It’s a pivotal moment for the 3D geospatial ecosystem. This is one of many takeaways from Cesium founder and Bentley Systems Chief Platform Officer Patrick Cozzi after attending the first Cesium Developer Conference last month in Philadelphia.
This is also the topic of the latest Future Of podcast. Cozzi joined show host and SuperDNA 3D Lab CTO Mike Festa for a special episode to break down the event’s top takeaways.
Accessible & Surreal
What else did Cozzi take away from the event? Instead of focusing solely on product announcements, the conference prioritized the people utilizing the technology, he said, inviting developers, researchers, and business leaders to showcase their work with Cesium’s open 3D platform.
As Cozzi recalled, the team’s goal wasn’t to promote Cesium alone, but to “celebrate the contributions of the entire 3D geospatial community.” And with over 400 attendees and 87 out of 101 speakers coming from the community itself, the event quickly exceeded expectations.
“It felt surreal,” he told Festa. “Seeing how many people have built careers and products using Cesium, both the open-source platform and our commercial tools, it was humbling.” Festa echoed this sentiment, noting, “Cesium is making it really accessible for other folks to develop 3D tiles, not just into games, but into any type of business use case, really lowering the barrier to entry.”
While Cesium has long been recognized as a foundational tool for rendering the real world in 3D, the conference showcased how the platform has evolved beyond aerospace into construction, infrastructure, subsurface modeling, AI, and even metaverse applications.
Spaces & Surfaces
A keynote highlight was the revelation of new capabilities in 3D mesh reconstruction and Gaussian splats, a powerful visual rendering technique that Cozzi believes will change how developers handle thin objects like utility lines or glassy surfaces in 3D spaces.
Attendees also got an inside look at Cesium’s ongoing standards work with the Metaverse Standards Forum, including discussions about bridging glTF and 3D Tiles through a new glX format. The aim is to make complex scene composition and spatial streaming more interoperable across industries.
“Instead of building similar systems over and over, 3D Tiles gives us a unified runtime for massive datasets. Now, we’re extending that to make it useful beyond geospatial,” Cozzi explained. “It’s all about building an open ecosystem where everyone wins.”
The conference itself was a step forward for that ecosystem. While smaller Cesium meetups have been held before, this was the first event of its kind hosted under the Bentley Systems banner, signaling a broader commitment to developer engagement, standards advocacy, and cross-industry collaboration.
Cozzi emphasized the positive energy and openness of the attendees as one of the biggest wins.
“You could feel it,” he said. “People were really present. No one was just on their phones. Everyone was learning from each other, making connections. That’s the culture we want to protect, even as we grow.”
More to Do
Attendees were especially drawn to the fast-paced lightning talks, which packed dozens of ideas into back-to-back 5-minute sessions. Topics spanned from subsurface digital twins to immersive e-commerce scenes, offering inspiration across the full spectrum of 3D innovation.
A developer from the gaming industry commented, “I came in curious and left buzzing with ideas for how to bring real-world 3D into my workflow.”
Now, with the recordings set to be released this summer, Cesium is preparing to expand the conference further, though Cozzi insists that maintaining the event’s unique atmosphere is the top priority.
With interest growing around Cesium’s tools and standards, Cozzi confirmed that the conference will return next year, though the team is still finalizing the dates and location.
“We’d like to grow, but we don’t want to lose the feeling of being able to talk to anyone and learn something,” he said. “That part matters a lot.”
For those who couldn’t attend, Cozzi encouraged them to watch the sessions and share their feedback.
“There’s more to do,” he said, “and we want to hear from everyone.”
Header image credit: Pawel Nolbert on Unsplash
SuperDNA 3D Lab is a full-service 3D solutions provider. It creates 3D content, distributes it across various channels, and manages it in its own cloud servers for elevated eCommerce and other endpoints.
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