Cesium 3D Tiles recipes

Each recipe assumes the Gem is enabled and you understand the Getting started hierarchy.

1. Global terrain + imagery

Goal: Cesium World Terrain with Bing Aerial draped on top.

1. Follow Getting started through the minimal hierarchy.
2. Georeference: set a cartographic origin near your site of interest.
3. Tileset: FromCesiumIon, asset ID 1, SSE 16.
4. Same entity: Ion Raster Overlay, asset ID 2, material slot 0.
5. Camera: Fly Controller + Origin Shift UpdateRenderOrigin.
6. Add SunSky + Credits; enter play mode.

Verify: terrain refines on approach; imagery visible; attribution shown.

2. Photorealistic city

Goal: Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles (bandwidth and memory heavy).

1. Place Georeference at the city center (lon/lat/height of a downtown point).
2. Tileset: FromCesiumIon, asset ID 2275207.
3. Suggested knobs:

• Maximum screen space error ≈ 8
• Maximum cached bytes ≥ 1 GiB
• Consider Unload tiles in play mode while iterating in the Editor

4. Optional: skip Bing overlay (photorealistic tiles already carry color).
5. Origin Shift on camera; raise Fly Controller far clip if you orbit high.

Verify: building-scale mesh appears; watch memory and simultaneous loads. Lower SSE further only if the machine can sustain it.

Ensure your ion token and Google Photorealistic entitlement allow asset 2275207.

3. Offline photogrammetry

Goal: Local tileset.json with optional local imagery.

1. Tileset: FromLocalFile → absolute path to your tileset.json (loaded as file://).
2. Georeference origin should match the dataset’s authoring CRS / survey origin (often a site LLH).
3. Optional imagery: TMS Raster Overlay with a file:/// gdal2tiles directory, or URL Template pointing at a local HTTP server.
4. Request cache still helps remote dependencies if any remain; pure local trees work offline.

Verify: content loads with network disabled (after cache warm if hybrid). Use Debug Colorize Tiles temporarily to confirm LOD.

4. Place a Prefab at a GPS point

Goal: Drop authored content at a real-world coordinate.

1. Ensure a level Georeference exists.
2. On the Prefab root (or a locator entity), add CesiumGlobeAnchorComponent.
3. Set height reference as needed (None for absolute ellipsoid height, or relative to ground / tileset).
4. Call:

DawnCesium::CesiumGlobeAnchorRequestBus::Event(
 entityId,
 &DawnCesium::CesiumGlobeAnchorRequests::MoveToLongitudeLatitudeHeight,
 lonDegrees, latDegrees, heightMeters);

5. Optional: Fly-To the camera to the same LLH so you can inspect placement.

Verify: Prefab sits on the expected site; moving the Transform updates LLH when detect-transform is on.

5. Low-end demo

Goal: Keep a globe interactive on limited GPUs.

1. Start from recipe 1.
2. Tileset: SSE 32 (or higher), lower Maximum cached bytes, set Maximum simultaneous tile loads to a small explicit value (e.g. 4).
3. Disable Create physics meshes unless you need collision.
4. Prefer a single overlay; raise overlay SSE slightly if imagery dominates cost.
5. Keep Origin Shift on—precision bugs are not a savings.

Verify: stable frame time while orbiting; expect coarser ground.

6. Private / self-hosted ion

Goal: Point tilesets and overlays at a private ion deployment.

1. Create a .cesiumionserver asset (Asset Processor registers *.cesiumionserver): server URL, API URL, default access token, OAuth application ID as needed.
2. On the tileset (and overlays): assign Ion server asset; leave component tokens empty to use the asset default, or set per-component tokens.
3. Tools → Cesium panel: select the current server; use ion Assets / Quick Add against that server.
4. Optionally set project DefaultIonServerUrl for the empty-asset fallback.

Verify: Troubleshoot Token succeeds against the private host; asset IDs from that server load.

Related

• Configuration and debugging when a recipe fails.
• Reference for buses used in scripts.