Uber Adds Cesium Software to Its Flight Plans

Cesium (atomic number 55, Cs), the chemical element, is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal. Cesium, the software application, is a tool flying car developers can use to help analyze and organize the global-sized volumes of geospatial 3D data eVTOLs will encounter and accumulate as they navigate our skies – urban, suburban, and rural.

Built as open-source software using “3D Tiles,” an open specification used to stream heterogenous three-dimensional geospatial datasets, ride-sharing, and delivery service, Uber is now incorporating the technology into its geospatial visualization frameworks, loaders.gl and deck.gl.

The software enables a hierarchical level of detail streaming only the visible tiles in real time. This is crucial, as the data points from a single city alone number in the hundreds of millions. Processing the information simultaneously and seamlessly will enable Uber’s engineers to render their datasets quickly enough to facilitate flight.

Uber has also executed two Space Act Agreements with NASA to further advance the unmanned traffic management and unmanned aerial systems necessary to make urban air mobility viable, which it expects to trial in 2020 and operate commercially beginning in 2023.