# Easy model orientation (and quaternions)

**URL:** <https://community.cesium.com/t/easy-model-orientation-and-quaternions/1171>\
**Category:** CesiumJS\
**Created:** [April 28, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/easy-model-orientation-and-quaternions/1171 "2014-04-28T14:24:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alessio\_Pierluigi\_Pl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Alessio\_Pierluigi\_Pl](https://community.cesium.com/u/Alessio_Pierluigi_Pl)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/easy-model-orientation-and-quaternions/1171/1 "2014-04-28T14:24:57Z")

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Hi!

Is there any QUICK and PRACTICAL way to change the orientation of some models, loaded through a CZML file, in Cesium?

Right now, to change the orientation of a model, I try to guess the rotation it takes to make them orthogonal to the terrain, then convert the Euler angles to Quaternion, eventually placing them within the CZML file.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to quite get the rotations right: even though the Euler -\> Quaternion, Quaternion -\> Euler conversion return the correct angles, the model rotates in a weird way and even little changes in the angles produce unintuitive rotations in the model.

I’ve got 50+ GLTF models and getting the rotation right for each of them, basically by guessing, it’s getting… annoying 🙂

Alessio

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**Author:** ![utillity76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d2c977/32.png) [@utillity76](https://community.cesium.com/u/utillity76)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 8:33am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/easy-model-orientation-and-quaternions/1171/2 "2014-09-23T08:33:43Z")

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hi, did you ever get this working? I am also having difficulty just rotating a model by 90° - one would think this is simple, but as you states, small changes lead to unpredictable rotation results.

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**Author:** ![Alessio\_Pierluigi\_Pl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Alessio\_Pierluigi\_Pl](https://community.cesium.com/u/Alessio_Pierluigi_Pl)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 12:46pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/easy-model-orientation-and-quaternions/1171/3 "2014-09-23T12:46:52Z")

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No, unfortunately I did not. I’m still getting crazy on that stuff…