For those not familiar with WebGL community. Cesium guys are the key contributors to the whole WebGL ecosystem. They for example are main authors of the glTF standard for delivering 3D assets optimized for the browser (adopted by many engines). Also the main reference book that gathers community knowledge 'WebGL Insights' is edited by the Cesium founder.
It isn't really fair to posters of a neat open source project for the top reply to be a hijack pointing people at a competing project, even if it does say "don't mean to hijack."
I totally agree and Cesium is a really cool project and I encourage people to check it out (the number of interesting applications they showcase is really impressive). Just proud of what our team has come up with and wanted to share.
Navigation/Rotation is inherited from the original Java based World Wind in an effort to provided similarity to users wishing to change platforms. A little different from the arcball-style, I agree, but at least there is a reason :)
That's amazing! And is all the imagery in public domain?
Edit: I see 'bing', so maybe not. Also, if anyone related to the project is looking, the elevation model is extremely noisy and likely broken, so wrapping the imagery around DEM might need to uhh be looked at.
I used Cesium.js for a visualization project for one of my clients a few months back and was pleased at how well the engine was designed. As someone interested in globe-based graphics rendering, I found a lot of interesting insights in the book the Cesium developers wrote, "3D Engine Design for Virtual Globes":
This seems like it would work really well to transition users from Google Earth and other closed-source globes to more open data sources. Specifically, this would be hugely valuable for developers in the military, disaster response, and intelligence communities and opens up the possibility for more quickly prototyping geospatial "Common operating pictures"
That said, as a day-to-day developer short of star mapping or orbits I'm not sure I prefer the globe format to a flat earth projection. Cool to see this open source and I'll definitely keep it in mind.
Cesium does have a flat earth projection built in as well (there's a wireframe globe in top right of main page demo, and clicking it allows you to switch between 3D and 2D).
Very cool! Couldn't find a way to generate a link to a direct spot on the map, but if you go to Kennedy Space Center you can see the shuttle external fuel tank and booster rockets on the pad (no shuttle though).
One of the reasons why I fired my bizdev guy was that he didn't see there was a problem with Linkurious not using their own product on their own web site. (i.e. Linkurious uses WebGL)
