Best way to view huge Polygon Shapefile in Cesium

CesiumJS
1

Hello every,

I have a question. I have a huge shapefile >1GB of polygon data. It is a 2D Polygon with a lot of attributes. What is the best way to visualize this data on the Cesium-based application? (to give the best performance)

  • Convert to 3D Tiles (or Vector Tiles)?
  • Convert to GeoJSON?
  • Convert to KML

Thank you so much in advance!

2

I’ve used the NPM shapefile package to convert shapefile to GeoJSON, then load it with a GeoJsonDataSource, but performance can be iffy with only a few hundred KB of input data. I used the streaming mode in that converter and handed batches of output to Cesium, but I had to implement this pending PR to make that possible.

When you say “over 1GB of polygon data”, is that one incredibly-detailed polygon, or is this thousands/millions of polygons? If the former, I’d look at some kind of offline processing to (greatly!) reduce the detail before importing. If the latter, a service-based approach like 3D tiles, where you’re only requesting the data you need for the limited area you’re currently viewing, might help.