What tooling would be best to use today to draw a 3d model (bridge) for cesium

They are building a new bridge close to where we live and I think it would be fun to try to build a “Can i see the bridge from my house” application. I was therefore wondering, given that I do not have a model of the bridge - what tooling is there out there today to draw a decent model of this bridge? I am not looking for engineering cad software, but just something that can do it 80%.

The only requirement is that the software should be able to rather easy to export something that I can find open source and tutorials that allow me to convert it into something I can show in cesium?

They are building a new bridge close to where we live and I think it
would be fun to try to build a "Can i see the bridge from my house"
application. I was therefore wondering, given that I do not have a
model of the bridge - what tooling is there out there today to draw a
decent model of this bridge? I am not looking for engineering cad
software, but just something that can do it 80%.

I use Blender https://www.blender.org/ and have imported models from
that into Cesium, but I would think that Sketch-Up
http://www.sketchup.com/ would have an easier learning curve. Its
free version should suffice. I haven't used it for Cesium modeling
myself though.

Cheers -Terry

Hi Poul,

Sounds like a fun application! I second SketchUp as a quick and easy modeling tool, although if you get more serious about 3d modeling, you’ll want to look into something like blender or Maya.

As for getting your model into Cesium, you just need to covert your model into a gltf, which we have tools for here: https://cesiumjs.org/convertmodel.html

Here’s a tutorial on bringing in and styling 3d models in Cesium: https://cesiumjs.org/tutorials/3D-Models-Tutorial/

Hope that helps, and have fun!

  • Rachel