Cesium for Omniverse v0.25.0

Cesium for Unity Samples v1.16.1

CesiumJS 1.130.1

Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC)

When it comes to infrastructure investments, visualization transforms public engagement from abstract discussions to concrete decision-making. HNTB’s Immersive Media Solutions team uses Cesium ion, Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles to help community stakeholders better understand proposed infrastructure projects and engage meaningfully in the approval process. 

A flythrough of a proposed design to replace the Bourne Bridge was used in public outreach efforts as part of the Cape Cod Bridges Program. Courtesy HNTB. 

HNTB: Bourne Bridge

Founded in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1914, HNTB initially focused on designing railroad bridges. Today, the company offers comprehensive services in engineering, architecture, planning, and construction management, primarily focusing on transportation infrastructure. Their architectural services extend to designing and managing projects for public assembly facilities, including numerous prominent sports stadiums and arenas.  

“When presenting an infrastructure project proposal for public engagement, it’s crucial that local stakeholders and property owners understand where their property, building, or favorite park is located in relation to the proposal, and that the surrounding context is recognizable,” HNTB immersive media solutions manager Dave Willard said. 

Willard and his team create real-time interactive media to visualize and assess infrastructure project designs, from single highway interchanges to 30-mile road and rail corridors. They load a diverse range of 3D engineering and design models of roads, bridges, or rail networks—created in applications like OpenRoads, Revit, MicroStation, Civil3D, or SketchUp—directly into Unreal Engine or Unity. The team uses the Cesium for Unreal or Cesium for Unity plugins, depending on the project, and accesses Photorealistic 3D Tiles via Cesium ion to add real-world context, enriching project visualizations for public review and community engagement initiatives.  

Designed to deliver highly detailed and realistic data for immersive environments, Google Maps Platform's Photorealistic 3D Tiles enable immersive experiences that scale from individual buildings to entire cities. Photorealistic 3D Tiles leverage the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard 3D Tiles format, created by Cesium, which performantly streams massive amounts of 3D geospatial data. 

Prior to adopting Cesium, providing accurate geospatial context for major projects was a significant time investment, requiring the team to manually model, texture, and detail existing buildings.   

“Now, we bring that data in from Cesium and use it as-is in many cases,” Willard explained. “It removes the headache on our end, allowing us to focus our time on visualizing the proposed project instead of the buildings that are already there.”   

HNTB's visualization team extended Cesium's open-source platform to vertically align long linear infrastructure models with the Earth's curvature. Courtesy HNTB.

This capability proved invaluable to HNTB during its work on a long highway corridor project in the southeastern United States. 

“Manually modeling existing buildings for contextual detail on long linear projects historically required over 1,000 hours of work,” Willard said. “Cesium reduces that time to between 200 and 300 hours." 

The extensibility and open-source foundation of Cesium enabled HNTB's visualization team to build a tool that addressed the challenge they faced in accurately aligning this 26-mile corridor model. Traditional engineering designs don't account for the Earth's curvature, leading to noticeable vertical discrepancies over long distances—in this case, the model floated about 80 feet above the earth at one end and dipped 80 below the other. 

HNTB developed a non-destructive mesh blending tool on top of Cesium that could automatically apply the necessary curvature to large, complex 3D models. This allowed them to continuously update design models in their Unity environment, with the tool automatically correcting for Earth's curvature, ensuring "ground truth accuracy" for their clients.  

“One of the really cool things about having Cesium is the ability to build other tools on top of it,” remarked Adam Liss, HNTB senior immersive media specialist. 

Willard's team, serving as a key consultant for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on the Cape Cod Bridges Program, was tasked with presenting 10 different interchange configurations for public review. 

Traditionally, this would have necessitated creating numerous individual videos and renderings for each combination, making it difficult for the public to compare scenarios and provide feedback. Instead, Willard's team applied their Cesium-powered interactive media capabilities, so presenters were able to dynamically display and toggle between these different interchange options, with detailed surroundings the reviewers expected to see, in real time via pixel streams and locally-run applications during public meetings. 

HNTB’s team also built masking tools using Cesium. These tools enable them to overlay potential designs directly onto existing structures, making it easy for viewers to compare the past with the proposed future.

For a bridge proposal to link barrier islands along the Gulf Coast of Texas, HNTB integrated Cesium’s World Bathymetry data into their visualization. This addition helped stakeholders understand how underwater topography and the locations of historic shipwrecks impacted the busy shipping lanes beneath the proposed bridge design. “It’s important to be able to render this 2D-type information in a 3D context,” Liss explained. 

This streamlined process, powered by Cesium, enables quick visualization of design alternatives and facilitates efficient collection of public input to identify preferred designs for their projects. 

Innovation defines HNTB's 111-year legacy in infrastructure, a commitment clearly seen in their Immersive Media Solutions team's work to transform public engagement by making the abstract concrete. When it comes to Cesium, the team feels like they are just scratching the surface. “As we transition away from manual modeling of existing context, technologies like Cesium will continue to make our workflows much faster,” Willard said. 

Looking into the future, Willard’s sights are set on digital twin delivery, bridging the work between owner-operators and engineering firms.  

“The end goal isn't just about interactive real-time visualizations; it's transforming those visualizations into informational environments—digital twins,” Willard said. “Imagine delivering a complete football stadium or road corridor, complete with all its element-level metadata as a digital twin. That, to me, is a truly valuable deliverable for an engineering firm.” 

Bring accurate real-world context, like Photorealistic 3D Tiles, to your infrastructure projects with Cesium ion. 

HNTB Streamlines Infrastructure Project Visualization with Cesium 

When we issued the call for proposals for this first Cesium Developer Conference, we were curious how many talks we would receive and what themes would stand out. Cesium has a history in aerospace and now serves a thriving community of open source geospatial users across many different industries, including architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC).

We were happy to see submissions from longtime advocates of CesiumJS, 3D Tiles, and other complementary technologies and topics from the open community—and some surprises. In fact, we received so many abstracts that we expanded the total number of presentations from approximately 50 to 90! There will be a ton for attendees to explore at the event.

Register for the Cesium Developer Conference

The biggest concentration of talks came from AEC and digital twin implementations. We were able to accept 21 full sessions and five lightning talks for the conference from submitted AEC/digital twins abstracts. The sessions are split into three groups, two of which will have to run concurrently, because of the volume. It’s a great “problem” to have.

The topics for this category range from aggregating multiple project sites in a single geospatial experience to providing XR experiences for inspecting and exploring asset conditions in the context of a dynamically updated digital representation of a system. Some presenters will focus on using the rich information in building information modeling (BIM) data in geospatial context, while others will focus on using a 3D map as a communication vehicle.

There will be digital twin projects presented that focus on rail, roadways, buildings, campuses, and whole cities. We anticipate these presentations will drive conversations at the conference networking events about how to bring open geospatial concepts into even more corners of the AEC industry.

A few of the organizations who will present in the AEC and Digital Twins track: 

Arcadis will share how they are using Cesium for Unreal Engine for architectural visualization. 

Holosim will present an exciting story about using immersive gaming technologies and 3D Tiles to plan theme parks.

Pennoni will demonstrate how their team uses 3D Tiles and Cesium with game engine technologies to visualize future plans. 

EARTHBRAIN will demonstrate how they are digitalizing the construction process, especially around earth moving workflows. 

Mott MacDonald will discuss how they use Cesium for a web-based GIS for AEC. 

CalTa will demonstrate how they create digital twins from reality capture information to help customers manage real-world assets. 

Project Controls Cubed will present on how they are using iTwin and Cesium to modernize water treatment systems.

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

Where can I catch AEC and Digital Twins material at the conference?

Relevant AEC industry content will appear in user-submitted 20-minute sessions, in 5-minute lightning talks on the main stage, and in demonstrations from key customers and product teams from Bentley Systems and Cesium, showing off AEC capabilities that integrate with open geospatial technologies.

Of course, you’ll also be able to meet the speakers and other attendees at the conference’s socials and meals.

Will there be more than AEC and Digital Twins topics?

Yes. There are six tracks, represented in full sessions and lightning talks. Find out more about the themed tracks in our blog and on the conference pages.

Check regularly for more information about talks, speakers, and activities. 

We’re excited to bring the community together and see the fantastic work being done across the open ecosystem.

AEC and Digital Twins Galore at the Cesium Developer Conference

This summer’s inaugural Cesium Developer Conference, June 23-25 in Philadelphia, is an opportunity for developers to network and learn about the latest and greatest open geospatial tools, standards, and data. For attendees looking for a hands-on experience to learn Cesium, we are excited to offer the "Cesium Deep Dive," a pre-conference training full-day workshop on Monday, June 23.

Register and select the Cesium Deep Dive training

Northern California, USA, using Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles in CesiumJS.

If you are a burgeoning geospatial developer, this workshop is for you.

Bring your own laptop so you’re prepared to build, ask questions, and learn new skills to take your 3D geospatial projects to the next level.

Training includes intros to CesiumJS and Cesium ion, then explores deeper discussions on deploying Cesium Native and using 3D creation engine plugins. 

Engineers will present ready-to-try exercises and will be present to help you explore features of Cesium and 3D Tiles. There will also be opportunities for you to meet 1:1 with engineers if you need help with a specific question.

We’re excited to have two special guests presenting and mentoring attendees throughout the day:

Tim Woodard, Principal Solutions Architect at NVIDIA, will present an update on NVIDIA Omniverse and how using it can benefit open geospatial developers.

Stephen Phillips, Solution Architect at Epic Games, will give an overview of how Unreal Engine can be used in AEC and geospatial applications.

Using Cesium runtime plugins for geospatial context

Unreal Engine for geospatial and AEC applications

NVIDIA Omniverse architecture and applications

Prior to the workshop, the Cesium team will send out information to registered training attendees with instructions for downloads and device configuration so that you are ready when you arrive.

The Grand Canyon, USA, visualized with Cesium for Omniverse.

Will I become a Cesium Certified Developer?

We’ve been getting this question a lot: Will a workshop attendee automatically become a Cesium Certified Developer?

No. Certification is based on one's ability to deploy the skills covered throughout this workshop in their own work. You will learn many of the skills needed for certification over the course of the day, and then it will be up to you to put these skills into practice and submit your project. Our Certification team will be on site throughout the full conference to discuss certification. 

Learn more about becoming a Cesium Certified Developer here.

Sign up for the training through the regular conference registration process. There is an additional fee ($100) to attend the workshop because space is limited. Lunch and refreshments are provided.

Slots are filling up. We look forward to learning with you.

Register for the conference and add the workshop

Deep Dive Workshop at the Cesium Developer Conference

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cesium Design Tiler: IFC Metadata Filtering

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

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

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

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

Cesium Design Tiler Now Supports IFC Metadata

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

We are pleased to announce the release of the Cesium Design Tiler and Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In. This release provides new tools to improve workflows and provide new capabilities that place architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) content in a 3D geospatial context.

The Cesium Design Tiler and Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In are now available.

Cesium Design Tiler

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

The Design Tiler and Revit Add-In provide easier, more efficient workflows for sharing your design data via the web or other visualization platforms like Unreal Engine, Unity, and NVIDIA Omniverse. By incorporating Cesium and 3D Tiles, you are now able to quickly and easily share your data, making it more accessible while also creating more performant applications.

The new Design Tiler and Revit Add-In improve workflows and capabilities that place AECO content in a 3D geospatial context.

Benefit of streaming AECO designs via 3D Tiles

3D Tiles is an open standard for streaming massive, heterogeneous, 3D geospatial data, such as global terrain, entire 3D City models, and high resolution reality data captured from drones, LiDAR scanners, and mobile devices.

3D Tiles optimizes the streaming of complex design and geospatial data providing high performance visualization.

3D Tiles Visualization

3D Tiles are efficient for global data sets like Cesium World Terrain and Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles, as well as complex CAD/BIM data with hundreds of thousands of individual features and millions of individual triangles. By leveraging 3D Tiles, your complex design models can now be streamed efficiently to any number of 3D viewers that show your site within its geospatial context. For example, when streaming design data as 3D Tiles with Cesium for Unreal, there are 80-90% fewer draw calls and a 50% faster framerate compared to using untiled static meshes.

The Design Tiler, accessible through Cesium ion’s user interface or via API, adds the ability to quickly and easily convert from IFC to 3D Tiles. IFC is an open standard developed by buildingSMART International that is widely adopted across AECO and BIM. 

The Design Tiler ingests IFC data including entities, metadata, and the underlying parent and child relationships inherent in the IFC data structures. The initial release of the Design Tiler supports most IFC Geometry Types, Entity metadata and embedded geospatial information. We have been working with large federated IFC models containing over 100 individual building models, over 4 million individual objects and in excess of 800 million mesh triangles, all being performantly streamed via 3D Tiles. 

IFC Data model converted to 3D Tiles, manually positioned in Boston, MA, and combined with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles. Source - BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International, accessible via Github.

With this new tiling capability, you can easily drag and drop your IFC data into your Cesium ion account. The resulting data will be converted to 3D Tiles making it accessible as an asset for streaming into CesiumJS, our runtime integrations with Unreal, Unity, or NVIDIA Omniverse, or any other system that supports 3D Tiles v1.1. If your IFC data contains embedded coordinate reference system information, Cesium will use this information to place the 3D Tiles in the correct location on the globe. If this information is not available, you can use the Cesium ion 3D Tiles Location Editor to quickly and easily set its position, rotation, and scale on the globe. 

Through our AECO Tech Preview Program, Trendspek was given early access to the Design Tiler. Trendspek provides a suite of tools that empower owners, engineers, and contractors to manage infrastructure across the entire asset lifecycle using CesiumJS. Josh Sinclair, Head of Product at Trendspek, said, “The LoD generation is far superior to any BIM conversion tool we have used in the past. The output looks great.” With the Design Tiler, the Trendspek team was able to incorporate BIM data to communicate proposed remedial works packages to their users. 

Trendspek has been able to quickly incorporate BIM as 3D Tiles alongside a reality capture model in their inspection application which uses CesiumJS.

With support for IFC, 3D Tiles can now be generated from a wide range of AECO verticals, including architecture, structural engineering, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) designs. With IFC data as 3D Tiles, there is greater performance, increased interoperability, and less manual effort to optimize this rich content for viewing and distribution.

Complementing the release of the Design Tiler, the Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In is now available. This Add-In provides a simple process to upload your current 3D View directly to Cesium ion as 3D Tiles. The Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In connects directly to your existing Cesium ion account and leverages the Design Tiler to generate 3D Tiles. This Add-In is available free and open source under the Apache 2.0 License.

The Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In connects directly to your existing Cesium ion account and leverages the Design Tiler to generate 3D Tiles.

Autodesk Revit to Cesium ion December 2024

The conversion process is configurable, allowing you to export visible geometry and textures along with all element parameters as metadata to 3D Tiles. The Revit Add-in allows AECO teams to send performant, interactive digital twins to partners over the web or into native runtime engines like Unreal Engine, Unity, or NVIDIA Omniverse via Cesium ion. The conversion and upload to Cesium ion is done transparently, letting architects and other AECO professionals focus on their designs and workflows.

View your Revit models anywhere in the world with accurate geospatial context.

The open source Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In continues our commitment to openness and interoperability. Download the Add-In directly from the Autodesk App Store, the Cesium downloads page, or the GitHub repo.

The addition of the Design Tiler and Revit Add-In provides a new set of tools for improving workflows that increase the accessibility and interoperability of your design data via open standards. These tools allow you to make your data available quickly and easily by leveraging open standards, combining it with global geospatial content and streaming into an accurate 3D view. 

Get started by creating a Cesium ion account and uploading your IFC data or download the Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In to unlock the potential of your design data as 3D Tiles.  

Looking for inspiration? Check out our AECO CesiumJS examples on the Cesium Sandcastle or our updated Cesium for Unreal Samples starter project.

If you have any suggestions or need support, please reach out on the Cesium Community Forum. We can’t wait to see what you create with these tools!

Now Available: Cesium Design Tiler and Add-In for Autodesk Revit

Development is progressing on a new open source Add-In for Autodesk Revit that will be released later this year. The Add-In integrates with Cesium ion to generate 3D Tiles, further connecting architecture and geospatial.

Cesium’s Revit Add-In provides a simple workflow for exporting your design data to 3D Tiles available on Cesium ion. Sample data courtesy of Autodesk.

Revit to Cesium ion

The Cesium Revit Add-In is currently being evaluated by participants in Cesium’s AECO Tech Preview Program, which provides early access to software like the Revit Add-In and Cesium’s Design Tiler. 

Program participant Erik Narhi, Computational Design Lead at Buro Happold Engineering, used the Cesium Revit Add-In to easily convert existing Revit design data to 3D Tiles and bring that data into Unreal Engine. 

“The Cesium Revit Add-In adds another layer to the potential of 3D Tiles and Cesium for AEC workflows,” Narhi said. “We are excited to explore how we can leverage it as we continue to push the mainstreaming of game engines and interactive 3D workflows for AEC project design, analysis, and delivery.”

Cesium’s Revit Add-In easily converts your design data to 3D Tiles. Image courtesy of Buro Happold Engineering.

Cesium’s Revit Add-in was designed to complement existing workflows by connecting Revit to Cesium ion with an easy-access, one-click export capability. Much like the Cesium 3ds Max plugin released in 2020, the Revit Add-In connects directly to your Cesium ion account allowing you to accurately place and visualize your designs in real-world environments.

The Revit Add-In, combined with Cesium’s Design Tiler, improves workflows and capabilities placing AECO content in a 3D geospatial context. Sample data courtesy of Autodesk.

Cesium's Revit Add-In converts a project's internal representation using the Cesium ion Design Tiler into 3D Tiles. The Design Tiler is optimized to support the properties of the BIM data and the metadata, materials, and textures within the Revit design file. To improve streaming and rendering performance, the tiling process detects shared geometry and instances them in the exported 3D Tiles. The Revit Add-in allows AECO teams to send performant, interactive digital twins to partners over the web or into native runtime engines like Unreal Engine, Unity, or NVIDIA Omniverse via Cesium ion. The conversion and upload to Cesium ion is done transparently, letting architects and other AECO professionals focus on their designs and workflows.

Exported 3D Tiles include your design data geometry, materials, textures, and metadata to support visualization and analysis. Sample data courtesy of Autodesk.

AECO Metadata Styling

By building integrations through open standards and collaboration with software companies like Autodesk, Cesium will continue to improve workflows for building AECO-focused applications that combine project plans with accurate 3D geospatial data. 

As we move closer to a full release of the Revit Add-In and Design Tiler, we would love to hear your suggestions on the Cesium Community Forum.

Coming Soon: Cesium Add-In for Autodesk Revit

At Cesium, we believe that collaboration is the key to advancing the 3D geospatial ecosystem for the benefit of all. For over a decade, we have supported interoperability with leading GIS providers like Esri to meet the growing need for comprehensive solutions that represent the natural and built environment with reality capture models, BIM/CAD designs, and traditional GIS layers. 

3D Tiles support for Esri products, and collaboration with Esri and standards organizations like the Open Geospatial Consortium ("OGC"), enables users to find the best solutions for their geospatial use cases.

Collaboration enabled with OGC standards like 3D Tiles and I3S to support streaming, analyzing and creating 3D geospatial content and applications.

Esri ArcGIS helps users solve complex GIS problems to show hidden patterns, trends, and relationships. Combining this with efficient streaming and 3D visualization capabilities enables users to build solutions delivering advanced spatial data management and analysis.


The combination of GIS and 3D streaming capabilities can address a number of cases in the rapidly growing area of digital twins. For example, a design firm that is creating a spatially accurate 3D representation of a proposed project that includes utility, traffic, and zoning information can share multiple versions of their detailed architectural models to collect public feedback. Or a community group building a virtual experience of their city can combine 3D buildings with route planning to key landmarks or locations.  Facilitated by open standards like 3D Tiles and Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), Esri and Cesium are helping users unlock geospatial insights, increase access to spatial data, and empower a large and diverse community of users.

Cesium Esri examples

Last fall, Esri announced the integration of 3D Tiles into the ArcGIS System of Record as a way of enhancing 3D GIS workflows. This integration allows users to combine 3D Tiles with other OGC community standard GIS layers, such as Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), for use in exploration tools, analysis, animation, layouts, and more. With 3D Tiles seamlessly integrated, users can elevate their data beyond a realistic visualization by leveraging the analytic power of a complete GIS. 

ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro and Drone2Map

ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro and Drone2Map can be used to process aerial and drone imagery to create full resolution Digital Surface Models (DSMs), true orthos, and 3D point clouds, as well as 2D meshes and photo-realistic 3D meshes that can be exported as 3D Tiles.

With ArcGIS Pro, users can visualize 3D Tiles layers together with other 2D or 3D layers, view layers with different spatial references together, drape 2D layers on top of 3D mesh layers, and edit features based on 3D Tiles layers. With 3D Tiles layers, users can now interactively analyze scenes and perform exploratory analysis like viewsheds and view domes. ArcGIS Pro also allows users to share 3D Tiles layers from a scene to ArcGIS Online.

Users can integrate 3D Tiles integrated mesh layers into Scene Viewer. Like the existing Integrated mesh scene layer, a 3D Tiles integrated mesh layer can represent built and natural environments through realistic textures and elevation information and be used in combination with other geospatial content.

Along with other OGC Services, users can add 3D Tiles as a local tileset or via a hosted service in ArcGIS Online or third party web servers to ArcGIS Earth, Esri’s free application for visualizing and exploring geospatial content in 3D.

Both the 200.4 release of the ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Native Apps and the 4.29 release of the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript adds support for 3D Tiles.  These features allow developers to leverage the power of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 3D Tiles format, providing a seamless integration of yet another type of 3D geospatial data into their custom applications.

ArcGIS Scene Viewer with 3D Tiles with draped graphics for relative energy ratings and labels for construction years for buildings in the city Utrecht - from Esri Developer IntegratedMesh3DTilesLayer sample application - https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/layers-integratedmesh3dtileslayer/live/

Open and connected APIs and data services from other providers help to unlock the value of the 3D geospatial ecosystem. Cesium has long-supported the integration of ArcGIS Terrain, Imagery, and Map services within CesiumJS.  

Recently, Esri collaborated with Cesium to enable Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S) within CesiumJS. This open source contribution from Esri brings extensive collections of I3S content from ArcGIS to CesiumJS developers and users. I3S, an OGC standard, facilitates the efficient transmission of various 3D data types, including discrete 3D objects with attributes, integrated surface meshes, and point cloud data across vast areas, as well as detailed Building Information Model (BIM) content. This capability supports delivery to web browsers, mobile apps, and desktop environments. Currently, the I3S integration into CesiumJS supports 3D Objects, Integrated Mesh, and Building Scene Layer data types, enabling the integration of 3D and 2D data from multiple sources, including Cesium ion and ArcGIS Online, into a single geospatial application.

ArcGIS Terrain and Basemaps in Cesium ion as shown in Esri Developer Tutorials

ArcGIS I3S Services, ArcGIS Basemap and Cesium World Terrain as shown in Esri Developer Tutorials

Another layer of integration between the ArcGIS and Cesium platforms is at the developer level where we have collaborated to bring ArcGIS Location Services and the ArcGIS Maps SDKs into CesiumJS.  ArcGIS Location Services provide services for building mapping and spatial analysis applications, available as part of ArcGIS. The inclusion of the various ArcGIS APIs is another step in the multi-year effort to steadily add open source support for ArcGIS APIs, data, and services to CesiumJS.  

Additionally, Esri’s Developer site provides over 20 tutorials showing users how to integrate ArcGIS locations services and CesiumsJS. Through this collaboration, CesiumJS users can combine ArcGIS location services and Google Map Platform’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles to quickly and easily create powerful 3D geospatial visualizations. 

Esri Location Services with Photorealistic 3D Tiles from Google Maps Platform streamed into CesiumJS

See the reference materials for more info. As we begin the next chapter at Cesium, open standards remain at our core. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with industry leaders like Esri to offer additional value and capabilities to the 3D geospatial community. 

If you have ideas about integrations between Cesium and Esri or other third party organizations, please share them on the Cesium Community Forum.

Updated 10/04/2024 to include ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript

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.

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

We are excited to announce Cesium’s AECO Tech Preview Program. Throughout our community we see many Cesium experiences that combine the natural and built environment. To improve workflows and capabilities that place architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) content in a 3D geospatial context, Cesium has developed a new Design Tiler and Revit Add-In, now available for early access and feedback via our AECO Tech Preview Program. These tools transform IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) and Revit files into 3D Tiles, the OGC community standard created by Cesium for streaming massive 3D geospatial datasets.

Join us in connecting architecture and geospatial.

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

Connecting Architecture and Geospatial: AECO Tech Preview Program

For those building AECO-focused applications who are looking for a faster way to provide smaller, more accessible and secure applications, or want an easier, more efficient way to share your design data via the web or other visualization platforms, your process will benefit from the end-to-end workflows using Cesium and 3D Tiles.

Incorporating interactive 3D visualizations with AECO projects is becoming increasingly prevalent as a way to plan a project, collaborate with colleagues, analyze design options, and communicate the vision to stakeholders. Building and deploying AECO-focused applications that share complex and highly detailed designs with end users is challenging. These apps often contain many gigabytes of data from multiple sources, must react to frequent design updates, and are difficult to get into the hands of project decision-makers. Using Cesium’s Design Tiler and Revit Add-In, users can transform design data into 3D Tiles, including metadata for querying, filtering, styling, and analytics, for efficiently streaming massive scale AECO content to the web or through project-centered applications via Cesium’s geospatial platform. We have been developing and testing these capabilities, streaming 3D Tiles from design data with projects containing over 4 million individual objects and 800 million mesh triangles.

Streaming complex design data as 3D Tiles, including metadata for querying, filtering, styling and analytics. Hospital sample model provided courtesy of Autodesk.

Streaming IFC content as 3D Tiles, including metadata for querying, filtering, styling, and analytics. Source data BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International.

AECO Tech Preview Program: Hospital Sample

Open APIs and standards to support interoperability are at the core of Cesium and 3D Tiles. Developed by buildingSMART International, IFC is an open standard, widely adopted in the AECO industry, with support from major software packages by vendors such as Autodesk and Bentley Systems. IFC’s rich data structure captures not only geometric information but also metadata, including material properties, schedules, and the relationships between building elements, making it ideal for complex projects requiring detailed and interoperable data. With support for IFC, 3D Tiles can now be generated from a wide range of AECO verticals, including architecture, structural engineering, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) designs. With IFC data as 3D Tiles, there is greater performance, increased interoperability, and less manual effort to optimize this rich content for viewing and distribution.

Sample IFC data including structure and MEP as 3D Tiles. Sample data courtesy of BSI (2020) "Medical-Dental Test Files," buildingSMART International.

Because Autodesk Revit is widely used for designing buildings and infrastructure in 3D, and much of our sample data was in Revit files, our engineering team built a Revit Add-In that integrates with the Design Tiler to generate 3D Tiles. The exported 3D Tiles include the metadata, materials, and textures from your Revit files for efficient streaming on the web or in your visualization engine of choice. Cesium’s Revit Add-In provides a bridge connecting the architecture and geospatial worlds, unlocking value for both.

Autodesk Snowdon Towers sample data exported directly from Revit as 3D Tiles including structural and MEP content, full interior detail, and per-feature metadata streamed into Unreal with Cesium. Data courtesy of Autodesk.  

As Cesium moves toward an official release of the Design Tiler and Revit Add-In, we are pleased to offer early access to these new tools through the AECO Tech Preview Program. Participants will have access to the Design Tiler and Revit Add-In as we continue to develop them in parallel. Your experience and feedback will be invaluable as we refine and enhance these tools to meet your needs. This is a unique opportunity to influence the direction of our product and work directly with our engineering team.

UPDATE (12/03/24): The Design Tiler and Cesium ion for Autodesk Revit Add-In are now available through Cesium ion and the Autodesk Application Store. We look forward to collaborating with you to shape the future of 3D visualization in AECO.