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User Stories

今回ご紹介するのは、大阪公立大学の金子健作博士による挑戦です。金子氏は建築物の耐震工学を専門とし、最近では、AIを活用した構造ヘルスモニタリング (SHM) を研究されています。SHMとは建物内に加速度センサを設置して、大きな地震の発生直後に建物の安全性を自動的に判定する技術です。このSHMの新たな展開に関して、金子博士はこのSHMシステムの普及を進めるために、3DのWeb GISで建物の安全性を可視化する新たなアプローチに挑戦しています。

構造ヘルスモニタリング（SHM）に利用される加速度センサは、地震時の建物の揺れを記録します。これらのセンサは建物内に設置され、クラウドサーバーにデータを自動的にアップロードする機能もあります。(画像提供：金子 健作 博士）

金子氏がCesiumJSに興味を持ったきっかけは、2021年に国土交通省のProject PLATEAUに関する記事を読んだことでした。Project PLATEAUは、日本全国の3D都市モデルを整備し、オープンデータとして公開する国家プロジェクトです。

「当時、私はGISを本格的に使ったことがありませんでした。しかし、PLATEAU ViewerでCesiumJSが使われていることを知り、試してみようと思いました。また、地球規模の数千kmから建物室内の数mまでスケール感を損なわずにシームレスに可視化できる点に強く惹かれました。」（金子博士）

最初は純粋な興味から始めましたが、CesiumJSの柔軟な3D可視化の可能性に魅了され、学びを深めていきました。2Dでは味わえない3Dならではのスケール感を実感し、オープンデータの活用とWebでの展開により、より多くの人々に役立つシステムを世に問うことが大きなモチベーションの一つとなりました。彼はCesiumJSで多数のエンティティを効率的にレンダリングし、地上構造物と地下構造物の両方を表示する方法を学ぶ中で、Cesium community forumなどのリソースを活用しました。

大阪市内で想定される津波浸水深と3D都市モデル、緊急避難場所の情報を重ね合わせてWeb上で表示した例。（画像提供：金子 健作 博士）

金子氏はAIによる都市スケールの広範囲な地震被害推定と構造ヘルスモニタリング（SHM） の統合を目指した先端的な研究に取り組んでおり、Cesiumはそれに役立てられています。将来的にSHMは、ドライブレコーダーのように多くの建物に導入されて一般市民に認知されことが期待されるなか、AIはSHMの普及を後押しすると金子氏は確信しています。研究過程で開発されたシステムは、「MeSM」と命名されています。MeSMという呼称は、Machine Learning-Enhanced Structural Health Monitoring（機械学習を活用した構造ヘルスモニタリング）プロジェクに由来しています。現在では、SHMの記録やAI機能を含む研究成果を省いた形で、市民が日常的に活用できるようにWebアプリケーションが一般公開され、防災講座や教育にも活用されています。

この研究プロジェクトは、三つのアプローチから構成されています。第一のアプローチは、日本の気象庁から得られる地震情報（震源位置、震源深さ、マグニチュードなど）を基に、3D都市モデルを活用して建物ごとの構造情報を考慮したうえで、事前学習したAIによって都市レベルでの地震被害を即時に推定するものです。この推定は、数十万棟規模あるいはそれ以上の面的な被害情報を含み、CesiumJSを用いて可視化されます。ただし、この手法には被害推定の不確かさが伴うという課題があります。第二のアプローチは、加速度センサを1台だけ設置した建物において、センサ情報と構造設計情報を組み合わせて被害推定を行うものです。この手法により、特定の建物に対しては高い確度での被害推定を可視化できます。現在は、集合住宅の設計・建設を主業務とする建設業者との共同研究を通じて、社会実装を展開している段階です。しかし、このアプローチは加速度センサ（SHMシステム）が導入されていない建物には適用できず、都市全体の面的な被害推定には利用できないという制約があります。第三のアプローチは、第一と第二のアプローチを統合したハイブリッド手法です。具体的には、SHMシステムが導入されている建物の情報を活用し、周辺の建物を含む面的に広がる建物群に対して、AIによる地震被害推定の信頼性を向上させるよう補正を行うものです。これは、カーナビゲーションシステムに例えると、GPSと車載センサを組み合わせて車の位置を推定する仕組みに類似しています。

第三のアプローチの実現には、SHMデータの共有（部分的なオープンデータ化）が不可欠ですが、その実現には制度的な課題や、利他的行為の必要性といった障壁などが多く存在します。そこで金子氏は、CesiumJSを用いた魅力的な可視化によって、この手法の必要性を段階的に社会へ示すことで、第三のアプローチの実現を目指しています。その取り組みの一環として、市民が日常的に活用できるWebアプリケーションが一般公開され、地震被害情報への理解や将来的な地震リスクへの関心を高めることが期待されています。

Cesiumを用いた最初の可視化実装には約2週間かかりましたが、その後はさらに湧き上がる興味が学習を後押ししました。Project PLATEAUの3D都市モデルのほかにも、気象庁や国土地理院、防災科学技術研究所、USGS（アメリカ地質調査所）などが公開する様々なオープンデータを活用して、CesiumJS上での3D可視化を実現しました。その後は少しずつ開発を進め、地震被害推定について開発したAIをOpen Neural Network Exchange(ONNX) ファイル形式でCesiumJSに統合するなど、数ヶ月程度で研究に活用できるレベルまで到達しました。

MeSM では、例えば2021年東北地方太平洋沖地震で観測された地表の加速度記録を3Dで対話的に閲覧することが可能です。（画像提供：金子 健作 博士）

さらに、MeSM では、人が体感できない小さな地震も含めて、震源の分布を3Dで表示し、回転アニメーションを通じて立体的に視覚化しています。（動画提供：金子 健作 博士）

さらに、MeSM では、人が体感できない小さな地震も含めて、震源の分布を3Dで表示し、回転アニメーションを通じて立体的に視覚化しています。(動画提供：金子 健作 博士）

MeSM visualizes earthquake epicenter distributions in 3D—even for small, imperceptible quakes—enhanced with rotating animations to provide a spatially intuitive experience. Courtesy Kensaku Kaneko.

MeSM by Kensaku Kaneko

3. Cesium Certifed Developerの取得と今後の研究の展望

金子氏がCesium Certifed Developer (CCD) の取得を考えたのは、Cesiumの知識修得の過程で恩恵を受けたオープンコミュニティーに恩返しをしたいという思いからでした。当初はJavaScriptもGISもまったくの初心者でしたが、1年でCCDを取得されるに至りました。

「Cesium Certified Developerには、地理空間情報やWebアプリケーション開発の専門家が応募するに値すると感じていました。最初は応募を躊躇しましたが、他分野からの積極的な参加がコミュニティーの発展に繋がると考えて、応募しました。」

金子氏は、継続的にCesiumJSを活用して研究を発展させるとともに、若い世代への教育や防災意識の向上にも貢献する考えです。彼が所属する大阪公立大学は、都市型の森之宮キャンパスを2025年に開設予定です。今後は、そのBIM（Building Information Modeling）などのデータをCesiumJSなどで活用し、都市から建物の室内までを結びつける新たな地震防災とSHMの挑戦に取り組んでいくようです。

2025年秋に開学する大阪公立大学の都市型森之宮キャンパスのCG（画像提供: 大阪公立大学）

金子氏は、これからの展望について次のように語ります。

「3D地理情報の可視化は単なる技術ではなく、社会に貢献する手段です。見慣れたデータであっても、3D表示やさまざまなデータとの重ね合わせによって、新たな発見が生まれることがあります。その発見はユーザーごとに異なり、他者と共有することで、より多様な視点が生まれることが期待されます。」


CesiumJSを使用して、2Dでは見えなかった地理空間のインサイトを容易かつ効果的に視覚化し、分析する方法を学びましょう。

The Journey of an Earthquake Engineering Researcher Utilizing CesiumJS—Structural Health Monitoring in the Digital Twin Era

This article highlights the challenge taken on by Dr. Kensaku Kaneko from Osaka Metropolitan University. Specializing in earthquake engineering of buildings, Dr. Kaneko has recently been engaged in research on structural health monitoring (SHM) using AI. SHM involves installing accelerometers in buildings to automatically assess their structural safety immediately after a major earthquake. To promote the adoption of this SHM system, Dr. Kaneko is pioneering a new approach—visualizing building safety through 3D Web GIS.

Accelerometers used in SHM record the building's response during an earthquake. These sensors can automatically upload data to cloud servers. Courtesy Kensaku Kaneko.

Dr. Kaneko’s interest in CesiumJS began in 2021 when he came across an article on Japan’s Project PLATEAU—a national initiative to develop and release 3D city models as open data.
 “At the time, I had no prior experience with GIS. However, I learned that the PLATEAU Viewer used CesiumJS and decided to try it myself. I was deeply drawn to the ability to seamlessly visualize scales ranging from thousands of kilometers down to just a few meters inside a building without losing a sense of scale,” recalls Dr. Kaneko.

What began as a simple curiosity turned into a deep interest, as he became captivated by CesiumJS’s flexibility for 3D visualization. Experiencing a sense of scale not achievable in 2D and realizing the potential to create open, web-based systems that could benefit society became a strong motivation. As he learned to efficiently render large numbers of entities and display both above-ground and underground structures in CesiumJS, Dr. Kaneko used resources like the Cesium community forum.

An example of a web-based visualization combining projected tsunami inundation depths in Osaka, 3D city models, and emergency evacuation sites. Courtesy Kensaku Kaneko.

2. Application to research and implementation

Dr. Kaneko is conducting advanced research that integrates AI-driven large-scale earthquake damage estimation with SHM. CesiumJS plays a vital role in this endeavor. He envisions SHM becoming as commonplace and familiar to the public as dashboard cameras in the future. AI, he believes, will play a key role in accelerating SHM’s widespread adoption.

Through this research, Dr. Kaneko developed MeSM, short for Machine Learning-Enhanced Structural Health Monitoring. A simplified version of the system—excluding the SHM logs and AI functionality—is publicly available. This web app is already being used in disaster preparedness courses and educational programs.

The research project is built on three core approaches:

Using earthquake data (e.g., epicenter location, depth, magnitude) from the Japan Meteorological Agency and integrating pre-trained AI models with 3D city models to estimate urban-scale earthquake damage in real time. This allows visualization of damage across hundreds of thousands of buildings using CesiumJS. This method involves a degree of uncertainty in its predictions.

By installing a single accelerometer in a building and combining its data with structural design information, it enables more accurate damage estimation for individual buildings. This approach is currently being applied through joint research with a construction firm specializing in residential buildings. This is not suitable for buildings without SHM sensors and thus does not support area-wide damage assessments.

A hybrid method combines the above two approaches. Information from SHM-equipped buildings is used to correct and enhance the AI-driven estimates for surrounding buildings. This is similar to how GPS and vehicle sensors are used together to improve location accuracy in car navigation systems.

To implement this third approach, sharing SHM data (even partially as open data) is essential. However, institutional barriers and the need for altruistic participation pose challenges. Dr. Kaneko aims to overcome these through compelling visualizations using CesiumJS, raising awareness of the method’s societal value via the existing public version of MeSM, encouraging public engagement with earthquake risk.

The initial Cesium visualization took about two weeks to build, but Dr. Kaneko’s curiosity drove him to further deepen his skills. In addition to Project PLATEAU’s 3D city models, he leveraged open data from the Japan Meteorological Agency, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED), and the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Within a few months, he advanced the system to a research-ready level, even integrating his AI model into CesiumJS using the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) format.

In MeSM, users can interactively explore surface acceleration data recorded during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in 3D. Courtesy Kensaku Kaneko.

MeSM visualizes earthquake epicenter distributions in 3D—even for small, imperceptible quakes—enhanced with rotating animations to provide a spatially intuitive experience. Courtesy Kensaku Kaneko.

3. Becoming a Cesium Certified Developer and future prospects

Dr. Kaneko pursued the Cesium Certified Developer (CCD) certification with a desire to give back to the open community that had supported his learning journey. Despite having no prior experience with JavaScript or GIS, he became a CCD within a year.

“I felt the CCD program was something best suited for experts in geospatial and web application development. I was hesitant at first, but I came to believe that active participation from those in other fields would benefit the community,” he says.

The university he belongs to, Osaka Metropolitan University, is scheduled to open its urban Morinomiya Campus in 2025. Looking ahead, Dr. Kaneko aims to continue using CesiumJS in his research while also contributing to public disaster awareness and education for younger generations.

A CG rendering of the urban Morinomiya campus of Osaka Metropolitan University, scheduled to open in fall 2025. Courtesy of Osaka Metropolitan University.

He is now exploring the use of BIM (Building Information Modeling) to build an integrated disaster response and SHM platform that connects entire cities to the interiors of individual buildings.

“3D geospatial visualization is more than just a technical capability—it’s a tool for social contribution. Even familiar data can lead to new discoveries when visualized in 3D or combined with other datasets. These insights vary by user and can multiply through sharing and collaboration,” he notes.

Learn how to visualize and analyze geospatial insights—beyond what’s possible in 2D—effectively using CesiumJS.

耐震工学の研究者が歩むCesiumJS活用の軌跡　-　デジタルツイン時代の構造ヘルスモニタリング

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Ansys Systems Tool Kit (STK), engineers model land, sea, air, and space scenarios to understand the relationships among vehicles, payloads, facilities, and environments, including terrain. Ansys Geospatial Data Cloud (GDC) integrates Cesium ion Self-Hosted and global 3D content to provide STK with out-of-the-box access to accurate geospatial context within its time-dynamic simulations.

UAV over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self-Hosted. Courtesy Ansys.

STK was released in 1989 to serve US and allied aerospace and defense organizations, and GDC will be available to STK users in July 2025. Users may create virtual worlds including buildings, terrain, and other physical structures. Subsequently, an infinite number of simulation configurations may be exercised, resulting in a significant reduction in the dependence on physical prototypes.

Using Cesium, GDC will replace Ansys’ Geospatial Content Server, removing the need to develop and maintain their own real-world data, tilers, and hosting solution.

“Being able to use Cesium ion Self-Hosted has saved a significant number of man hours that can be redirected towards additional ways to take advantage of the unprecedented access to data. We estimate the time savings to be the equivalent of half a full-time employee,” the Ansys team noted.  

Cesium has helped Ansys enhance mission modeling since 2011.

Communication signal to noise over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self Hosted. Courtesy Ansys.

Cesium ion Self-Hosted provides hosting, tiling, and streaming for massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets in users’ own clouds, data centers, or edge devices, enabling air-gapped solutions that meet strict security requirements and can be deployed to remote, disconnected environments.

GDC accesses Cesium World Terrain, Cesium World Bathymetry, Cesium OSM Buildings, Japan 3D Buildings and Terrain, and Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion Self-Hosted. Accurate elevation data, depth data, and per-building metadata support planning and analysis in critical simulations. Cesium OSM Buildings are streamed as 3D Tiles in conjunction with Cesium World Terrain or Cesium World Bathymetry. Users can add their own datasets to be tiled into 3D Tiles for optimal streaming and visualization in STK.

UAV flying low over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Real-world data enables clearer pictures for analysis and decisions in complex multidomain scenarios.

Create and host 3D content in your own environment with Cesium ion Self-Hosted, and visit Ansys in the Cesium booth at GEOINT Symposium, #2231, to see Geospatial Data Cloud in action.

Hear from Ansys at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference. Register to join us in Philadelphia in June.

Ansys Uses Cesium ion Self-Hosted for Geospatial Data Cloud

NASA calls the Moon “a treasure trove of science.” Buendea uses Cesium Moon Terrain to support NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab (NAOCL), ensuring astronauts’ virtual training accurately reflects the lunar environments they’ll encounter when they leave home.

Cesium Moon Terrain in XOSS supporting NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL. 

Buendea uses Cesium Moon Terrain to support NASA's Advanced Operations Concepts Lab, specifically the Artemis missions.

Buendea XOSS

Scientific discovery around life off Earth—rock samples and water, for example—will require specific tools and training. XR Operations Support System (XOSS) is a collaboration between Buendea and NAOCL, based out of Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, USA, to train astronauts in an accurate 3D lunar environment. 

XOSS users have the entire Moon in their simulation and can further immerse themselves in nine potential landing and habitation sites near the lunar South Pole, where Cesium Moon Terrain has its highest resolution data and Buendea has added additional high-res surface data. In VR mode, astronauts learn to board rovers, use tools to repair equipment, and work together. Admins running the sessions can trigger equipment failures or weather events to provide safe, repeatable learning experiences. 

Buendea and NAOCL provide XOSS for other facilities to work with as a tool to integrate into their workflows for training and simulation. NASA Assessments of Physiology in Cognition for Hybrid Reality Environments (APACHE) carries out human performance studies using XOSS to prepare astronauts for traverses on the Moon, measuring biometric data and other outputs from these moonwalks. Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) are both habitat environments at JSC that use XOSS to carry out analog simulated activities for Moon and Mars surface operations. Other groups use XOSS as a digital twin to carry out ad-hoc or science activities for extravehicular activity and intravehicular activity (EVA/IVA). 

Buendea was an early adopter of Cesium Moon Terrain and has used this geospatial base since its August 2024 release. 

XOSS in VR mode. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL.

Buendea founder Julian Reyes shared that the requirement from NASA was a platform that would deliver the entirety of the Moon in Unreal Engine. Reyes and his team were prepared to build a model of the Moon themselves. Today, XOSS accesses Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion and Cesium for Unreal. 

“By integrating Cesium Moon Terrain into our Unreal XOSS project, we were able to stand up our base integration of the lunar deployment instantly. This enabled us to start with developing and adding in our high-resolution surface terrain tiles directly into the deployment—and effectively cut our development time by more than 50%,” said Reyes, who will present XOSS at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference. 

Cesium Moon Terrain is the first complete, accurate, and readily accessible 3D dataset of the Moon. Served as 3D Tiles via Cesium ion, it enables visualization, simulation, and analysis for advanced digital twin creation. 

XOSS currently accesses Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion SaaS. In the near future, the platform will run internally at NASA via Cesium ion Self-Hosted to meet strict security requirements and enable a common workspace as more prototyping is done within XOSS. Buendea connects Cesium ion to its Unreal Engine projects via the open source Cesium for Unreal plugin, pulling in real-world content so astronauts learn among the terrain they expect to see. 

With an accurate lunar base already deployed, Buendea’s developers have been able to focus their time on incorporating additional surface data, including topographic images from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and photogrammetry of sample rocks from the Apollo missions; adding accurate physics for dispersing regolith on moon when driving; integrating AI for robotics support and geological identification; and modifying lighting to accurately reflect the elongated shadows the lunar South Pole experiences. Fusing graphics capabilities and validated data from many sources in one platform means collaborating groups get a comprehensive view and can prototype and design within XOSS, all on top of Cesium Moon Terrain. 

XOSS users can immerse themselves in nine potential landing and habitation sites near the lunar South Pole. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL.

Buendea plans to deploy XOSS internally at NASA, among commercial partners, and publicly, for open community development toward our shared future of human spaceflight. 

Both Buendea and Cesium are at the 40th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs this week, April 7-10, 2025. Meet us in booth #628. 

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

Buendea Supports NASA Advanced Operations Concepts Lab with Cesium Moon Terrain 

Defense and other government agencies rely on current weather information, forecasts, and historical data for situational awareness and effective decision-making. The Weather Company (TWC) improves military training and planning by pairing its detailed weather data with geospatial context in apps using Cesium for Unreal and CesiumJS.  

WeatherverseTM provides accessible, accurate, and actionable government weather forecast data and visualizations to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and help protect lives. Courtesy The Weather Company.

The Weather Company: Weatherverse

TWC was founded in the 1980s, addressing needs across various industries, and began serving government agencies in 2022. Sudden changes in weather conditions affect personnel and equipment, even with otherwise meticulous planning.  

Weatherverse Sim prepares warfighters with accurate 3D visualizations of environments and conditions—such as strong wind, more rain, or less cloud coverage—simulating weather they might face in the field. With recording and playback, trainees can experience and memorize scenarios for anywhere in the world, and trainers can adjust future sessions. Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles are streamed with data from TWC’s SUN Spatial Data Services and other sources for a comprehensive picture. Weatherverse Sim has used Cesium for Unreal since 2023 to bring realistic weather elements and geospecific terrain to these simulations, increasing operational effectiveness. 

Weatherverse Sim uses Cesium for Unreal to combine weather elements and terrain. Courtesy The Weather Company.

Weatherverse Planner monitors the forecast for locations important to planning teams and their missions, so they know what impacts weather will have on aviation, communications, infantry, and more. Users set thresholds and alerts for conditions like lightning, wind, or precipitation, for example, to make better informed decisions. Weatherverse Planner can be used as a stand-alone solution or integrated as a widget within any CesiumJS-based app for reliable performance on the web, streaming Bing Maps Aerial imagery for the view from space. Fusing weather data and geospatial context instead of managing multiple separate systems concurrently saves time and lives. Weatherverse Planner has used CesiumJS since 2024. 

Weather risk, based on user-defined parameters, in Weatherverse Planner. Courtesy The Weather Company.

Precipitation in Weatherverse Planner. Courtesy The Weather Company.

Weather conditions in Singleton, Australia, in Weatherverse Planner. Courtesy The Weather Company.

SimCentric’s CesiumJS-based SAF-Foresight app for planning and safety for live fire exercises will deploy Weatherverse Planner as a plugin for Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025. Exercise Talisman Sabre is the largest combined military training activity between Australia and the United States, with other partner nations joining, and this year it will incorporate real-time weather information to improve readiness. 

The Weather Company has built on top of CesiumJS as a plugin to further support and integrate Weatherverse Planner. The TWC-Cesium Plugin includes the protocols for acquiring, storing, querying, and filtering weather data from its SUN weather and spatial data services and integrates with existing Cesium-based apps. It is in an experimental phase. 

“Cesium provides a deep and rich set of capabilities, especially with regards to 3D orientation and geospatial data visualization. The framework is also well documented, approachable, and performant,” said J.R. Cottingham, senior director for The Weather Company’s Weatherverse. 

Weatherverse Planner deployed as a widget in CesiumJS-powered SAF-Foresight. Courtesy The Weather Company and SimCentric.

TWC is working to improve Weatherverse Planner with additional weather visualizations, such as wind streams. 

Built on open standards to support interoperability and with commitment to rapid innovation, Cesium powers mission-critical applications to better understand the operational environment. Read more federal and defense-related stories. 

The Weather Company Brings Forecasts to Military Planning with Cesium 

Keeping roads well maintained and safe for travel requires up-to-date information about roadway conditions, including potholes, missing signage, guardrail damage, and other potential safety hazards.  

Blyncsy, founded in 2014 and acquired by Bentley in 2023, uses AI, machine vision, and cloud computing to help US state and local transportation agencies spot issues more efficiently than with resource-heavy manual methods. CesiumJS plays a critical role in helping Blyncsy show potential users how the company’s data can be used in a visualization engine. 

Striping retroreflectivity across the US. Courtesy Blyncsy. 

Blyncsy gets road pictures by crowdsourcing images from over 1,200,000 vehicles, including privately owned commercial and fleet vehicles and delivery trucks. The company anonymizes the data and securely stores it in the cloud, where it can be studied and analyzed by machine learning systems, machine vision, and AI. The analyzed data is then delivered to users through Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) APIs, ensuring seamless integration with a variety of platforms, including Cesium and other transportation management systems, for georeferencing, visualization, and analysis.  

“Selling data is abstract. Since the beginning, long before we were acquired, CesiumJS has provided a flexible, easy to use, and high-performing way to show the value of our solution to potential customers,” Pat Brown, principal software engineer at Blyncsy, explained. “Cesium’s open-source approach was also a big draw for us—it gave us the freedom to innovate without being constrained by licensing fees or proprietary limitations.” 

Brown and his colleagues use CesiumJS not only to attract new business but also to save valuable engineering resources: “With CesiumJS we can focus our team’s time on building our platform instead of the front-end engineering that would be needed to eloquently visualize the data.” 

US interstate highway system roadway safety and maintenance conditions. Courtesy Blyncsy.

In 2023, Blyncsy began publishing a series of their AI-powered detection maps to provide state and local agencies with free access to select datasets. Built on CesiumJS with TerriaMap, that series includes a comprehensive public map of all interstate highways in the continental US, showing key roadway assets such as guardrails, speed limit signs, and work zones to support roadway safety and maintenance conditions.  

Laura Chace, president and CEO of Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), lauded the release of Blyncsy’s publicly available maps. ITS America was established by Congress in 1991 to serve as an advisor to the US Department of Transportation and advocates for a smarter, greener future transformed by transportation technology and innovation. 

“The application of advanced technologies like AI, combined with new sources of data, are transforming the transportation sector, giving us better information as we make investments in safety and mobility,” Chace said in a Bentley blog. “We applaud companies like Blyncsy for deploying these forward-thinking technologies and making this digital infrastructure data available to the public in an accessible format.”  

Blyncsy uses AI, machine vision, and cloud computing to help US state and local transportation agencies spot roadway issues. Courtesy Blyncsy.

Learn to easily and eloquently visualize and analyze data from multiple sources with CesiumJS.  

Join us at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference to connect with Blyncsy and others with technically oriented, community-driven tracks. 

Blyncsy Shows Transportation Agencies the Future of Roadway Maintenance with CesiumJS

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。

耐震工学の研究者が歩むCesiumJS活用の軌跡 - デジタルツイン時代の構造ヘルスモニタリング