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Underground & Undersea

The Netherlands, perhaps more than any other country, appreciates how critical what lies below the surface is to what's built above. Much of the country sits below sea level, meaning groundwater is high, and centuries of silt and sand deposits from continental rivers mean the soil is soft. Consequently, understanding the makeup of the ground is of paramount importance for city planning.

Bedrock.engineer visualizes large geospatial subsurface datasets using 3D Tiles voxels. Here they use 3D Tiles voxels to visualize GeoTOP, a public geological model of the Netherlands by the Dutch Geological Survey. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

Visualizing national scale subsurface data with 3D Tiles voxels

GeoTOP demo by Bedrock.engineer

Unfortunately, subsurface data is challenging to share: the science is highly technical, and visualizations are often limited to PDFs, hand‑drawn cross sections, or specialized desktop software. That’s why Bedrock.engineer was founded. Bedrock.engineer works to make geotechnical data—boreholes, CPT tests, ground models, and analysis results—more accessible and easier to integrate into the tools engineers and stakeholders use. One of their interests is 3D visualization of subsurface models in the browser. Using the 3D Tiles 2.0 draft voxels extension in CesiumJS, they are streaming large subsurface datasets, demonstrating how open-format 3D Tiles enables geological voxel models to be explored in spatial context directly in the browser. Open source software and open data formats are central to how Bedrock.engineer works.

Bedrock.engineer visualizes subsurface data, like these boreholes in Hong Kong, together with above ground data in CesiumJS. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

Subsurface visualization with 3D Tiles voxels

Voxel representations, which can model continuous volumes and store material properties such as soil type, are ideal for subsurface datasets that hold continuous data like sediment layers. But visualizing very large voxel datasets in a geospatial context was not possible with open standards before 3D Tiles support.

Bedrock.engineer visualizes GeoTOP’s 50m deep subsurface data covering the entire Netherlands in CesiumJS using voxels. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

With the addition of voxel support in the draft 3D Tiles 2.0 specification, Bedrock.engineer can now combine voxel‑based subsurface models with 3D Tiles’ hierarchical streaming. Voxel renderings are currently a 3D Tiles extension and are part of the 3D Tiles 2.0 proposal, which was described at the 134th OGC Member Meeting in March. Bedrock.engineer has built their own Python tooling to convert gridded scientific formats, such as NetCDF, into 3D Tiles. 3D Tiles makes it possible to visualize dense, volumetric datasets covering an entire nation directly in the browser.

Bedrock.engineer brings GeoTOP data into CesiumJS using the 3D Tiles open standard, as in this dataset from Amsterdam. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

3D Tiles voxels make visualizing geoscience models possible, and bringing those 3D Tiles into CesiumJS makes it usable. What Bedrock.engineer appreciates most about CesiumJS is that visualizations are widely accessible to anyone with the link, allowing technical and nontechnical stakeholders to interact with the data directly.

"What 3D Tiles voxels change is accessibility. Subsurface models that used to require specialist desktop software can now be explored directly in the browser, in true 3D, in spatial context with the world above ground. And because it’s an open format, there’s no lock-in: anyone can build on it and combine it with their own data. That considerably lowers the barrier." 

– Jules Blom, Cofounder Bedrock.engineer

By bringing subsurface data into CesiumJS, Bedrock.engineer is also able to combine that data with other datasets, including terrain and buildings, for a more complete picture. For city planning, seeing what is below ground is only valuable if it’s shown in context with the natural and built environment above. Building on CesiumJS, Bedrock.engineer has implemented multivariable filtering, allowing users to see just the relevant data for any given application.

Fence diagrams make it easier to see layers of subsurface sediment. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

A prime example of Bedrock.engineer’s work is their CesiumJS visualization of GeoTOP, a public geological model of the Netherlands by the Dutch Geological Survey. By bringing GeoTOP into CesiumJS as 3D Tiles, Bedrock.engineer can embed the model in any browser-based application, combine it with other datasets in spatial context, and build custom tools on top of it, all using an open standard.

Every square meter of land in the Netherlands is designated for a particular use, such as agricultural, urban development, or green space. Municipalities are legally obliged to consider subsurface data whenever it is relevant to a public task. Courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

The GeoTOP model is well suited for governments seeking to better understand the geological features of their area at a regional scale. In the Netherlands, government bodies are legally required to consult BRO subsurface data, including models like GeoTOP, whenever it is relevant to a public task. Bedrock.engineer’s visualization makes it easier to understand and communicate what that data actually shows. When a local government can clearly see what’s below ground, they can make better decisions around spatial planning, groundwater management, land subsidence, and dike safety assessments.

Such visualization can also be useful to building developers in the early stages of a project. Knowing whether they’ll be dealing with peat or sand makes a significant difference when considering foundation type. Though GeoTOP is not a substitute for a full geotechnical investigation, but it gives a useful first indication before that work begins.

Semi-transparent voxel rendering of geophysical models reveals subsurface structures, creating an X-ray–like view of the underground. Data courtesy Emerald Geomodelling, image courtesy Bedrock.engineer.

Bedrock.engineer is working to add GeoTOP data to the LEIA viewer, a CesiumJS-based digital twin for the provincial government of Zeeland, Netherlands. Bringing GeoTOP into LEIA will allow policy makers to see subsurface data in spatial context with other government datasets. Bedrock.engineer has also brought a shallow subsurface model of the Antwerp urban region and harbor into CesiumJS, visualized as 3D Tiles voxels.

Voxel support is part of the draft 3D Tiles 2.0 specification, a key aspect of our commitment to open standards. If you’re working with volumetric data, explore the 3D Tiles OGC Community Standard, try it in CesiumJS, and share your feedback on GitHub. We’d love to see your implementation.

Bedrock.engineer Streams Subsurface Data at Nation Scale with 3D Tiles Voxels

About 25% of the global seafloor has been mapped in high resolution, according to NOAA, leaving a lot of work to be done. It’s not always practical or safe for humans to be involved, and that’s where Terradepth comes in: its autonomous underwater vehicles collect vast amounts of 3D seabed data hosted on Cesium ion Self-Hosted and streamed to its CesiumJS-powered app, Absolute Ocean. 

Terradepth cuts the seafloor-to-browser process from weeks to days. Courtesy Terradepth.

Terradepth Absolute Ocean Platform featuring Cesium Tilers

Traditionally, sending out a crew, collecting data, manually processing it, and making it available to users took several weeks. Using machines for dangerous, repeatable work, processing and sharing data where it’s captured, and employing people for analysis cuts the seafloor-to-browser process to days. 

Terradepth has been using Cesium since Absolute Ocean’s development and release in 2022. Absolute Ocean users collect and manage their data securely so they can recognize geographic physical features, identify human-made objects like sunken wrecks or unexploded ordnance, and observe change over time beneath the waves in immersive 3D. Hydrographers in academia, infrastructure, and national security rely on this growing collection of undersea geospatial data for better, faster decisions, with nearly immediate access to interactive data instead of a static slide or hard drive transfers. 

Skellig Michael, Ireland, in Absolute Ocean. Courtesy Terradepth.

Detail in ocean data varies: 500 m resolution from satellite altimetry, 50-100 m resolution from a ship, and 5 cm resolution from a robot near the seafloor, where human safety is questionable or even impossible. Terradepth’s AUVs use multibeam sonar, magnetometers, and more to collect terabytes of data. More detail means more data, and Terradepth uses Cesium to get it to users efficiently and securely.  

With Cesium ion Self-Hosted, Terradepth stores massive point clouds, GeoTIFFs, and other data types; tiles the point clouds into 3D Tiles; and streams them to Absolute Ocean, which is built on CesiumJS, for sharing with a broad research community or smaller set of decision-makers. Cesium ion Self-Hosted enables Absolute Ocean’s processing and sharing at the edge and supports data residency requirements. In addition to its detailed seabed data, Terradepth accesses Cesium World Terrain and Bing Maps Aerial imagery for accurate geospatial context above sea level. 

“Terradepth collects terabytes of data from the ocean. The sheer size meant customers used to wait weeks or months for their data. But with Absolute Ocean using Cesium Tilers at the edge we can let them see it comparatively instantly—with an intuitive, immersive, and three-dimensional user interface,” said Andrew Lunstad, Terradepth CTO.  

Watch Andrew Lunstad's 2025 Cesium Developer Conference talk to learn more about why Terradepth deploys Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Developers and the Open Geospatial Ecosystem

Comprehensive, collaborative seafloor data becomes insight into one of the least explored parts of our planet. 

Learn more about hosting, tiling, and streaming massive datasets in your own environment to process at the edge and meet strict security requirements.  

Terradepth Processes Seafloor Data at the Edge with Cesium ion Self-Hosted 

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

With a need to change, update, and protect energy infrastructure come the physical implementation of a build and the sometimes-serpentine planning and approvals processes, including public buy-in. Built on CesiumJS and other software components, Gilytics’ Pathfinder is a cloud-based platform for designing and planning energy infrastructure, enabling automation and collaboration for utilities, planners, engineers, and residents.

Tutorial showing Cesium-powered 3D features in Pathfinder. Courtesy Gilytics.

Gilytics Pathfinder

Pathfinder began as founder Stefano Grassi’s research project in 2011, supported by Swiss federal grants. Grassi’s team replaced the project’s previous mapping application with CesiumJS in 2014, just two years after it was released as open source, and in 2017 Grassi founded Gilytics and formally released Pathfinder as a comprehensive infrastructure siting, routing, visualization, analysis, and presentation solution for the energy industry. Based on the spatial constraints defined in a friendly UI, Pathfinder calculates the optimal locations and routes for pipelines, overhead and underground power lines, and wind and solar plants using its proprietary optimization engine based on advanced graph algorithms.

Visualization of automated optimal solar plant siting and line connection results in Pathfinder on top of calculated resistance map and Cesium ion assets. Courtesy Gilytics.

Pathfinder lets users manage data imported from a variety of formats: point clouds, OBJ, KML, GeoTIFFs, and GeoJSON, among others, collected from federal agencies and utilities. The CesiumJS-based 3D viewer seamlessly integrates these input datasets with Pathfinder’s results: resistance maps, corridors, optimal sites and routes, and impact and visibility analysis, including interactive editing. Pathfinder uses Cesium ion assets to provide accurate 3D maps and display large reference datasets, tiled into 3D Tiles and streamed to CesiumJS in the Pathfinder web app.

Pathfinder’s users—the public in particular—can interact with the 3D visualizations to fly through proposed energy projects, observing the location of corridors, pylons, and cables, for example, and identifying impacts to locations they care about. Because the visualizations use Bing Maps Aerial imagery and Cesium World Terrain in addition to images from Google, OpenStreetMap, and national providers like Swisstopo, planners and citizens are seeing projects with an accurate geospatial context, increasing transparency and trust.

Pathfinder used in an interactive public engagement activity. Courtesy Gilytics and Swissgrid.

How can real-world data in your web app improve energy project design and communication? Get started with our CesiumJS tutorials.

Gilytics Plans Energy Systems with CesiumJS

In some ways, Earth’s oceans are more mysterious and less explored than outer space. Terradepth is changing this with its autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and its Absolute Ocean (AO) browser-accessible data management and analysis platform, which uses CesiumJS to visualize vast 3D models of the ocean floor.

Terradepth’s Absolute Ocean uses CesiumJS to visualize vast 3D models of the ocean floor. Courtesy Terradepth.

AO Short

Terradepth addresses both data collection and dissemination, beginning with making thousands of NOAA surveys available to all users of its AO platform, where users can see everything from the natural seabed to sunken wrecks. Terradepth also collects geospatial seafloor data using its own fleet of AUVs and partners with TCarta to add its satellite-derived bathymetry; customers are able to add their own survey data to AO, too. Terradepth announced AO in spring 2022 and launched the platform this summer.

Terradepth collects geospatial seafloor data using its own fleet of AUVs. Courtesy Terradepth.

Terradepth uploads data in BAG, GeoTIFF, JSF, LAZ, and XYZ formats to Cesium ion, where that data is stored and the point clouds are tiled as 3D Tiles. For images and grids, Terradepth uses the 2D imagery and quantized mesh outputs from the tiler. Terradepth also accesses Bing Maps Aerial imagery and Cesium World Terrain for detailed above-sea-level context. All of this is streamed into CesiumJS and shown in the AO portal, so clients can map ocean change over time and share dashboards broadly with a community or with a smaller team—to collaborate and make the best decisions with the data they have about the ocean.

“Cesium was our first choice for Terradepth's AO platform. Its open source JavaScript library jumpstarted our AO development and it has allowed us to customize our own basemap to enable a striking 3D navigable underwater environment,” said Andrew Lunstad, Terradepth’s SVP of Software.

AO users can map ocean change over time and share dashboards. Courtesy Terradepth.

AO’s power users are hydrographers, using bathymetric data to aid underwater projects for laying cable, pipelines, offshore wind farms, and others. Any organization building, navigating, or studying underwater needs to know where there are boulders, cliffs, existing infrastructure, shipwrecks, and unexploded ordnance.

Terradepth’s ocean focus is what led to its partnership with Seabed 2030, a project that aims to map the world’s entire ocean floor by 2030 via crowdsourced bathymetry and make it available to everyone. AO will be the secure platform for Seabed 2030 data contributors, enabling interactive visualizations and examining the relationships to other open-source data added to AO.

Data collected around South America and transit from South America to Antarctica and back, depicted in AO for Seabed 2030. Courtesy Terradepth.

With CesiumJS, Terradepth’s AO can provide world-class 3D maps to organizations and their survey teams in energy, telecommunications, academia, defense, and others who are exploring the watery unknown on our planet. 

Bring your undersea, terrain, and 3D data to a Cesium globe with a Cesium ion account.

Terradepth Displays Sea Floor 3D Models with CesiumJS

Today the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is launching a major update to their marine radioactivity portal—now built on Cesium—to give researchers better access to radiation data on man-made and naturally occurring radionuclides in the world’s oceans.

Scientists around the world, from any of the IAEA’s 172 member states, can use the IAEA’s Marine Radioactivity Information System (MARIS), which provides access to a comprehensive library of samples taken over the last 60 years and covering more than 100 different radionuclides found in the ocean.

Researchers are able to find relevant data using an interactive 3D globe built with Cesium. Scientists can filter by various parameters such as type of radionuclide, depth, or sampling date; can draw a polygon on the globe to cover the area they’re interested in; and can download results for that geographical area.

Previous versions of MARIS used 2D maps that could not support all the capabilities the IAEA was looking for. Because these maps used Web Mercator projection, they show significant distortion at high latitudes, which created a serious problem for studying polar regions.

The new Cesium application offers better navigation and search functions, making it easier for researchers to get the data they need. Many scientists using MARIS are looking for baseline data for a given area. By evaluating the naturally occurring radionuclides, and those released from industrial facilities, they can better assess trends in local areas, evaluate proposed industrial projects, validate marine models used for simulation, and understand the impact of both natural processes and human activity on the world’s oceans.

Sign up for a Cesium ion account to bring your own marine data onto a Cesium globe.

IAEA Tracking Radioactivity in Seawater in Cesium

Camptocamp has added underground visualization to swisstopo’s digital twin of Switzerland.

A free 3D map of Switzerland for the public

Using 3D Tiles, the Swiss Federal Geoportal 3D Viewer provides free access to an interactive map of the entire country, including terrain, bridges, buildings, and even trees—more than 70 million objects.

The swisstopo 3D portal is an interactive map of Switzerland, including both the natural and built environment.

While this 3D map is very impressive, it doesn’t provide a complete picture of the country: underground resources such as groundwater, mineral layers, and spaces for basements, parking garages, subways, and other structures were all missing.

The Federal Office of Topography swisstopo wanted to show not just what was above ground in Switzerland, but what was below ground as well. So in collaboration with Camptocamp, we added support for underground visualization to the CesiumJS 1.70 release.

Camptocamp has implemented these new capabilities in swissgeol, swisstopo’s 3D viewer for geological data on the web.

swissgeol: Visualizing Switzerland's Geological Resources with Cesium

swissgeol brings together numerous underground datasets, including boreholes, seismic data, and bedrock maps. This data was previously available separately and in 2D, but by bringing them together, swissgeol provides users a more complete picture of what is underground.

Boreholes shown underground in swissgeol, together with buildings and terrain and imagery data above ground.

All this data streams smoothly to the browser thanks to 3D Tiles created with Cesium ion’s 3D tiling pipelines. Camptocamp prepares the data using FME, geological 3D-modeling packages, and Python.

Users can adjust the transparency of each layer, including surface imagery, and can also view cross-sections.

Cross-section data with transparent terrain and ground imagery in swissgeol.

The viewer is freely available to the public and will serve numerous needs in the geological community. Geological engineers will be able to analyze potential projects, such as transportation tunnels, and perform risk analysis, such as for rock slides. Decision makers will have better base data for education or for choosing appropriate project sites.

For example, while currently about 75% of Switerland’s energy comes from imported fossil fuels, their new energy policy, Energy Strategy 2050, aims to increase reliance on local shallow geothermal energy.

Geothermal datasets visualized in swissgeol.

Until now, creating a geothermal project proposal required collecting all the different datasets, e.g., geological maps, boreholes, cross sections, 3D models, seismic data, etc. Each dataset had to be copied and stored individually or a database connection had to be established using GIS or 3D modeling software. And the datasets could only be visualized in 2D or model-based in 3D. swissgeol dramatically simplifies this process, bringing together all the datasets into a single portal that can be shared instantly.

Visualization of a deep geothermal well together with a complex fault pattern and earthquake location.

swissgeol is currently in beta. In the future, swisstopo and Camptocamp plan to add a number of capabilities, including adding picking and styling so that relevant attributes of the data can be queried, filtered, analyzed, and downloaded. Registered users, including those at swisstopo, who need additional capabilities will also be able to access further functionality such as upload/download of user-generated data and the ability to create closed user groups for sharing sensitive data with a limited number of users.

If you have underground data, you can visualize it alongside all your other 2D and 3D data by uploading it to Cesium ion.

Visualizing Switzerland's Geological Resources with Cesium's Subsurface Rendering

This month’s CesiumJS release introduced key improvements that enable visualizing underground data. This allows you to seamlessly transition from above ground features like entire cities to what’s underneath in the same scene, whether that’s utility data like water pipelines and electricity cables, or 3D structures like caves and mines.

Visualizing boreholes with the different ground materials along its depth. Data from the Borehole Geophysical Database of the University of Minnesota.

Being able to fuse subsurface data with 3D terrain and other layers in CesiumJS means you can visualize all the relevant information in one place without the need to continually switch between specialized tools. For example, you could visualize earthquake occurrences over time and measure their proximity to critical urban infrastructure by adding Cesium OSM Buildings to your scene.

Visualizing earthquakes over time in the Sawtooth Mountains in Central Idaho through April and May 2020. Each sphere contains metadata on the magnitude and depth of the earthquake center, as well as any recorded error margins

You can control how your underground data is visualized using the CesiumJS API. Below, we’re visualizing photogrammetry of a tunnel. By keeping the ground mostly opaque, we can see exactly which parts are above ground (just the entrance) and how far the structure extends. We can also configure the camera to hide the ground when zooming in close so we can walk inside this tunnel without interference.

Photogrammetry of old military tunnel at North Head, Auckland, New Zealand. Left: keeping the ground mostly opaque to see which parts of the structure are above ground. Right: hiding ground close to the camera to allow the user to walk inside the tunnel. Captured by b_nealie.

Upload your underground data to Cesium ion or see the code examples below to learn how to enable these features in your Cesium app:

Enable transparency only on a section of the ground

If you have any questions or want to share what you’re working on, let us know on the forum!

Visualize underground utilities, mines, and geological layers with Cesium

Journey Plotter is an application for visualizing journeys of Royal Navy vessels of the World War I-era and Arctic voyages of United States vessels from the mid 19th century onwards.

For a given day, users can see the ship’s position and read the logbook entries that describe activities on board. The logbooks have been transcribed by volunteers on the Old Weather project and edited into a more readable form by volunteers on the naval-history.net project.

Where Were They? uses CesiumJS to show the positions of Royal Navy ships throughout World War I. The ships are animated, allowing visitors to view the movements of the ships around the globe and see that this was truly a global war, and that the battle wasn’t only fought in the trenches of Belgium and France.

The ship positions come from a CZML file containing the noon positions for the hundreds of vessels. To reduce file size, the points and labels for the ships are generated dynamically after loading the CZML file. The Cesium Viewer widget was adapted for the site, including a revised animation widget and a geocoder that searches for ship names.

Where Were They? Tracking World War I Voyages of Royal Navy Vessels

Deepship.AI is a live visualization of worldwide ship traffic. Dr. Nils Koesters, FRSA, director of Datafakts Ltd., developed a passion for ships as he lives by the sea and watches them sail past his house in Scotland.

He found several websites that show ship traffic, but all of them were in 2D. To create a compelling 3D view of ship traffic, he settled on Cesium.

The Automated Identification System (AIS) signals, which broadcast where a ship is, are transmitted via VHF and can be received by anyone. So Dr. Koesters installed several AIS receivers, and via software-defined radios got a local feed of what was in front of him. He then found an internet sharing site where in return for sharing his local feed, he could access all other traffic.

There are around 33,000 ships at any one time transmitting 24 different AIS messages in 6 bit ascii. To decode so much data, he uses an adapted open source C program. He then uses an intermediate database to collect information that feeds a PHP invoked CZML stream that is streamed to the web client of the user.

Ships come in different sizes and have different use classes in two different main ship classes. The app contains around 52 different simplified glTF model in two main classes. The ship colors use an Angular Material color scheme to display brightly against the main Angular tile scheme. The 3D icon type models are used so that a user who is close up can immediately identify, for example, a Cargo ship of Class A (commercial) or a sailing ship. Cesium World Terrain is also enabled. 2D Angular tile data is streamed from Dr. Koesters’s server, and there is also a backup OSM raster data server. The site does not operate on the cloud, as the service is non commercial.

As Cesium enables free layer choice, the user can choose a tiled Angular Material Layer or the maps that come with Cesium. Additionally, Koesters is enabling more and more live ESA satellite images streamed into Cesium via my WMS (Web Map Service) proxy. To keep the 3D load manageable the client can choose a radius from the camera in which ships can be seen; there is no need to see ships in India if the camera view is currently in Greenland. Ships are searchable via an Angular list, with a button to fly users directly to that ship’s position.

The site also includes a Leaflet enabled landing page so that non 3D enabled users can generally see what the site is about, but content there is a JSON pull and not a continuously streamed service.

The deepship.ai service information is also a front end for derivate backends for other ship centered services. Dr. Koesters is working on linking the AIS data to share prices, since 80% of all world commerce is done via ships. Hence the AI in the domain name.

ais deepship

Visualize Worldwide Live Ship Traffic with Deepship.AI

The Rolex Middle Sea Race Tracker follows 130+ racing yachts on their 2—6 day race around the islands of Malta, Sicily, Stromboli, Favignana, Pantelleria, and Lampedusa.

The race’s first tracking application was created in 2010 using Flash. For the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, they migrated to Cesium, enabling beautiful visualizations for both desktop and mobile users.

Their GPS tracking data is currently provided by YB Tracking Ltd..

Both the original Flash tracking application and the new Cesium tracker, as well as the website and race management back-end, have been built by Sven Neumann under management by MAXCREATE, which also provided designs and styling.

Tracking the Annual Rolex Middle Sea Race around Malta and Sicily

Eikland Energy AS provides research and analysis for the energy industry, with vertical specialization in natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), power, and renewable energy. Maintaining comprehensive operationally focused industry databases and tools, the company performs strategic and competitive analysis, energy market modeling, and forecasting.

The iGIS/LNG product is a complete LNG business intelligence solution that combines site, project, vessel, and company data as well as ownership and contract information. Real-time disaggregated flow forecasts and business alerts are provided at all locations, seamlessly integrated with daily natural gas pipeline flow and storage data, global weather forecasts, port authority and other external information. The underlying advanced logistical system offers trading program scheduling and planning with adaptive optimal ship routing.

iGIS/LNG uses CesiumJS as a key part of its user interface, quick search, and platform for analytics and instant visualization. Users can draw on multiple WMS-based imagery providers, including Copernicus Sentinel-2, Landsat, and official navigation charts, integrated with business-supporting artificial intelligence capabilities.  

Global LNG Flow Tracking and Site Monitoring with Eikland Energy

The Fishing Activity Viewer, developed by the Institute for Big Data Analytics at Dalhousie University, presents generalized heat maps and detailed tracking animations of fishing vessel activity. Using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data collected between 2012 and 2016 by Exact Earth Ltd. 2017, and processed courtesy of MEOPAR, researchers at the Institute for Big Data Analytics applied machine learning techniques to determine fishing activity and distance to shore information for selected vessel types, producing billions of individual points for visualization.

With Cesium, users can view and dynamically filter monthly heat maps of fishing activity by vessel type and distance to shore. Heat maps are generated using the Datashader Python library and displayed as primitive collections in Cesium. When the user zooms in to smaller regions on the globe, the general heat map is replaced with animated vessel tracking data that indicates fishing and non-fishing movements using selectable Cesium entity objects.

View Worldwide Fishing Activity Heatmaps and Vessel Tracking Animations

Researchers Reuben Reyes and Jadwiga Ziolkowska of the University of Oklahoma are using Cesium for geospatial visualization. The initial work started using KML and KMZ files in Google Earth and NASA World Wind. Once KML file support became available in Cesium, a port was completed and put on the web using Cesium. This made a live demo available to anyone with a web browser. 

Texas Groundwater Well Levels Visualization represents groundwater levels during the 2003–2014 drought. This data was derived from 7,211 groundwater wells across Texas with approximately 140,000 data points. Each color in this visualization is based on normalized groundwater well levels. The benefit of using Cesium is that it allows for smooth representation of large data sets for viewing and interacting with geospatial scientific data.

A key part of the visualization is the above surface representation of underground water levels. This research and visualization resulted in a paper: Ziolkowska, J.R.; Reyes, R. (2016): Geological and Hydrological Visualization Models for Digital Earth Representation. Computers & Geosciences 94: 31–39.

Texas Groundwater Well Levels

An Interactive Representation of Texas Groundwater Levels Over Time

The raceQs tracker app records sailing data with a phone and creates a 3D replay of a user’s race online. The 3D replay will show the user’s boat and any other boats that were recording in the area. Users can select anyone in the replay to learn from the top performers in the fleet or watch the replay with their crew and evaluate their race in the club and at home online.

The raceQs app is more than just a tracking device. It also records the motion of a boat using the accelerometer and gyroscope in a phone. By watching a detailed replay of the race, users can evaluate their tacking patterns, boat handling, heel angle, and more to improve their future performance.

raceQs was originally developed with the Google Earth plugin and is now migrating to Cesium.

Replay and Analyze Sailing Races with RaceQs

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Matom.AI Extracting AI Insights from Point Clouds in CesiumJS

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Visualizing Time Dynamic Data with Cesium Stories

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Set location for data uploaded to Cesium ion

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CesiumJS: Photorealistic 3D Tiles from Google Maps Platform

Hide Regions of 3D Tiles or Terrain with Clipping Polygons

Hide regions of 3D Tiles or terrain with clipping polygons

Cesium for Unity Georeferenced Sub-scenes

Cesium for Unity: Photorealistic 3D Tiles from Google Maps Platform

Photorealistic 3D Tiles in Cesium for Unity