We are converting a large legacy earthworks system to use CesiumJS. It has all the typical survey surfaces, cut/fill/elevation/profile calculations and visualizations.
At their core, survey surfaces are just points with coordinates and elevations. And we can extend that data to make triangulated mesh surfaces. We know all these typical transforms.
I need your input on one very strategic decision that also has a huge financial impact to our project: Which Cesium format do we use for our survey surfaces?
Again, you know the drill: Compare surfaces, calc differences, color code depths and for the new visualizations we’ll slice and elevate sections etc.
I know that past applications were constrained by what CesiumJS/ION could do at that time. I have heard that soon we’ll be able to load multiple terrains at the same time which would make them a new option that is closer to survey surfaces.
For these reasons, I’m looking out about 3 months and have to make a decision what is is available to begin development in that window and production ready within 3 months after that.
We need to build our own data pipelines. We may connect them to ION pipelines or create our own native content depending on which CesiumJS formats you think would be best for this type of data, calculations and visualizations.
Again, we are a small company and this will be a huge development investment for us so we need to start with the best approach based on near-term CesiumJS/ION formats/features.
So - what would be your first/second recommendation for comparing/visualizing survey-type data in CesiumJS? Any pros/cons would also be helpful.