Cesium for Omniverse v0.29.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.26.0

CesiumJS 1.146

User Stories

What does a Moon landing look like? The student-run Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is using Cesium Moon and Cesium for Unreal to test the camera system on EagleCam 2.0 before it flies on the IM-3 mission—and takes the first lunar selfie. 

STL used Cesium to build a digital twin of the camera system and large-scale lunar terrain to test settings and learn when to apply adjustments during the mission. Courtesy Embry-Riddle Space Technologies Laboratory.

The student-run Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is using Cesium Moon and Cesium for Unreal to test the camera system on EagleCam 2.0 before it flies on the IM-3 mission—and takes the first lunar selfie.

Embry-Riddle STL EagleCam 2.0

IM-3 is part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, expected to fly before the end of 2026, and EagleCam 2.0’s job is gathering information-rich images for examination post flight. Instead of building a physical prototype of Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander to assess mounting configurations, spending limited lab budget on the wrong lenses, and imaging ground that doesn’t match that of Earth’s natural satellite, STL used Cesium to build a digital twin of the camera system and large-scale lunar terrain to test settings and learn when to apply adjustments during the mission. 

STL develops hardware for commercial missions and research partners and has 15-20 students, undergrads through PhD candidates, actively working on the 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm EagleCam. Two to three of those students work on the digital twin. EagleCam is fully student designed, built, and operated. 

This is the second time a university has sent a payload to the Moon; the first was EagleCam 1.0. 

Work on EagleCam 2.0 began in 2025. The challenges STL saw on EagleCam 1.0—such as predicting lunar lighting, camera placement, fisheye behavior, and coverage—pushed the team to build a digital twin to inform EagleCam 2.0’s life cycle. 

EagleCam is fully student designed, built, and operated. Courtesy Embry-Riddle Space Technologies Laboratory.

To see the Moon before IM-3 lands (or even lifts off), STL uses Cesium Moon and Cesium for Unreal. STL streams Cesium Moon—a single complete 3D Tileset composed of precise terrain and imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) program and other sources—via Cesium ion SaaS to the EagleCam digital twin in Unreal Engine. Individual students have their own ion accounts, so they can fuse assets relevant to their parts of the mission, like high-res geoTIFFs of the landing site. 

Because Cesium Moon is 3D Tiles, details load based on the active camera instead of forcing the lab to manage one enormous Moon mesh, improving development and navigation. 

On top of Cesium Moon, STL added the flight camera's sensor and lens properties, camera position and orientation, realistic exposure controls, roughly 100,000-lux sunlight, and time-based Sun–Earth–Moon geometry from NASA SPICE through the MaxQ Spaceflight Toolkit in Unreal Engine. Unreal produces six render targets per lens, combines them into a fisheye image, and can export image sets for calibration or NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline processing. The team also added orbit trajectories to test maneuvers and observe field of view (FOV) during them. 

Building out the digital twin took five to six months, but now Sam Nikolov and his labmates can add lens specs and get renderings in minutes. Cesium Moon provides the mission-relevant geospatial context as an accurate 3D base layer, STL’s camera model generates synthetic stereo images, and the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline reconstructs terrain from those images, all in Unreal Engine. (STL also uses Cesium for Unity for quick lens-shader prototyping.) Instead of a made-up lens paired with a random spot on the Moon to show what shots might look like, STL gets accurate predictions that support decisions on which lenses and what settings will achieve usable imagery. A 240,000-mile trip is not a simple service call; validating the hardware before launch is vital. 

Nikolov, who is dedicated to software development, including firmware on satellite, image processing, and digital twins at STL, explained: “Without Cesium, we would have had to find, process, package, georeference, stream, and render high-resolution lunar terrain ourselves. That would have taken a huge amount of effort and added risk before we even reached the camera problem we actually cared about. Cesium gave our two- to three-person subgroup the terrain, coordinate, LOD, and streaming backbone so we could focus on the lens, calibration, lighting, and operations use case. Cesium ion has never let us down.” 

The challenges STL saw on EagleCam 1.0 pushed the team to build a digital twin to inform EagleCam 2.0’s life cycle. Courtesy Embry-Riddle Space Technologies Laboratory.

Nikolov reports that the biggest success is that the simulated images look extremely close to the lab’s real camera references under matched settings. The lab selects a date and time, photographs the Moon outside, considers atmospheric conditions, and compares the result with the simulated view—both visually convincing and correct. 

As IM-3 flies to the Moon, STL can consult the digital twin to check expected camera settings and FOV and assess if the returned data will be sufficient for analysis. This means the digital twin supports EagleCam throughout its life cycle: design, hardware selection and placement, mission rehearsal, operations, and post-flight analysis. 

Watch Sam Nikolov’s 2026 Cesium Developer Conference lightning talk to learn about the role Cesium plays in EagleCam 2.0. 

Seeing the Moon before we get there: Game-engine digital twin for lunar imaging - Samuil Nikolov

With Cesium, STL’s EagleCam digital twin enables reduced risk, faster iteration, better design confidence, stronger research output, and a better foundation for future partnerships. It’s also an immersive, intuitive version of the students’ hard work on distortion curves and drawings.  

To add Cesium Moon to your Cesium for Unreal projects, follow this guide. 

Embry-Riddle Uses Cesium Moon to Test EagleCam 2.0 Camera System

TruGolf is pursuing an ambitious goal: make it possible to virtually play every golf course in the world. Delivering thousands of real-world golf courses requires building and serving an enormous catalog. With Cesium for Unreal, TruGolf can place each course in its real-world location, surround it with recognizable scenery from global datasets, and deliver it at runtime without requiring players to download a massive library.

This small selection of courses in TruGolf’s extensive library showcases the way custom-built golf courses fuse with global datasets to create a realistic experience. Courtesy TruGolf.

Wyoming golf courses by TruGolf

TruGolf, a pioneer in indoor golf technology, has offered a virtual playing experience since 1983. This year, E6 Golf 2026 by TruGolf has grown its offerings by 50% and now includes over 15,000 real-world courses on demand. As the number of available courses has grown, players have responded: golfers this year have explored more than four times as many different courses as they did a year earlier.

In E6 by TruGolf, Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Bing Maps imagery provide the surrounding scenery that helps players have a truly immersive experience. Courtesy TruGolf.

They have custom built each course using a combination of public and high-resolution private datasets, all processed and smoothed to support accurate ball physics for gameplay. The immersiveness of the experience comes from placing these courses in their real world locations so players see surrounding imagery from global datasets served by Cesium ion, including Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Bing Maps imagery. Cesium’s coordinate systems allow TruGolf to place each dataset in its correct location in the world. TruGolf further layers the experience with auto populated vegetation and with adjustable controls to set the time of day, weather, and atmospheric effects. Bringing all these elements together creates an immersive experience that allows users to feel like they are actually on site.

E6 by TruGolf generates each course on the fly at runtime. By generating courses dynamically, TruGolf can provide immediate access to a large catalog of courses without requiring massive downloads. Courtesy TruGolf.

Despite this extensive collection, users don’t have to download the entire library. All courses are generated on the fly at runtime, reducing bandwidth and storage costs and enabling scalability. Golfers jump seamlessly from one course to another and begin playing almost immediately, despite the extensive course library available to them. The ability to deliver only the data needed for the current experience helps keep the application responsive while supporting a virtually unlimited catalog of content.

“Golfers judge a simulator by two things: how many courses they can play and how real those courses feel. Delivering each course on demand lets us keep adding to a library of more than 15,000 courses without requiring massive downloads. Cesium surrounds every one of those courses with the real world with stunning accuracy. That combination is what lets the platform scale." 

E6 by TruGolf is compatible with numerous hardware systems, which measure a player’s swing using camera or LiDAR sensors that calculate spin, speed, and impact. Taking those inputs, the simulator offers an accurate, immersive simulation that also provides detailed analytics to help players improve.

Using Cesium’s globe and coordinate systems in Unreal Engine allows TruGolf to place each course in its correct location in the world and bring in real-world data from that area. Courtesy TruGolf.

Used in restaurants and other hospitality venues, at dedicated golf centers, and in home game rooms across the United States, E6 by TruGolf uses Cesium to provide global context for each course. To transform your simulator from an approximation to a geospecific experience with real world locations, try out Cesium for Unreal.

TruGolf Delivers Real-World Golf Courses on Demand with Cesium for Unreal

Managing large earthworks projects means directing a huge amount of resources, including an expensive fleet of heavy earthmoving equipment where every minute counts. Rockpile Solutions uses CesiumJS to give project managers a constant view of the operations of their sites so they can make decisions in real time that increase productivity and reduce their cost per cubic yard.

Rockpile Solutions Earthworks Twin

Rockpile Solutions’ RPS Tracker provides a detailed perspective of all equipment on site, showing task assignments and performance to instantly reveal bottlenecks. Uniquely, their software integrates with whatever trucks are on a site—new, old, and even rentals. Rather than relying on drivers to mark off hauls and provide an end-of-day load count, Rockpile’s sensors precisely track every load and dump, eliminating manual reporting.

Rockpile provides detailed real-time reports through a geospatial view that helps managers understand progress on site. Courtesy Rockpile Solutions.

“If I'm doing reports tomorrow, I've missed the chance to improve my numbers. I need insights into inefficiencies happening right now in time to correct or fix issues, and Cesium transforms our operational data into a real-time process view. That gives our customers the Earth-Moving Intelligence to make changes now to improve productivity.” 

– Bill Quintrell, CTO, Rockpile Solutions

RPS Tracker uses CesiumJS to provide a realistic view of the site in action. Site managers fuse their own drone scans, which provide a current view of the site, with Bing Maps imagery for geospatial context. 

Managers can see the real-time location and status of all vehicles on site so they can reallocate resources for greater efficiency. Courtesy Rockpile Solutions.

The ability to show an entire earthworks site in high precision, with real-time updates from the field, allows site managers to focus on the network as a whole and how each piece fits together. This comprehensive, real-time perspective makes it easier to spot where the fleet is at optimum performance and where the system may be lagging. If, for example, dump trucks are bunching up near an excavator that has hit harder material, waiting to be loaded, they can be reassigned to another excavator that's working more quickly. All tasks are sorted with the poorest performers on top so supervisors know where to apply their limited time to obtain the greatest results.  When managers are able to effectively manage the site’s entire earthmoving fleet in real time, the talents of skilled operators can be used to maximum efficiency.

Combining a high level overview of all operations on site, together with detailed analytics about each vehicle, gives greater insights into operations. Courtesy Rockpile Solutions.

In the app, all trucks are color coded to indicate their current status, e.g., full, empty, under maintenance. Managers can apply sophisticated metadata filtering for insights on the group as a whole, review historical tracks to analyze safety incidents, and drill down to get detailed information about each vehicle. Each make and model of truck is animated with incredible detail, with even the tires or treads rotating to match the vehicle’s tracked speed.

By maintaining a full history of each truck’s path and activities, Rockpile gives managers access to retrospectives when incidents occur. Courtesy Rockpile Solutions.

"Cesium transforms our operational data into a high-fidelity, 3D view of the job site, letting our customers see the ‘why’ behind their costs and giving them the knobs to turn to improve it in real time.” 

With Cesium, Rockpile Solutions is helping customers move millions of yards of dirt with greater efficiency and intelligence. To try CesiumJS for yourself, check out our getting started tutorial.

Rockpile Solutions Provides Real-Time Earthworks Insights Using CesiumJS

"We're not putting a divided highway through your yard, I promise."

Dakota Mohan, Digital Delivery Lead at JMT, an infrastructure engineering firm, shared that comment while describing one of the biggest challenges in public engagement for transportation projects. Long before construction begins, project teams must communicate proposed changes to the communities they affect. Traditionally, those conversations rely on 2D engineering drawings, plan sheets, and poster boards. Yet for someone trying to understand how a roadway project might affect their property or community, a collection of lines on a page leaves a lot to the imagination.

2D engineering drawings in a TxDOT public engagement meeting. Courtesy JMT.

As Mohan explained, most members of the public are not accustomed to reading plan sets or interpreting 2D representations of infrastructure. They're trying to answer much more practical questions: What is changing? What will stay the same? And how will it affect me?

Answering those questions was an important part of JMT's work on the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT) US 281 Blanco County project, a roadway improvement effort spanning approximately 20 miles. To help stakeholders better understand the project, JMT used Cesium to place engineering designs within realistic, real-world context.

The TxDOT proposed expanding US 281 into a four-lane divided highway, creating a need to clearly communicate the impact of those changes to stakeholders and the surrounding community. JMT wanted stakeholders to see future conditions as clearly and realistically as possible.

Using engineering models managed through Bentley Infrastructure Cloud (BIC), JMT leveraged Cesium for Unreal to create a photorealistic representation of the future corridor. Working directly from the latest design information, the team could visualize proposed improvements alongside existing conditions within a realistic environment created using Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles.

TxDOT US281 engineering data visualized in Unreal Engine using Cesium for Unreal. Courtesy JMT.

A key aspect of the resulting experience was the ability to compare existing conditions with proposed improvements. Rather than viewing the future roadway in isolation, stakeholders could see proposed changes alongside the roads, properties, and surrounding environment they already knew.

The resulting view provided a clear visual comparison between today's conditions and the proposed design, while also giving JMT a foundation for further enhancing the experience through custom materials, traffic simulations, and other visual improvements.

Mohan contrasted this workflow with earlier generations of 3D visualization, describing previous solutions as "very cartoony" and "very blocky." While those tools could communicate general concepts, they often lacked the realism needed to help stakeholders connect a design to their own surroundings.

To create realism stakeholders could relate to, JMT developed custom tooling to enhance materials and visual fidelity within Unreal Engine.

One anecdote from the US281 project captures the level of attention involved. During development, a project manager from JMT's Texas office looked at one of the visualizations and immediately noticed something was off. They pointed out, “that grass is way too green for Texas grass."

It's a small detail, but it captures the essence of the process. The goal wasn't simply to create a realistic visualization, but one that resonated with the people viewing it. Infrastructure projects are ultimately about real communities and familiar places. The more faithfully the experience reflected those places, the easier it became for stakeholders to connect what they were seeing on screen to their everyday life.

Existing conditions compared with proposed improvements along the US 281 corridor. Courtesy JMT.

US 281 Blanco County Proposed Project Fly-Through

When JMT presented the final visualization, the public’s response spoke for itself.

Colleagues who attended the public involvement meeting said property owners were pulling out their phones to record the visualization. Mohan described attendees as being "in awe" of the level of realism and detail and noted how much easier it became for stakeholders to understand project impacts once they could see them in context.

Attendee viewing the US 281 public engagement visualization during the TxDOT public meeting. Courtesy JMT.

The response extended beyond the meeting itself. The completed fly-through attracted nearly 15,000 views on the transportation agency's YouTube channel, a figure Mohan highlighted as particularly strong for a DOT project.

For JMT, the significance went beyond a single visualization. The Texas project was not an isolated success. According to Mohan, once transportation agencies saw the quality and realism possible with these workflows, many wanted similar experiences for their own projects. What began as a project-specific solution increasingly became a repeatable, sought-after pattern for clearly communicating design intent.

Building stakeholder-specific experiences

JMT is already expanding beyond the Unreal visualization workflow. Leveraging Cesium’s new design workflows and ion APIs, JMT is exploring experiences that provide easier access to engineering data, model properties, version comparison, and other interactive stakeholder engagement tools. These capabilities make it possible to build immersive stakeholder-specific experiences, including visualizing infrastructure projects in geospatial context, identifying changes between design versions, inspecting asset properties directly, and connecting to infrastructure project management systems for additional context.

A new JMT app uses Cesium's design model workflows to show model changes and give engineers direct access to model metadata, as shown here for a roadway element. Courtesy JMT. 

Just as public stakeholders have unique needs, other personas like engineers, project owners, and reviewers require distinct information from the model. Rather than limiting everyone to the same experience, JMT is exploring ways to create reusable applications that help each audience focus on the information and workflows most relevant to them. The common goal is giving people information in ways that are easier to consume, understand, and act upon, while maintaining a single source of truth in Bentley Infrastructure Cloud.

By using Bentley Infrastructure Cloud for engineering data management and Cesium to build custom stakeholder engagement applications, JMT is making engineering data more accessible and helping people see the future before it's built.

Interested in creating your own design review and stakeholder engagement experiences?

Learn more about the latest design workflows available in Cesium, including Bentley Infrastructure Cloud imports, engineering data access, version comparison capabilities, and more.

With Cesium, JMT Helps People See the Future Before It’s Built

In March 2026, Iran struck Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wounding US servicemembers and damaging aircraft. CNN journalists hypothesized that Russian satellites supported Iran’s intelligence before the attack. To evaluate this possibility, reporters worked with Kayhan Space, a spaceflight safety, operations, and intelligence company. Kayhan used its flagship product Satcat, whose geospatial and orbital visualization is built on CesiumJS, to verify satellite capabilities and behavior. 

Kayhan Space uses CesiumJS in Satcat. The team, with Satcat AI Analyst, examined Russian satellite capabilities and behavior, assisting CNN in reporting that Iranian attacks on Prince Sultan Air Base in March 2026 may have been supported by Russian intelligence. Courtesy Kayhan Space.

Kayhan Space Satcat: Russian Satellites Orbiting Earth in March 2026

Colorado-based Kayhan Space was founded in 2019 as a spaceflight safety company. One of its first flagship products, Pathfinder, was launched in 2022, with orbital visualization built on Cesium. As Kayhan expanded to deliver satellite operations capabilities and analytics, Pathfinder’s capabilities were integrated into Satcat in 2024 alongside new intelligence tools and public-facing features, making parts of the platform available to the public for the first time. Satcat's spaceflight safety capabilities provide operator coordination, risk assessment reports for close approaches, and recommendations for mitigating risk, aligning with operators’ workflows.  

Despite its vastness, space is a busy place, and information can be noisy: Are numbers calculated correctly? Does the data adhere to standards? What is this spacecraft’s history? Is it behaving normally? Is its owner friendly or an adversary? And, of course, what do you want to do about it? 

Some of Kayhan Space’s users are Capella Space, AST SpaceMobile, NOAA, and now CNN.  

COSMOS 2573 is a Russian EO satellite. This simulation shows satellite paths and visibility cones. Courtesy Kayhan Space.

Kayhan Space Satcat: Russian Satellites and Viz Cones

Hyun Seo, Chief Product Officer at Kayhan Space, employed an AI-assisted analysis tool within Satcat to begin examining capabilities and behavior of the entire Russian satellite fleet. “What Russian satellites had the best visibility over Prince Sultan Air Base in March?” he prompted the AI. 

Working with the CNN team, Seo dug in to fact-check the results and use Satcat to build accurate 3D simulations, based on time of day, weather, orbit, and satellite function. Inactive satellites as well as navigation and communications satellites, for example, moved off the list, but electro-optical (EO), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), radio frequency (RF), and infrared (IR) were in play. 

Seo recorded the simulations directly from the app, moving from analysis to broadcast-ready visualization, and used only public data so that CNN journalists could repeat his steps—verifying in 3D with their own tooling and sources, vital for accurate reporting. Seo also created primers on EO, SAR, RF, and IR for the CNN broadcast, including the Cesium globe for geospatial context and visual consistency but with larger-than-life models of the satellites for illustration for a broad audience. 

Seo created primers on EO, SAR, RF, and IR for CNN’s broadcast. Courtesy Kayhan Space.

Kayhan Space Satcat: SAR Primer

Satcat gets public data on spacecraft and debris ownership, launch, position, weather, mission, and more from Space-Track, Celestrak, NOAA, the European Space Agency, and other providers. Position data comes as TLEs with SGP4 propagation, and users can add proprietary data for their own constellations. Privileged access gives users the SP Catalog from the US Space Force with synthetic covariance as well as owner/operator ephemerides. Instead of separate spreadsheets, Satcat fuses data streams with a 3D globe in CesiumJS for accurate, immersive visualization and analysis in a browser.  

“We get value from the tech, Sandcastles and reference material, and community. Even with AI coding tools, it’s just not worth using something else. We use Cesium because we’re not just concerned with the visualization but with the maths,” said Seo. 

The 3D models of satellites Seo shared with CNN are glTF/glb. The models were not streamed with the simulation; CNN added the models to the recording for the broadcast. The underlying data and orbit paths remained grounded in Kayhan Space’s analysis, so reporters used real space data as evidence of Russian intelligence support ahead of Iranian missile attacks on Prince Sultan Air Base. 

3D model of a Bars-M EO satellite for Russian military intelligence, like Cosmos 2573. Courtesy Kayhan Space.

Kayhan Space Satcat: Bars-M Satellite Model

With accurate data visualized and analyzed in Kayhan Space’s CesiumJS-powered Satcat, journalists were able to verify information and create a visual story viewers could understand. You can watch the full CNN Investigates clip here. 

Detail and accuracy are foundations of the Cesium platform. Learn to build your own time-dynamic visualization and simulation app for space with CesiumJS. 

Kayhan Space Investigates Satellite Intelligence for CNN with CesiumJS 

Space missions are complex to plan, execute, and communicate to audiences with varying knowledge and interests. To retain engineering accuracy while bringing charts and strings of numbers to life, Blacknight Space’s Event Horizon uses CesiumJS for mission plans and milestones. 

Views in Event Horizon seamlessly transition from Earth centric to Moon centric—and beyond—to meet the needs of complex storytelling. Courtesy Blacknight Space.

Space missions are complex to plan, execute, and communicate to audiences with varying knowledge and interests. To retain engineering accuracy while bringing charts and strings of numbers to life, Blacknight Space’s Event Horizon uses CesiumJS for mission plans and milestones.

Blacknight Space Event Horizon

Event Horizon is an interactive, browser-based 3D mission visualization platform, designed for space operators, engineers, and technical marketers to deliver a dynamic showcase of mission plans and milestones. Teams can confirm trajectories, review events, and educate stakeholders and the public.  The application was recently released as an early beta version.

Blacknight Space supports commercial aerospace companies and US defense organizations, aiming to make the industry dramatically more efficient through digital engineering solutions. Blacknight is an Ansys partner for Digital Mission Engineering and shares AGI heritage with Cesium, championing tools for simulations in challenging environments. 

“Cesium technology is part of our DNA,” said Nate McBee, VP of product and engineering at Blacknight Space.

An Event Horizon overview highlights the Artemis II mission. Courtesy Blacknight Space. 

Blacknight has been developing Event Horizon on CesiumJS since day one, enabling users across the globe to explore live orbital telemetry, verified flight trajectories, and mission milestones in a browser. (Organizations with sensitive information can employ an on-prem version of Event Horizon.) Users have access to curated data from trusted public satellite databases and can bring their own data—trajectory, attitude, and error ellipsoids, among others. 

Event Horizon connects to Cesium ion to provide Cesium World Terrain plus satellite imagery; Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles; and Cesium Moon when mission views bring the user close to Earth or our moon, to ensure efficient streaming of these massive datasets over the web. Users can connect their own ion accounts, too. The app provides models of spacecraft, such as the International Space Station and satellites, and those are rendered as glTF/.glb.  

Views seamlessly transition from Earth centric to Moon centric—and beyond—to meet the needs of complex storytelling. Planners and communicators authoring mission narratives with Event Horizon can add saved views and notes to indicate plans and milestones, like stage separations, payload deployments, or rendezvous, in immersive 4D. Blacknight works closely with partners, such as Cesium and COMSPOC, on physics, ephemeris, and rendering, ensuring accurate representation. 

Event Horizon's web interface provides an interactive 3D representation of space operations, mission milestones, and analytics. Courtesy Blacknight Space. 

“Our end users and customers always comment on how nice the visualizations look, and, in the space industry, accurate visualization is a critical aspect of mission planning and situational awareness. Cesium helps us paint that accurate picture,” McBee said. 

With Cesium’s roots in aerospace and defense, CesiumJS brings out-of-the-box capability to Event Horizon, but its openness and extensibility mean Blacknight can mold it further, implementing unique visualizations and data streams. Blacknight has another advantage, though: two of the organization’s aerospace engineers are Cesium Certified Developers, and McBee estimates they can do in 25% of their time what would require someone else’s full-time efforts. The team gets to their aerospace expertise quickly, while Cesium handles the geospatial context and rendering. 

“Being part of a company that's growing the Cesium ecosystem, after helping others share what they can do, shows how the Cesium community drives real progress,” said Kyle Heisey, director of operations at Blacknight Space. Heisey launched and managed the CCD program when he was a Cesium employee. 

Watch Klaus Konarkowski’s 2026 Cesium Developer Conference breakout session to learn about the role Cesium plays in Event Horizon.

Aerospace visualization with telemetry streaming, propagation and mission events - Klaus Konarkowski

As Blacknight continues its work on Event Horizon, the team is planning support for unique coordinate systems, relative orbit frames, and mobile performance.  

Bring real-world understanding to complicated narratives with CesiumJS and a Cesium ion account. 

Blacknight Space’s Event Horizon Showcases Mission Plans and Milestones with CesiumJS

Developers at Hopeworks have built a digital twin of the city of Camden, New Jersey. Their digital twin, which uses Cesium for Unreal, is used by the Rowan University / Rutgers - Camden Board of Governors and the city of Camden for city planning as part of ongoing revitalization efforts. Hopeworks is helping them to visualize those plans.

Hopeworks visualizes planned development in Camden, New Jersey, using Cesium for Unreal. Courtesy Hopeworks.

To get stakeholder input, architects provide models and designs of the planned buildings, which the developers at Hopeworks turn into 3D models using Blender. They place these Blender models in geospatial context using Cesium for Unreal, with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles providing a visualization of the surrounding area. Stakeholders can then review designs, analyze community impact, request iterations, and solidify the plan.

Camden New Jersey digital twin by Hopeworks

This process is all the more remarkable because it isn’t just a commercial product: it’s also a training opportunity. Hopeworks is a nonprofit organization in New Jersey and Pennsylvania dedicated to helping young adults gain tech skills in a supportive environment that will launch them into in-demand tech careers.

Hopeworks uses Blender to create 3D models of planned buildings. Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles provide the surrounding geospatial context. Courtesy Hopeworks.

The only requirement to become a trainee at Hopeworks is to be between the ages of 17 and 26. All participants are given the opportunity to receive training, develop skills, and join paid internships where they practice skills for high demand fields and prepare for placement in tech jobs.

Visualizations of planned projects help city stakeholders assess plans for revitalization. Courtesy Hopeworks.

Hopeworks’ digital twin project maintains anywhere from 12 to 16 interns, as well as full-time staff, who have all come through the program themselves. Students come in with no experience in 3D modeling or geospatial development. After first shadowing staff and then participating in the project themselves, they ultimately leave the program with a mature skillset ready for the workforce.

Hopeworks interns gain experience through hands on training. Courtesy Hopeworks.

“Working with Cesium for Unreal allowed us to create a viable product that served a serious need in the community. At the same time, it was accessible enough that it could be built by interns with no prior experience. Watching the team own it and watching it grow has brought a real sense of fulfillment.” 

- John Kissling, Chief Business Officer, Hopeworks

Hopeworks’ digital twin of Camden demonstrates what is possible when emerging developers get the opportunity to work on real-world applications. To begin training for your own digital twin project, try placing objects on a 3D globe in Unreal Engine. And if helping launch young people into brighter futures interests you, Hopeworks is always seeking volunteers, donations, and business opportunities: see how you can get involved.

Hopeworks Builds Camden Digital Twin with Cesium for Unreal

For the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, managing security operations is a monumental task. The Port encompasses nearly 125 square miles, across both land and water, and directly owns close to 35,000 acres. This enormous footprint is spread over two counties with hundreds of facilities, vehicles, and vessels active at any time, and the Port relies on dozens of disparate digital systems for everything from vessel tracking to security. 

“Go into just about any first responder dispatch center, what do you see, screens upon screens to display more and more windows. We knew we needed to create a comprehensive view of Port activities.” 

- Darrell Keach, Business Systems Manager and the Port’s lead for OPTICS

With funding from a Department of Homeland Security grant to enhance critical infrastructure security, the Port brought on The Acceleration Agency (TAA) to build OPTICS, a 3D operational active digital twin that merges many of these systems into a single pane of glass and spatially organizes the data for true comprehensive situational awareness. TAA created both a desktop and mobile app for the Port that integrated live vessel traffic and computer aid dispatch with a geospatial model built using ArcGIS Maps SDK, giving port operators a realistic, real-time view of their environment.

This deployment served its purpose for internal teams; however, the Port is also looking to share this new fused dataset with security partners such as the United States Coast Guard. Deploying the app to external users during a crisis would be cumbersome: granting and revoking access to the secure application, which contains sensitive law enforcement data subject to FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) requirements, created an administrative bottleneck. The port needed a solution that could be rapidly deployed to authorized external users on any device without requiring an installation, and that could also easily rescind access when needed.

Active Digital Twin of the Port of Corpus Christi built by The Acceleration Agencywith ProjectGemini’s SaaS leveraging CesiumJS. Courtesy The Acceleration Agency.

ProjectGemini Cesium Web 7-23-2026

The solution was CesiumJS. TAA developed Project Gemini, their Active Digital Twin platform and framework, which uses CesiumJS for geospatial visualization. The Port’s Active Digital Twin with CesiumJS is designed to give supervisors and dispatchers a better way to view various security-related operations in one single view, wherever they may be located. “Creating a mobile and web version allows us to put much of this data in the hands of officers in the field,” Keach said.

Active Digital Twin of the Port of Corpus Christi built with ProjectGemini’s SaaS leveraging CesiumJS. Users can locate and view live security camera feeds through the intuitive geospatial interface. Courtesy The Acceleration Agency.

After years of investment in OPTICS, creating an entirely new, web-based 3D Active Digital Twin could have been daunting. But because CesiumJS embraces an open ecosystem and the ability to consume ArcGIS content out of the box, the team was able to directly ingest the Port’s existing ArcGIS Enterprise data. Rather than rebuilding the data pipeline from scratch, TAA used CesiumJS to bridge their existing geospatial data with what could be an easily shareable web environment.

The CesiumJS version of the digital twin provides all the same models and real-time updates as the Unity application. Courtesy The Acceleration Agency.

The Port of Corpus Christi digital twin app version created in Unity3D. The desktop version has a photorealistic look while the web version prioritizes performance. Courtesy The Acceleration Agency.

The flexibility of open standards and community-driven development allowed TAA to develop a highly accessible web-based Active Digital Twin. When it’s complete, the Port of Corpus Christi will be able to use the CesiumJS Active Digital Twin to grant secure, temporary access to a real-time operational view during an emergency, empowering rapid, cross-agency collaboration in critical moments.

Detailed information about facilities, together with live information such as lists of vessels currently on site, makes the digital twin an essential tool in understanding the evolving nature of events on site. Courtesy The Acceleration Agency.

To get started with CesiumJS, experiment in Cesium Sandcastle, which has code examples and an AI-driven chat panel for support.

The Acceleration Agency Leverages CesiumJS to Expand Port of Corpus Christi Active Digital Twin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRANCITY ARCADE：インフラデータを体験型アプリケーションへ 

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

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

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

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

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

J-POWERの現場で見えてきた、教育・安全・施設理解のユースケース 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

③動画（JPOWER QUESTのプレイ画面）

CalTaとキャドセンターがつなぐ、インフラ知見とリアルタイム3D実装 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

記録された現場から、学びと行動につながる空間へ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRANCITY ARCADE: Turning infrastructure data into experiential applications 

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