What data formats/projections does Cesium support?

CesiumJS
1

Currently doing a trade study on different GIS applications, mainly Cesium, ARC GIS, QGIS, and World Wind.

I’m wondering if there is a list anywhere w/ all the possible data formats/projects Cesium supports? Haven’t had much luck.

Thanks in advance.

2

Not sure if there’s an absolute specific list somewhere. You might want to quantify your question a bit more, specifically around what types of data you’re interested in.

As a rough list off the top of my head:

  • Terrain: Cesium’s self-defined “heightmap” and “quantized-mesh” tile formats
  • Imagery: Standard TMS-layout imagery tilesets containing PNG and JPG images, plus some support for Google Earth Enterprise servers
  • General rasters: roughly anything that can be displayed by a browser
  • Vectors: Cesium’s own JSON-based CZML format, and most of the KML format
  • 3D: less familiar with this. GLTF, Cesium’s new 3DTiles format, etc.
3

Hi Daniel,

when I was looking into Cesium I found this:
https://cesiumjs.org/features.html
Hope it's useful for you

4

Hi Daniel,

Cesium supports the following:

Terrain:

Imagery:

  • Supports data from single tile, WMS, TMS, WMTS (with time dynamic imagery), ArcGIS, Bing Maps, Google Earth, Mapbox, and Open Street Map servers

  • See the Imagery Layers Showcase, or take a look at the Imagery Layers Tutorial for more information.

Vector formats:

**3D Models: **

  • glTF models

  • We provide an online converter to convert COLLADA and OBJ files to glTF.

  • 3D Tiles streams heterogeneous 3D data, including photogrammetry models, 3D buildings, CAD and BIM exterior and interiors, and point clouds

The Features Checklist page is a great resource as well, thanks!

Let me know if you have any additional questions or feedback.

Thanks,

Gabby

5

Still none the wiser as to which projections are supported. Like for example EPSG:4326 2D projection using WS84 expressed in Lat/lon order (https://www.epsg-registry.org/export.htm?wkt=urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326) ?

6

Map images, via ImageryProviders, support Web Mercator and Equirectangular projections.
Supported vector formats CZML, GeoJSON, and KML require geometry coordinates in CRS urn:ogc:def:crs:OGC::CRS84 with optional height in meters above WGS84 ellipsoid. CZML also supports cartesian coordinates in ECEF or ECI reference frames.

Hope that helps.

Scott

7

My problem hasn’t been solved yet, because I’m a beginner and I don’t know any better way to solve it.

If you have good methods, please advise.

8

I’m copying Scott’s answer from this GitHub discussion:

Cesium supports map image data in Web Mercator or Plate Carree/Equirectangular projections. This issue captures community interest in having native support for other projections.

I think the easiest way to get it in Cesium is to reproject your imagery using a tool like GDAL before serving it in Cesium.