S3 and distributing them via CloudFront offers high scalability and extremely low latency globally.

To further diminish response times for locations distant from our primary location (Virginia us-east-1), we leverage AWS S3's replication functionality. This allows us to replicate assets to additional locations. Presently, every asset generated by tiling jobs is replicated to Tokyo (ap-northeast-1), with plans for additional regions in the future. Similar to authorization, lambda@edge functions are used here as well to route requests based on geographical proximity. 


The Cesium ion SPA (Single Page Application) is a statically built web application. Similar to our other statically served assets, it resides on S3 and is distributed through CloudFront. It offers a user friendly interface that sits on top of the complex architecture beneath. The UI leverages the same endpoints provided by the API server for its services and functionalities. 


As the above description suggests, all of ion’s code is containerized. It allows us to reuse the code in other container-based solutions. We have already done this using Kubernetes, which will be covered in a future blog.

To top this all off, Cesium ion employs automated deployments to accelerate development and reduce time spent on manual deploys. Our CI automatically builds and deploys containers for application code, while also updating any necessary infrastructure seamlessly. This approach allows us to deploy multiple times a day and efficiently deliver new features and bug fixes to our users.

The complexity of ion's system lies in its multifunctional nature, serving as a crucial part of the Cesium ecosystem. So, the next time you initiate an upload on ion for tiling your asset, or access 3D content through the CesiumJS client or a game engine plugin, remember that there is a sophisticated architecture behind the seemingly simple user interface.

Ready to experience the platform first hand? Sign up or sign in to your account.

The State of Cesium ion Architecture: The Infrastructure behind the Platform for 3D Geospatial

With Cesium ion's new clipping feature, users can download portions of 3D data for offline and non-streaming purposes, either as a glTF model or as 3D Tiles. Clipping to 3D Tiles is ideal for streaming to Cesium runtimes, while glTF unlocks additional workflows to create with 3D geospatial data. In the past, we’ve shown how 3D geospatial data can be easily used in 3D engines and games like Fortnite, as well as 3D creation tools like Blender. There is still a wide spectrum of other possibilities, including offline applications, cinematic renders, and even video editors.

Clipping to glTF enables use cases whose requirements otherwise conflict with 3D Tiles. For instance, cinematic rendering requires the highest levels of detail to be loaded before the camera moves, and to remain unchanged throughout the render. This is often at odds with the incremental nature of 3D Tiles. However, this can be easily resolved by creating a clip of the area as a glTF, which will merge tiles at the highest level of detail into the single model. The unified model can then be brought into video editors that support glTF, such as Adobe After Effects.

To demonstrate this workflow, we’ll create a clip of the Augustine Volcano in Alaska, United States. Then, we’ll import it into After Effects to create educational footage. Starting from the Clips tab in Cesium ion, select the imagery and terrain that you want to clip from your assets. Here, we’re creating a clip from Cesium World Terrain and Sentinel-2 imagery, which are both available on the Asset Depot.

Then, navigate to Augustine Volcano in Alaska using the built-in geocoder.

Click on the terrain to place one corner of the selection, and click again to place the other. You will see a rectangular region that highlights all of the data that falls within it.

You can also resize the selection by clicking and dragging any of the four corner handles. Once you’re happy with your selection, continue to the next page, where you will have the option to download the data as a glTF.

Now you can import the clipped data into After Effects (version 23.0 or later). Go to File > Import > File or hit Ctrl + I to open the import dialogue and select the model.

Then, you can add the glTF to a composition!

If your clip covers a large geographical area, we recommend using the Make Comp Size option when adding the clip.

Now that your model is in After Effects, you can combine it with additional 3D models, images, video, titles, effects, and audio in your composition to create a dynamic visualization. In this example, we showcase some facts about Augustine Volcano using animated 3D text and camera movement.

The creative possibilities for 3D geospatial data go as far as the glTF ecosystem extends. We hope that clips in Cesium ion enable you to bring geospatial data into your favorite tools with creative flexibility, freedom, and ease-of-use.

If you haven’t already tried out the clipping feature, sign up for a free Cesium ion account and check out the Clips page to get started!

Creating Videos with Real-World Data from Cesium in Adobe After Effects

With Cesium ion's new clipping feature, users can specify portions of 3D data to make available to download for offline and non-streaming purposes. When clipping, users can choose to create the clip as a glTF model or as 3D Tiles. Clipping to 3D Tiles is ideal for streaming to CesiumJS or with Cesium plugins for game engines. With wide-ranging support, glTF unlocks additional workflows to create with 3D geospatial data. As a glTF, 3D geospatial data can be easily used in 3D engines, games, cinematic rendering, offline applications, and even 3D editors!

While 3D Tiles includes levels of detail that are streamed incrementally at runtime, the tiles are downloaded at the highest levels of detail as a single glTF. A glTF clip can be modified with 3D editors that can import and export glTF models, like Blender. This bidirectional support enables multiple workflows for importing 3D geospatial data, making modifications, and then exporting the result into various runtime engines. 

For example, consider a flight simulator application that starts at an airport runway. For the most realistic simulation, it’s important that the runway be as flat as possible. Any bumps or divots in the terrain—even slight ones—can disrupt airplane taxiing and reduce immersion. A workflow to remove these undesired variations in height can be started by clipping and downloading a glTF from Cesium ion, and then importing the model into Blender. 

We can demonstrate this workflow using a clip of Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Starting from the Clips tab in Cesium ion, select the imagery and terrain that you want to clip from your assets. Here, we’re creating a clip from Cesium World Terrain and Sentinel-2 imagery, which are both available on the Asset Depot.

Then, navigate to Chicago O’Hare International Airport using the built-in geocoder.

Now you can import the clipped data into Blender, just like any other glTF model!

Chicago O’Hare International Airport in Blender, clipped from Cesium ion as a glTF model and joined into a single Blender mesh.

First, you can join all of the tiles into a single mesh for easier editing. Then, you can move or scale selections of vertices in Edit Mode. It’s most reliable to flatten vertices with the Scale tool, to ensure that they all fall on the same plane.

A bump in an airport runway flattened by the Scale tool in Blender.

The edited terrain can then be imported into a runtime engine of choice for smoother flying.

The Cesium Airplane sitting on the newly flattened runway in Unreal Engine.

Other possible use cases with Blender include fixing holes in photogrammetry, removing undesired objects, and even replacing those objects with new meshes. You can take advantage of any of Blender’s editing, sculpting, and texturing tools as you work with the clipped geometry.

3D editing tools like Blender are an intuitive extension of geospatial data workflows. They provide a level of aesthetic and functional control over imperfections in real-world data. Afterward, the edited model can be brought into other software or workflows before finally rendering it in a runtime engine. Because the data is stored as a glTF, it can be brought into engines that aren’t able to support runtime streaming, like Unreal Editor for Fortnite.

With the clipping feature in Cesium ion, the possibilities reach as far as the geospatial ecosystem extends. We hope it enables you to bring geospatial data into your favorite tools with creative flexibility, freedom, and ease-of-use.

If you haven’t already tried it out, sign up for a free Cesium ion account today and check out the Clips page to get started!

Editing Real-World Data from Cesium in Blender

In the past five years, Cesium has developed integrations to stream 3D Tiles to widely adopted runtime engines, including Unreal Engine, Unity, and NVIDIA Omniverse. We're always amazed by the geospatial experiences that developers create with Cesium! Still, some engines don't yet have plugins for 3D Tiles, and 3D Tiles requires architecture for streaming 3D data that not all engines support. We've been working on ways to enable developers to use geospatial data even in these contexts.

Today, we’re pleased to release the clipping feature in Cesium ion, which allows users to specify portions of 3D Tiles to make available for download for offline or non-streaming use cases. Cesium ion also includes an option to download the specified tiles as a single glTF model. Through glTF, 3D geospatial data can be brought into games, 3D editors, rendering software, 3D engines, video editors—any applications with glTF support!

With clipping, we can bring accurate, real-world terrain and high-resolution photogrammetry into other software—including creative levels in Fortnite. Here, we walk through how simple it is to import a model of a real-world stadium into Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), then set up a soccer field to play with friends.

Starting from the Clips tab in Cesium ion, select the 3D Tileset that you want to clip from your assets. Here, we’re creating a clip from Melbourne Photogrammetry, an open photogrammetry dataset available on the Asset Depot. Then, navigate to the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium using the built-in geocoder.