Who Should Use Cesium?


CesiumJS is the most recent and great technological discovery to happen in the mapping platform. It is a 3D geospatial platform making globes virtually. The idea is that of a web-based globe and map so that visualising data is easier. What makes Cesium stand out is its great performance, precise results, quality of visuals, use, supporting platform, and amazing content.   Cesium is also a one-stop place for 3D geospatial data. It handles optimisation, visualisation and also analytics. What makes the various geospatial data into content can be streamed and easily used in applications in a feature called 3D tiling. Cesium also works with Vue.js. This is because both Cesium and Vue js are based on JavaScript.

There is no exhaustive answer as to who all are using Cesium because it has proved to be so useful that all leading industries are readily adopting it. For example, the research institute of Toyota uses Cesium for understanding the road environment which is detected by their driverless vehicles. Likewise, Propeller employs Cesium site inspections. Thus, many industries have various uses out of Cesium.

Following are some of the exceptional features of Cesium.

3D From the Ground Up

The world that we live in itself is 3D. So, this is the context that has to be matched up when it comes to the virtual world. Thus, Cesium provides important spatial insights in the data.

Time Dynamic

It is always important to understand what is happening over a period of time. Cesium has a great time dynamic which is why it is used for construction sites, war zones or even for detecting climate changes.


The data that you procure from the real world has to be accurate. Otherwise, it can lead to manipulated results. In all these high-risk industries, like automobile, precision is the key. Cesium can make sure that the data is 100 percent accurate.

High Performance

In spite of 3D geospatial data being of huge size, Cesium handles it well while making sure not to lag on performance. It employs cloud computing, parallel programming, GPUs etc. all these work towards higher performance.


Different industries have different needs with geospatial data. Cesium is built in such a way that it fits the needs of all developers. Everybody can have their own unique and customised experience.

Open Core

Cesium is built to be an open platform. They adopt any new technology and information they can benefit from. They also contribute and collaborate wherever it is required. Even though 3D geospatial data is readily available, it is not easily accessible. However, with developers like aTeamIndia, this is possible.

Bring Your Own Data

Cesium also lets you bring your own data. They can tile your data and stream it in any platform, be it cloud or private network.

Curated Data

The data is already curated in Cesium. There is a library in the application which can be used for the purpose. They also work with data partners for increasing their database.

Spatial Data and Cesium


Spatial data coming to a web browser has never been easier. There are combinations of using applications for visualising spatial data. There are programming languages, frameworks and tools for executing spatial data visualisation. Out of these, the most popular tool that is used is JavaScript for both front-end and back-end development. AteamIndia employs Vue JS and Cesium combination for visualising spatial data. Vue JS as a framework is highly compatible with Cesium as they both share a common base.  There are also libraries like OpenLayers, Three.js and Babylon.js which are known for creating interactive maps as well as spatial data on maps. However, these are only fit for 2D data. Later on, 3D models supporting 3D data and maps became popular. In order to share these across programs and web, data standards were created. An example of this is CityGML. This is used particularly for sharing city models.

Cesium JS is now a very popular and widely adopted JavaScript library. It is the product of an open-source community. What makes it great is that it has enabled visualisation of 3D data possible on practically every device. However, it is not easily streamable. To make it easy, 3D tiles was developed. The geospatial data is huge and the tiles are an open specification that can stream all the 3D content like buildings, trees etc.

Even though a lot of organisations use CesiumJS and 3D tiles for the purpose of visualising 2D spatial data, in 2018, an additional mapping platform was introduced to complement this. This was the Cesium Ion platform. This is a platform that provides three options:

  • 3D tiling pipeline for streaming the data into any device effectively
  • Cesium Ion SDK for extending visualisations
  • 3D content-like imagery

In order to further modify the existing 3D tiling pipeline system, Cesium Ion introduced integration with FME data integration platform by Safe Software. This further made streaming easy and seamless. It’s a three-step process. The 3D data is first processed with FME. The uploading, tiling and streaming are dealt by Cesium.js. FME integration has many benefits. it helps to keep the web application up to date. This is because as and when there is a change in the underlying data, new visualisations will be created automatically. Thus, there is an automated system of workflow.

Those who use FME will have two format writers. One for writing the 3D tiles and the other for 3D point clouds. These make visualising with Cesium extremely easy. Safe Software also comes up with updated features of FME integration. The next one is this year, 2019, which will be a new Cesium Ion transformer. This new feature will extract the data from FME and process it into Cesium Ion creating a web visualisation with URL. This will be displayed right away in the browser. Cesium by itself and with the collaborations with other tools and frameworks have proved to be a great application for mapping spatial data. It is now widely used in all industries like sports, automobiles etc.