Display large numbers of points

CesiumJS
1

1. A concise explanation of the problem you’re experiencing.

I have a large set of points in a grid, maybe 100k, with some data attached. I need to show these points to the user as a colour diagram, like a false colour image.

The points are generated dynamically on the client side, so I cannot use tiles.

I am trying to find out what is the most efficient way. I was thinking it is better to avoid making lots of polygons, I was thinking instead of using points.

How to:

  1. Make the points be represented as squares (at the moment they are round)

  2. Define the size of the point in meters, so that the squares touch…

  3. Force the squares to not rotate towards the camera - orientation should be fixed.

2. A minimal code example. If you’ve found a bug, this helps us reproduce and repair it.

Sandcastle with round points.

3. Context. Why do you need to do this? We might know a better way to accomplish your goal.

Data is coming from some simulations. We need to show the results,

4. The Cesium version you’re using, your operating system and browser.

Sandcastle, Win 7, latest Chrome

2

I’m jumping in because I have a over 400k points representing 3 different types, in this case origin type, which I need to display. All points are just for the US and covers almost 30 years so I do not have 400k points all at once. Other then this my case and Patrick’s are near identical, although I have 3 special icons but assuming a square is an image then we are the same.

3

Hi Patrick and Timothy,

Point primitives are one of the most efficient way to render a lot of points (see the blog post on this topic), so if you can keep that method and represent types with color, size, or transparency, that would be the most efficient.

Otherwise you can try a BillboardCollection, which if you only have a few types and images representing them, will instance the duplicated images for better performance. See the Sandcastle example.

Thanks,

Gabby