Hi,
does cesium have a Scene specification something like ArcGIS has for WebScenes?
Regards
Marco Giana
It can be difficult to compare the concepts here, without knowing the exact details and background of both Cesium and WebScene, the exact application patterns behind them, and the context in which this question is asked.
From quickly looking at the WebScene specification, it looks like it is a JSON-based description of “a scene that the client should render”. And this seems to include things like basic geometry objects, metadata like coordinate systems, even some basic UI elements, and references to ~“sources of data”. (It does not seem to directly include complex geometry data, but only contain links to it).
There is no direct analogy to that in CesiumJS. One of the reasons might be that CesiumJS is not only a “viewer for a file format”, but rather a library that serves as a basis for applications that combine geospatial data in various forms (and formats) from different sources.
But a few building blocks that might be what you’re looking for (or at least be relevant here):
- The “geometry data” (terrain, complex 3D models) that is rendered in CesiumJS is integrated as 3D Tiles tilesets. The repository contains the relevant resources:
- The reference cards that give an overview of the concepts of 3D Tiles
- The specification (this includes a property reference for the JSON representation)
- There is CZML, which is a scene description format, but does not offer the same flexibility as the API level
- Assembling actual applications (i.e. complex scenes with many elements like geometry and UI and interactions) is usually done based on the CesiumJS API itself. You could have a look at CesiumJS – Cesium to get started here.