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User Stories

Siloed approaches to architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) can lead to poor communication and collaboration across all phases of projects, resulting in delays and increased costs. DroneDeploy enables stakeholders to examine the entire life cycle of a project with its drone software and viewer, which use 3D Tiles and Cesium ion Self-Hosted to make massive photogrammetry datasets manageable and accessible.

Capture high-resolution aerial data to align teams and keep AEC projects on track. Courtesy DroneDeploy.

DroneDeploy Map Engine

Founded in 2013, DroneDeploy has been using Cesium since 2018. With solutions for construction, agriculture, and insurance, DroneDeploy has built a platform for drone operators to host, visualize, and analyze their aerial imagery and photogrammetry, often on mobile devices. 3D comes into play for these users with accurate models and measurements of new schools or surveys for homeowners who are considering solar panels, for example. Teams can regularly refer to and update the models, examining change over time, making informed decisions, and staying on schedule.

The company has users in 180 countries, who have scanned 1.7 million jobsites, including 2D imagery and 3D models. It has the world’s largest drone data repository.

Photogrammetry of a new high school tiled as 3D Tiles and streamed to DroneDeploy’s custom viewer. Courtesy DroneDeploy.

Operators run DroneDeploy’s software on their drones, capturing buildings and surroundings exactly as they are in the real world. This data is uploaded as aerial imagery or photogrammetry to DroneDeploy’s processing pipeline, which relies on Cesium’s 3D models tiler and point cloud tiler via Cesium ion Self-Hosted in their own environment, and is then available in DroneDeploy’s viewer for analysis and sharing.

Because users’ untiled models are multiple gigabytes, computers and networks might struggle with these massive datasets, especially phones or tablets. Using 3D Tiles means this data is optimized for streaming and designed for precision. 

“Customer datasets vary in size. For bigger datasets—like an entire construction site, multiple square kilometers—getting detail in an untiled model is nearly impossible. Tiling with Cesium allows us to get it in quickly and then refine while maintaining high quality and a high level of performance,” said Joseph Sullivan, DroneDeploy’s 3D engineering lead.

DroneDeploy unifies all its customers’ reality capture data—from drones, robots, 360 cameras, or smartphones—in one platform. Courtesy DroneDeploy.

DroneDeploy: Unified Reality Capture Data

With Cesium’s 3D Tiling Pipeline, DroneDeploy puts its engineering resources into its custom viewer rather than model processing, and users get photorealistic 3D models for decisions based on reality.

To easily bring massive datasets to AEC stakeholders, sign up for a free Cesium ion account.

DroneDeploy Visualizes Construction Sites with Cesium

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

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

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

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

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

NORAD Tracks Santa at Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure 2024

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

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

Follow Along as NORAD Tracks Santa with Cesium

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

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

FOX NFL SUNDAY Atlanta to Hollywood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cesium Orients and Informs FOX Sports Football Fans

COMSPOC, a commercial provider of space situational awareness (SSA) software, has released Spacebook to make space data free to access and visualize with the help of CesiumJS. Because space is crowded and sometimes contentious, awareness is critical; with Spacebook, the space community can compare data. 

Spacebook was released in September 2024 to make space data freely available to the space community.

Spacebook was released in September 2024 to make space data freely available to the space community. Courtesy COMSPOC.

COMSPOC Spacebook

Spacebook was released in September 2024. A central repository for space data and advancing the industry, “Wikipedia for space,” Spacebook is a concept the COMSPOC team had been discussing for a decade. COMSPOC itself has been operating every minute since 2014, and visualization tools in its SSASuite are built on Cesium.  

For free, Spacebook users are able to download current and historical position, weather, and error data; visualize the data in the Cesium-powered Explorer; and expand their knowledge with technical papers and videos available on comspoc.com. Those in government, industry, and education are encouraged to create saved views with the resources, investigating individual space objects or even performing flight safety analysis. Visualizations can be saved with a free account. 

With Cesium, Spacebook’s Explorer viewer enables users to display orbit tracks and covariance ellipsoids for objects, color-code groups of objects or modify dot sizes for easy visual identification, and adjust animation speed. COMSPOC shared an anecdote of an educator in Hawaii, USA, who got a permit to launch a cubesat. Using Spacebook, her university and high-school students are able to track this satellite in 3D in near real time and do their own SSA analysis. 

Spacebook users can download space weather data, compare orbits with the CesiumJS-powered Explorer, and dig into technical papers and videos. Courtesy COMSPOC. 

Position property average, for example, is calculated 10 times a second for 26,000 objects in Spacebook, so locations are constantly updated. Spacebook data uses two-line element (TLE) sets for object position data, SGP4-xp for improved orbital predictions, and synthetic covariance for comparing TLEs. COMSPOC acquires this information from Space-Track, CelesTrak, and the US government and intends to accept data from users in the future, too. These massive datasets of thousands of points are visualized in conjunction with a high-precision WGS84 globe in CesiumJS, accurately displaying object location at a given time in interactive 3D to enhance situational awareness and learning.  

“Having great data is one thing. A functional, friendly viewer that gives users the sizzle and shows the data is another. We were able to bring in other features because we didn’t have to worry about rebuilding the globe. Our expertise is in space analytics, not 3D modeling and engine design. Using Cesium lets us get to our expertise as soon as possible,” said Steve Shogren, development lead for Spacebook.

Interactively investigate individual space objects or perform analyses in a web browser with Spacebook. Courtesy COMSPOC.

Although COMSPOC recently released Spacebook, the team is already working on more data sources and new features.  

Check out how other aerospace companies are using Cesium, and try it today to make your space apps precise, detailed, and shareable. 

Spacebook Makes Space Data Accessible for All with CesiumJS 

CalTa株式会社では、鉄道を中心に、道路、河川、港湾、発電所などの大規模なインフラ施設の現場管理業務を三次元空間上で行う「TRANCITY」を開発しており、その処理にCesiumのプラットフォームが活用されています。

TRANCITYは、ドローンやロボットで撮影した動画だけでなく、スマートフォンやタブレット端末等で撮影した動画もアップロードするだけで、三次元地理空間内の現実空間と一致する３Ｄモデルがスピーディーに自動生成されます。動画のほか、BIMモデルや点群データのアップロードも可能であり、3Dモデルと重ねて表示することができます。また、TRANCITYはブラウザベースのためPC、タブレット、スマホ等どんな端末でも活用することができます。３Ｄモデルは時系列ごとに管理され、位置情報と紐づくことで「いつ、どこが、どうなっているか」を正確に把握することが可能です。TRANCITYを活用することで、オフィスと現場等の離れた職場での詳細な情報共有が可能となり、東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様や東海旅客鉄道株式会社様などの鉄道業界をはじめ、インフラ業界における生産性向上や、持続可能なインフラ管理をサポートしています。

TRANCITYで扱う発電所工事施設内、施設建設予定地内の多種大量の３Dデータを最適な形に３Ｄタイル化、かつ高速にストリーミングし、デバイスを問わずスムーズな可視化を実現するのが CesiumJS と Cesium ionです。 3D タイルは、Cesiumによって作られた、点群や建物、フォトグラメトリなどの大規模で異質な3D地理空間データセットのためのオープン標準です。TRANCITYでは、鉄道などの大規模インフラの管理情報と位置情報を結びつけることで効率化されますが、それらの3DデータはCesium ionを用いて3Dタイルとして最適化され、あらゆるデバイスのCesiumJSに高速にストリーミングされます。 TRANCITYでは、まず動画データからSfM技術を用いて3Dデータを生成し、生成したデータを3D Tiles形式にタイル化してビューワに表示しています。この一連の工程を通じて、約1時間以内でデータの可視化が可能です。このプロセス全体には、Cesium ionエンジンの高品質な処理能力が大きく貢献しています。

ストリーミングされたデータは、CesiumJSを使用してWGS84座標系に基づいて正確に三次元地理空間上に表現され、ウェブ上で可視化されます。このようにCesiumJSは、多様なユーザーエクスペリエンスを実現するためのライブラリとして活用されています。

TRANCITY上で再現された構造物の距離計測

TRANCITY上で再現された鉄道現場での面積算出

Trancity (Japanese)

Cesiumは海外諸都市ですでに多くの利用実績があり、CityGMLやLASといった様々な3Dデータ形式を3Dタイルに変換しストリーミング用に最適化しています。そのオープンな開発環境により豊富な開発事例を保持していることや、Web上で可視化され誰でも利用できる点、などが評価され採用されました。

ここで東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様と東海旅客鉄道株式会社様の実際の活用事例をご紹介します。

東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様では、発電所の更新工事において、以下のような課題を抱えていました。

広大な敷地内に展開されるインフラ工事の監理を少人数で行わなければならない

設計モデルとの整合性を確認するために各所寸法を計測する際、担当者が都度オフィスから離れた現場へ移動しなければならず、往復4時間かかる

また、東海旅客鉄道株式会社様では、鉄道の線路上空を交差する橋梁の点検において、以下のような課題を抱えていました。　　

終電から始発までの限られた時間の中で線路内に足場設置、点検、足場撤去をしなければならず点検の時間が十分に取れない

危険な作業が多く墜落などのリスクがある

これらの課題解決に向け、東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様においては、発電所工事の動画をTRANCITYへアップロード。現場が3Dタイルで正確かつ効率的にモデル化され、Webブラウザを通じて、三次元地理空間上で現場の詳細な状況を把握でき、少人数での効率的な管理が可能になりました。併せて現場とオフィスを移動する足ロスも解消することができました。

また、東海旅客鉄道株式会社様では橋梁の点検現場を３Ｄモデル化し、三次元地理空間上で点検を行うことで、生産性向上と安全性の向上を図ることができました。

＜東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様 　現場で計測していた業務をPC上で実施するイメージ＞

＜東海旅客鉄道株式会社様　夜間に足場を設置していたものを動画撮影に置き換えるイメージ＞

東日本旅客鉄道株式会社様、東海旅客鉄道株式会社様は、施設・設備工事の調査・設計・施工・点検管理からステークホルダーとの合意形成等に至るまで、労働者不足という日本社会に共通する大きな課題の解決を目指し、Cesium利用によるTRANCITYを活用した大幅な効率化や、分かりやすい説明によるステークホルダーの満足度向上に取り組んでいます。     

上記の改善点以外にも、従来、３Dデータを取り扱うために必要だった高性能な端末を不要にし、スマートフォンやタブレット端末などのツールでデジタルツイン上での速やかな点検や計測業務、シミュレーション提示を可能にするなど、デジタルツインのデータによる全く新しいサスティナブルな働き方への変革を実現しています。

TRANCITYは、日本のものづくりに求められる厳しい品質基準を満たすために、Cesiumでの正確な地球上の位置座標の表示性能を活用しつつ、質の高いデジタルツイン空間を実現しています。例えば現場の一部である鉄筋組み立て配置状況が、当該現場全体を空から俯瞰した状態からアクセスできるようになります。このため、鉄道のような線状に長い現場や、工場のように面状に広大な現場であっても、個々の細かな現場変化を効率的かつスピーディーに管理することが可能となりますが、これをCesiumとの連携により実現しています。すなわち、ミクロとマクロがシームレスかつ正確につながり、マクロの現場状況を地球レベルでの現場状況から拡大して確認できるデジタルツイン空間を実現したものです。それは、これまでに存在しない仕組みであり、人間にとってより身近なデジタルツイン空間を実現したプロダクトと言えます。そして2024年10月、TRANCITYはCEATEC AWARDデジタル大臣賞を受賞しました。

ご自身のインタラクティブなウェブアプリをCesiumJSを使用して構築するには、当社のラーニングセンターガイドをご参照ください。Cesium ionを使用すれば、全世界の地形、画像、建物を含むフルスケールの地球モデルに独自のデータをインポートすることができます。Cesiumの3Dタイルパイプラインは、データセットのサイズに関係なく、データをストリーミングに最適化します。無料のCesium ionアカウントにサインアップし、

Cesium Storiesを使って簡単に3D地理空間の体験を作成できる方法をお試しください。

また、Cesium ionの SaaSや セルフホステッドのソリューションがどのように貴社の3Dアセットの価値を引き出すのに役立つか、については、sales@cesium.comまでお問い合わせください。

TRANCITY Uses Cesium to Manage Japanese Railway Projects

CalTa Inc. has developed "TRANCITY," a platform for managing large-scale infrastructure projects such as railways, roads, rivers, ports, and power plants in a three-dimensional space, with Cesium’s platform playing a crucial role in its operation.

TRANCITY swiftly and automatically generates 3D models that accurately reflect real-world conditions in a 3D geographic space from various types of video footage. This includes videos captured by drones or robots, as well as those taken with smartphones or tablets. Additionally, users can upload BIM models and point cloud data, which can be overlaid on the 3D models. As a browser-based solution, CesiumJS-powered TRANCITY is accessible from any device, including PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The 3D models are managed chronologically and linked with location data, allowing precise tracking of "what happened, where, and when." By using TRANCITY, detailed information sharing between remote offices and field locations is facilitated, thereby supporting productivity and sustainable infrastructure management in the railway industry and beyond, including companies such as East Japan Railway Company and Central Japan Railway Company.

Because TRANCITY is built on CesiumJS and Cesium ion, it can efficiently handle and stream large volumes of diverse 3D data from power plant construction sites and planned facility construction areas, by converting them into optimized 3D Tiles for smooth visualization across all devices. Created by Cesium, 3D Tiles is the open standard for massive, heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets such as point clouds, buildings, and photogrammetry. TRANCITY enhances the management of large-scale infrastructure by linking 3D data with location information, and Cesium ion optimizes this data into 3D Tiles that are streamed rapidly to CesiumJS on any device. TRANCITY generates 3D data from video footage using their SfM technology at first, then transforms the data into 3D Tiles format for display in a viewer. This entire process enables data visualization in under an hour. The high-quality processing capabilities of the Cesium ion engine play a crucial role in this workflow.

The streamed data is accurately represented in 3D geographic space based on the WGS84 coordinate system and visualized on the web using CesiumJS. CesiumJS is utilized as a library to enable a variety of user experiences.

Distance measurement of structures recreated on TRANCITY. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

Area calculation at the railway site recreated on TRANCITY. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

Overview of TRANCITY. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

Trancity (English)

Cesium has extensive usage worldwide, having demonstrated its capabilities in numerous cities. It converts various 3D data formats, such as CityGML and LAS, into 3D Tiles optimized for streaming. The elements like the platform's open development environment, extensive development case studies, and capability for web-based visualization accessible to anyone were highly regarded and led customers to select Cesium.

Here are the actual cases of how East Japan Railway Company and Central Japan Railway Company have utilized TRANCITY and Cesium:

East Japan Railway Company faced the following challenges during the upgrade of a railway-owned power plant:

Managing infrastructure work across a vast site with a small team.

Checking measurements for consistency with design models required staff to travel to the site from the office, taking four hours for a round trip.

Central Japan Railway Company encountered the following difficulties with bridge inspections over railway tracks:

Installing scaffolding, inspecting the bridge, and removing scaffolding within the limited time between the last and first trains, which constrained inspection time.

The work involved significant risks, including potential falls.

East Japan Railway Company uploaded videos of the power plant construction to TRANCITY. This allowed the site to be streamed as accurate, efficient 3D Tiles, providing detailed situational awareness in a 3D geographic space via a web browser and enabling efficient management by a small team. It also eliminated the need for frequent site visits, reducing travel time.

Central Japan Railway Company used TRANCITY to model the bridge inspection site and stream it as 3D Tiles to the web, enhancing productivity and safety by conducting inspections within a 3D geographic space instead of short nighttime visits.

Before: On-site visits. Courtesy East Japan Railway Company. 

After: East Japan Railway Company uses TRANCITY and Cesium to measure and perform other tasks on a PC that previously required on-site visits. Courtesy CalTa Inc.

Video recordings can be added to TRANCITY instead of risky nighttime inspections in a short time. Courtesy Central Japan Railway Company.

East Japan Railway Company and Central Japan Railway Company are leveraging Cesium-powered TRANCITY to significantly enhance efficiency in addressing Japan's widespread labor shortage, a challenge that spans across various sectors of society. Their efforts encompass everything from surveying, designing, construction, and inspection management of facilities and infrastructure, to fostering consensus among stakeholders through clear and comprehensible explanations aimed at improving stakeholder satisfaction.

Beyond these improvements, CalTa Inc. is also pioneering a transformative approach to sustainable work practices, enabled by digital twin technology. This new method eliminates the need for high-performance devices traditionally required to handle 3D data, allowing for swift inspections, measurements, and simulation presentations on digital twins using smartphones, tablets, and other portable tools.

TRANCITY meets the stringent quality standards demanded by Japanese manufacturing by utilizing Cesium's precise geospatial capabilities to create a high-quality digital twin environment. For instance, TRANCITY allows access to detailed views of rebar assembly configurations within a site from an aerial perspective. This capability facilitates efficient and rapid management of both linear sites, such as railways, and extensive areas like factories, by seamlessly integrating detailed micro-level changes with macro-level site conditions on a global scale. This represents an unprecedented system that delivers a more accessible digital twin experience for users, and in October 2024 TRANCITY received the CEATEC Digital Minister’s Award for this work.

To build your own interactive web applications using CesiumJS, please refer to our Learning Center guides. With Cesium ion, you can import your data into a full-scale global model that includes worldwide terrain, imagery, and buildings. Cesium's 3D Tiles pipeline optimizes your data for streaming, regardless of dataset size. Sign up for a Cesium ion account and explore how to create immersive 3D geospatial experiences. For more information on how Cesium ion's SaaS or Self-Hosted solutions can enhance the value of your 3D assets, please contact us.

TRANCITYはCesiumを使用し、日本の鉄道インフラの管理を実現

“Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator” enables players to experience the evolution of human spaceflight, blending a game with a simulator, so users learn to operate spacecraft with realistic procedures and, soon, Cesium Moon Terrain.

Reentry is used for both fun and research. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen is replacing his homebuilt Moon renderer with Cesium Moon Terrain. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Reentry is used for both fun and research. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen is replacing his homebuilt Moon renderer with Cesium Moon Terrain.

Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator

Reentry users make their way through NASA’s Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo while studying the history of human spaceflight and gaining practical skills. The ultimate goal is to land on the Moon.

A select group of players called “test pilots” will be the first to orbit and walk on Cesium Moon Terrain in Reentry, with this feature available to other users in early 2025.

Reentry is not limited to gamers. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen tailors instances of the simulator for aerospace industry agencies, and users are also testing VR implementation. 

These immersive 3D trainings bring aerospace professionals up to speed with realistic models and simulations for studies and research related to human space exploration. Wilhelmsen can build in failures or events so organizations can see how people behave in these situations, such as loss of power, fuel management, and isolation.

Lunar Module in orbit around the Cesium Moon. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Wilhelmsen began working on Unity-based Reentry in 2015. It was released as “early access” on Steam in 2018 and remained a hobby for Wilhelmsen until summer 2024, when he joined Helsinki-based studio Lyra Creative and Reentry became his full-time project. Members of Lyra Creative are focused on immersive experiences, expanding users’ views and vital training opportunities.

View from the commander's window of the Apollo Command Module. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Within a few hours of hearing about Cesium Moon Terrain, Wilhelmsen began incorporating it into Reentry via Cesium ion and Cesium for Unity. Cesium Moon Terrain is accurate, complete 3D Tiles of the lunar surface, enabling 3D visualizations, simulations, and analytics.

“Having a digital twin of the Moon, where craters and all the details of the Moon can be explored, is vital,” said Wilhelmsen. “Creating my own streamable Moon renderer is beyond my own capabilities, and, by using Cesium, I can instead focus on other aspects of the game.” 

Wilhelmsen reports it took only 30 minutes to replace his lower fidelity Moon with Cesium Moon Terrain.

The Command Module Columbia looking down at the Apollo 11 landing site. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

The launch pad and spacecraft in Reentry are from asset stores, but he also makes some assets himself using Blender. The laser scan of the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, for example, is from the Smithsonian Institution; Wilhelmsen modified it for Reentry to improve the panels. These assets are loaded directly into Unity.

Users in orbit see not only the Moon but also Earth—the Cesium globe via Cesium for Unity enables accurate, realistic visualizations for both enthusiastic gamers and those who are training and pushing boundaries. In the future, Wilehelmsen may incorporate Cesium World Terrain and satellite imagery for the launch areas, to add to the accuracy on Earth.

The Lunar Module preparing for descent and landing on the lunar surface. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

A number of users have remarked to Wilhelmsen that they remember events during these early space programs, and they are reliving the thrill and pride of humanity’s progress with Reentry. 

To add Cesium Moon Terrain and other curated 3D data to your simulation, sign up for a Cesium ion account.

“Reentry” Blends Gaming and Training with Cesium Moon Terrain

As AEC projects increasingly require public input and organizations prefer plans with realism for their own understanding, Pennoni is moving engineering from graph paper to streaming 3D models with Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles.

Proposed “dolphin” cylinder protection at Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA)’s Delaware Memorial Bridge. Courtesy Pennoni.

Multidisciplinary engineering firm Pennoni—also our neighbor, headquartered in Philadelphia—serves clients across the US and has recently created immersive visualizations for clients in Florida; Virginia; Washington, DC; Maryland; Delaware; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; and Massachusetts. Whether it’s for a revamped playground, a shared-use path, a new neighborhood, bridge replacement, or a streetscape, Pennoni is bringing 3D interactions to architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) planning and approvals. For example, Pennoni recently completed a digital twin of the new “dolphin” cylinder protection system for the Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA)’s Delaware Memorial Bridge, a critical twin suspension bridge crossing the Delaware River.

The firm has been heavily involved with design visualization and the creation of digital twins for engineering projects since 2015. That’s when Pennoni in-house viz duo Joe Spadea, PE, associate vice president, Pennoni FX Studios (PFX) visualization practice leader, and Steven Lewis, senior engineering technician, led the formation and creation of the PFX team. Since that time, there have been new faces and technologies to grow the firm’s capabilities. The firm began using Cesium in 2023, when Mike Sulesky, design visualization specialist at Pennoni, met the Cesium team at a Drexel University event. The PFX Studios team found that integrating Cesium with tools they were already using was easier and saved time, freeing up days of work to improve other facets of a project. With Cesium for Unreal and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles, they no longer needed to hand-model a project’s surroundings and could instead create suitable scenes and infrastructure massing in house.

“It’s a constant balance of quality, budget, and time. Cesium allows us some flexibility of budget and time,” said Tim Timmons, senior design visualization specialist at Pennoni.

Digital twin of Jake's Place, an inclusive playground in Vineland, New Jersey. Courtesy Pennoni.

Pennoni creates interior and exterior 3D renderings and animations for its clients’ individual projects. For interiors, the firm’s Unreal Engine artists combine manual modeling with marketplace assets. For exteriors, Pennoni’s engineers, with collaborating architects, create 3D models for proposed structures using CAD data, point clouds, or photogrammetry. Pennoni loads these directly into Unreal Engine, ensuring accurate placement and lighting with Cesium for Unreal, and streams Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles via Cesium ion for real-world urban context, so the future view is clear. 

Google Maps Platform’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles were designed to scale from city blocks to citywide, immersing users in the surroundings they expect to see. Photorealistic 3D Tiles use the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard 3D Tiles format. This format, created by Cesium, efficiently streams massive amounts of data required to display details for both collaborative planning and public awareness.

Pennoni reports that including Cesium in its digital innovation has helped the firm impress clients, win work, and market Pennoni itself, as the engineers work hand in hand with the company’s corporate communications team.

“Rather than waiting years for a project to be completed, and then capture and post photos, we can show visualizations immediately, in present day,” explained Spadea.

Proposed condominiums set against the Florida Gulf Coast. Courtesy Pennoni.

Proposed condominiums set against the Florida Gulf Coast, rendered with Cesium for Unreal. Courtesy Pennoni.

Pennoni Seaforest Condos

Earlier this month, Cesium announced we joined Bentley Systems, a leading infrastructure engineering software company, via acquisition. Together with Bentley, Cesium provides a complete platform for building digital twin experiences for the natural and built environment, with a strong commitment to open source, open standards, and open APIs.

"The recent acquisition is a great fit and a win for everyone. Pennoni has utilized Bentley tools and has a long-standing partnership with Bentley, so this is a welcome next step for us. It's remarkable as well that all three firms are headquartered in the Delaware Valley. Move over, Silicon Valley,” said Spadea.

To immerse your AEC clients in accurate, realistic 3D and better allocate your resources, sign up for a Cesium ion account.

Pennoni Transforms Engineering Models with Cesium

It’s wildland fire season in the United States. The Lockheed Martin AI Center’s (LAIC) Joint Activity Manager (JAM) provides operational context for active wildland fires, using AI, real-time data, and CesiumJS to stream this 3D visualization to incident commanders.

Overview of Lockheed Martin JAM capability, featuring a sped-up clip of the Vista fire outside of Los Angeles, California. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

Overview of Lockheed Martin JAM capability, featuring a sped up clip of Vista fire outside of Los Angeles, CA. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin JAM - Vista, CA, July 2024

While still in development, this capability is intended for state agencies to visualize and analyze active wildland fires; track flights of aerial assets that have been tasked with detection, monitoring, and suppression; and incorporate weather information, such as temperature, humidity, and wind.

The wildland fire incident list in the application is populated every 24 hours with information from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), based in Boise, Idaho, USA, to ensure daily updates on the number and locations of active wildland fires. Imagery from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) is pulled every 30 minutes. 

In an upcoming feature, Lockheed Martin’s AI will detect near-real-time fire hot spots from this imagery and reflect them atop 3D terrain from Cesium every 15-20 minutes. Lockheed Martin uses its “super resolution” AI capabilities to, in effect, add more pixels to the images, which refines them prior to determining the near-real-time fire area from the satellite imagery.

Tracking a Pilatus PC-12 on patrol identifying and mapping wildland fires in CesiumJS. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

JAM brings together ground, air, and satellite data from NIFC, NOAA, and ADS-B flight trackers (as seen in the image above) and combines them in CesiumJS. State agencies might also have their own assets (e.g., thermal imaging from multi-mission aircrafts) that can be added. The application uses Cesium World Terrain and Bing Maps Aerial imagery streamed as 3D Tiles via Cesium ion, to provide incident commanders and staff an accurate 3D map to enhance the common operating picture. CesiumJS was built for interactive web apps and streaming massive amounts of data—it is lightweight and performant, vital for users receiving rapid updates in the field.

Work on the JAM prototype began in December 2023, and efforts on the current demo started in March 2024. Lockheed Martin, which employs 122,000 people worldwide, assigned five developers on this project. The company selected Cesium and its real-time update capabilities as an efficient, effective tool for visualizing historical wildland fire data. Lockheed Martin continues to leverage commercial partnerships to accelerate development of JAM.

Wind and weather information for an active fire area in CesiumJS. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

Demo of suppression line visualization in CesiumJS. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

The crew behind JAM is working toward including all active wildland fires in the US. The alpha version was completed in May 2024, and beta is slated for this summer.

You can fuse your own data with high-resolution terrain and imagery with Cesium ion; get started with a community account.

Lockheed Martin Tracks Wildland Fires with Cesium

NBC Sports, the official American broadcast partner of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, is using Cesium to visualize event locations.

Archery takes place at Invalides. Courtesy NBC Sports.

The Games are currently running through August 11, 2024, with 45 events at venues across Paris, in other regions of France, and nearly 10,000 miles away—including beach volleyball at Eiffel Tower Stadium, football (soccer for those of us in the US) in Nice, and surfing in Tahiti. Massive amounts of data are required to quickly show competition locations and popular landmarks in detail on studio monitors during broadcasts. To manage the data and accurately present the geospatial context for the Games, NBC Sports paired its 3D models of stadiums with Cesium for Unreal and Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles.

The Alexandre III Bridge is the start and finish for the triathlon, the start for the open-water swim, and the finish line for cycling time trials. Courtesy NBC Sports.

Paris is among the 2,500 cities Google Maps Platform has made available as Photorealistic 3D Tiles: high-res imagery draped over 3D mesh and formatted as 3D Tiles, the OGC community standard created by Cesium to optimize streaming of massive 3D geospatial data. With Google’s extensive coverage, Photorealistic 3D Tiles were designed for city scale, and even down to a city block, providing details viewers expect to see in the real world. NBC Sports imports Photorealistic 3D Tiles into its Unreal Engine projects through Cesium ion, where NBC Sports also hosts its 3D models of venues used for the Games. Smooth rendering of these geospecific 3D datasets and realistic lighting enable NBC Sports to orient and immerse viewers.

“Cesium made it easy for our team of Unreal artists to manipulate Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles, building projects that showcase the real-world data to viewers without needing to devote additional resources to acquiring the data. The platform’s speed and quality fit right into our workflow,” said Wade Echer, VP of On-Air Graphics at NBC Sports. “Using Cesium in this manner allowed us to minimize the hours needed to accomplish the job, freeing up other artists for other projects.”

Grand Palais hosts fencing and Taekwondo. Courtesy NBC Sports.

Bring digital worlds to life for any audience with a Cesium ion account.

NBC Sports Uses Cesium for Broadcast Coverage of Summer Games in Paris

Nonprofit organization Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) seeks out discoveries on the seafloor, aiding research in geology, biology, and more while pushing the boundaries of technological innovation, education, and outreach. Working in the deep waters of the Pacific, the team uses Cesium for Unreal for its Realtime Underwater Modeling and Immersion (RUMI) project, fusing and sharing massive 3D and 2D datasets for discoverability, analysis, and education.

OET’s 2024 expeditions explore the Eastern, Central, and Western Pacific Ocean. This visualization scales from a global view into a dive track within the Hawaiian Islands. Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust.

Ocean Exploration Trust’s 2024 expeditions explore the Eastern, Central, and Western Pacific Ocean. This visualization scales from a global view into a dive track within the Hawaiian Islands. Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust.

Ocean Exploration Trust/NautilusLive: Orbit to Dive

The launch point for Ocean Exploration Trust’s expeditions is Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, a 68-meter (224-foot) research ship. E/V Nautilus has space for interdisciplinary teams, labs, and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Capable of reaching depths of 4,000 meters (13,000+ feet) ROV Hercules is equipped with lights, high-resolution cameras, and sensors, and it can carry special instrument packages like the widefield camera array to capture high-res video and images for seafloor photogrammetry. In exploring previously unexplored deep-sea habitats worldwide, OET often must acquire data to create their own high-resolution maps. Because OET shares mapping and ROV operation data, expeditions contribute to US and international ocean and technology exploration strategies. This season’s ten expeditions are underway, live streaming daily, with real-time results available to the public.

RUMI combines disparate data streams in one interactive 3D space with Cesium for Unreal. Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust.

Funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration and the Office of Naval Research, the RUMI project is growing in its applications for both educational and scientific audiences. The project brings together the images and video from ROV Hercules, bathymetric point clouds from E/V Nautilus’s multibeam echosounder, and other dive observations in a georeferenced digital environment. 

The team at Ocean Exploration Trust and its expedition partners gather vast amounts of data from previously unexplored areas, thousands of meters below the sea surface. “Combining these disparate data streams in one 3D space with Cesium is a unique alternative to downloading our data and using a spreadsheet,” said Jonathan Fiely, OET’s Media Production Specialist and the RUMI Co-Lead. “It’s a powerful way to discover our data in an interactive and engaging manner.”

In building digital models, RUMI uploads its data about the ocean to Cesium ion for hosting and tiling into 3D Tiles, the most efficient way to stream massive, detailed models and combine them for visualization and analysis. Cesium for Unreal’s built-in georeferencing system ensures these models are accurately placed on a WGS84 globe. The team accesses Cesium World Bathymetry for areas along coastlines and inland topographic coverage, to provide broader geospatial context. This ever-growing collection of seafloor data is streamed to Unreal Engine, with future plans to publicly release prototype experiences via pixel streaming.

RUMI uses Cesium World Bathymetry in combination with OET’s own bathymetric models. Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust.

Realtime Underwater Modeling and Immersion (RUMI) uses Cesium World Bathymetry in combination with OET’s own bathymetric models. Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust.

Realtime Underwater Modeling and Immersion (RUMI)

To learn more about OET’s work, tune in to Fiely’s talk at SIGGRAPH at 2 p.m. MDT on Sunday, July 28, 2024.

You can fuse and share your 3D datasets for research and education by signing up for a Cesium ion account.

Ocean Exploration Trust Uses Cesium for Realtime Underwater Modeling and Immersion Project

Recent legislation in the Netherlands requires public participation as part of the permit process for urban planning. Drip visual’s PublicTwin is an online platform enabling citizen input with Photorealistic 3D Tiles and Cesium for Unreal.

PublicTwin empowers citizens to explore and voice opinions about proposed changes to their neighborhoods. It includes a simplified overview, a Cesium-powered digital twin upon zooming in, and a participatory questionnaire. Courtesy drip visual.

Founded in 2021, drip visual combines AEC, gamification, and geospatial data to democratize urban planning, using real-time engines as communication tools. Needing to attend in-person meetings at specific times and interpret 2D schematics or overly simplified 3D displays pose barriers to public understanding and participation in permit processes. Drip visual’s PublicTwin geospecific representation is available online, empowering citizens to explore and voice opinions about proposed changes to their neighborhoods. 

Drip visual launched its PublicTwin Pilot Program in June 2024 at Provada, a real estate conference in Amsterdam, with interactive visualizations of a Nieuw Delft master plan and a Leeuwendeel residential building proposal in the city of Delft.

Nieuw Delft master plan, aggregating multiple proposals in accurate geospatial context with Cesium. Courtesy drip visual.

Drip visual receives 3D models of proposed buildings from architects or engineers, edits the models as needed, and exports them to Unreal Engine for high-fidelity rendering and integration with accurate geospatial context and lighting via the Cesium for Unreal plugin.

The team employs Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles accessed from Cesium ion for accurate, easily identifiable surroundings for urban planning and AEC. Rather than seeing a nondescript building on the corner, citizens recognize, for example, the local train station, complete with windows and signage they encounter in the real world. Designed for citywide scale and down to city blocks, Photorealistic 3D Tiles use the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard 3D Tiles format, created by Cesium, to efficiently stream massive amounts of data and immerse users in the environment. PublicTwin is accessible on the web via pixel streaming.

“Photorealistic wider city context generation was a challenge, and the ability to utilize Cesium directly within Unreal Engine 5 to stream Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles allowed us to achieve good results more efficiently, instead of manually modeling a city,” explained the drip visual team. Documentation and tutorials in the Learning Center helped the studio prototype quickly, they said.

Users can zoom in on a Leeuwendeel residential building proposal in the city of Delft. Courtesy drip visual.

Drip visual is encouraging municipalities, developers, and architects to join its Pilot Program. Currently in its alpha stage, PublicTwin is used for individual projects, but the team is working with early adopters on its vision, including expanding the tool to be a broadly available SaaS platform.

Learn how Cesium increases public participation and saves time for AEC projects.

Drip Visual's PublicTwin Enables Public Participation in Urban Planning with Cesium

To introduce students to the space industry, New Ascent launches “ChipSats” to gather environmental info and tracks their descent in 3D as part of MISSION: SubSpace, an in-classroom aerospace mission experience that uses an interactive web portal built on CesiumJS.

Students get their own mission control experiences with MISSION: SubSpace. Courtesy New Ascent.

Students get their own mission control experiences with Mission: SubSpace, powered by CesiumJS. Courtesy New Ascent.

Misson: SubSpace by New Ascent

New Ascent is a STEM education company, focusing on the impacts of the space industry on daily life by engaging students in grades 3-12 in real science missions. MISSION: SubSpace was released in 2023 to show young learners that they can be involved in space without being an astronaut. 