# How to obtain pre-built quantized-mesh .terrain tiles for offline local serving with CesiumJS? **URL:** \ **Category:** CesiumJS\ **Created:** [April 13, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858 "2026-04-13T19:20:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![firefly2025](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5f8ce5/32.png) [@firefly2025](https://community.cesium.com/u/firefly2025)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858/1 "2026-04-13T19:20:50Z")
Hi, I’m building an offline CesiumJS application and need to display terrain without any internet dependency. I attempted to generate terrain tiles from a local GeoTIFF using Cesium Terrain Builder (CTB), but the output tiles had no meaningful elevation data — terrain was essentially flat. I also have a small number of `.terrain` tiles that were previously downloaded by a colleague, but not nearly enough coverage for my needs. My question is: is there a source where I can download pre-built quantized-mesh `.terrain` tiles (the format used by `CesiumTerrainProvider`) for a broader area? Ideally looking for: - Free or open-source options if they exist - Commercial options that allow self-hosting with a simple static file server (not requiring proprietary server software) Also open to suggestions on why CTB may have produced flat tiles from a valid GeoTIFF — happy to troubleshoot that route if it’s viable. Any guidance appreciated. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![bertt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/bertt/32/2702_2.png) [@bertt](https://community.cesium.com/u/bertt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 8:50pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858/2 "2026-04-13T20:50:42Z")
CTB is a bit tricky to get working, I got it working using Docker image [tumgis/ctb-quantized-mesh - Docker Image](https://hub.docker.com/r/tumgis/ctb-quantized-mesh) And commands: // create terrain tiles ctb-tile -v -f Mesh -C -N -o output input.vrt // create layer.json ctb-tile -f Mesh -C -N -c 1 -l -o output input.vrt ---
**Author:** ![darcyvdd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@darcyvdd](https://community.cesium.com/u/darcyvdd)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 6:17am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858/3 "2026-04-14T06:17:56Z")
I am not aware of any pre-built quantized-mesh .terrain tiles that you could use. I would say the best approach is use CTB and generate from open DEM data. You should be able to obtain data from these below: - SRTM (30m global) — USGS EarthExplorer or OpenTopography - ASTER GDEM (30m global) — NASA Earthdata - Copernicus DEM (30m global) — Copernicus Space Data Ecosystem - USGS 3DEP (1m–10m, US only) — The National Map Commercially, there is [Cesium Ion Self-Hosted](https://cesium.com/platform/cesium-ion/cesium-ion-self-hosted/) which is a self-hosted version [Cesium Ion](https://ion.cesium.com/) complete with tiling capability, you could host it on the same machine or a different machine on the same network for your use case. I believe Cesium Terrain Builder is the only open source option, however I would note that Cesium Terrain Builder is not affiliated with Cesium. You could ask on their GitHub page regarding your issues with the tool: [https://github.com/geo-data/cesium-terrain-builder](https://github.com/geo-data/cesium-terrain-builder) ---
**Author:** ![firefly2025](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5f8ce5/32.png) [@firefly2025](https://community.cesium.com/u/firefly2025)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 2:48pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858/4 "2026-04-14T14:48:22Z")
Thank you! While searching this forum, I came across this link, is it yours? I am going to try to follow it+ your comment from above. [VISUALIZING TERRAINS WITH CESIUM II | bert](https://bertt.wordpress.com/2018/11/26/visualizing-terrains-with-cesium-ii/) ---
**Author:** ![bertt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/bertt/32/2702_2.png) [@bertt](https://community.cesium.com/u/bertt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 9:20pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/how-to-obtain-pre-built-quantized-mesh-terrain-tiles-for-offline-local-serving-with-cesiumjs/45858/5 "2026-04-14T21:20:41Z")
yes there are a few versions of this blog, hope it still works somewhat 🙂