FAQ

This guide is for:

• New developers interested in building mapping applications using ArcGIS and CesiumJS.
• ArcGIS developers who want to use an open-source library like CesiumJS to display scenes in web applications.
• CesiumJS developers who want to integrate ArcGIS services in their applications.

Go to Open Source Mapping Libraries on Esri Community.

Go to the CesiumJS GitHub repo.

CesiumJS has built in functionality to access the following services:

• ArcGIS Basemap Styles service
• Map tile services
• Feature services (via GeoJSON)
• Scene services (via I3S)

You can also access other services such as the ArcGIS Geocoding service, ArcGIS Routing service, and ArcGIS GeoEnrichment service by using ArcGIS REST JS. To find examples, go to Search, Routing, and Data enrichment.

You need either an ArcGIS Location Platform account or ArcGIS Online account to access ArcGIS Location Services. This will give you the ability to access the portal, create developer credentials, and manage your data.

You can not use an ArcGIS Enterprise account to access ArcGIS Location Services.

The table below shows the account types you can use to access each service:

ArcGIS Location Services

Yes, you need to provide an API key or implement another type of authentication to access ArcGIS Location Services.

ArcGIS Enterprise services

For services that are private, yes, you need to provide authentication to access ArcGIS Enterprise services. You typically implement OAuth 2.0 to do so. Public services do not require authentication.

To learn more about the different types of authentication, go to Types of authentication.

To learn more about ArcGIS Location Services and capabilities, go to the Mapping and location services guide.

To learn more about ArcGIS Enterprise services and capabilities, go to the REST API documentation.

Data services are services created dynamically to securely store, manage, and provide access to your data in portal. Some of the types of services that can be created are:

• Feature services
• Vector tile services
• Map tile services
• Image services

Data services are typically created by importing data with the data management tools. A unique URL for the service is assigned by the system when it is created.

The type of data service you use depends on the product you have, the format of your existing data, storage and output data format requirements, the size and complexity of the data, and the service functionality required.

Below is an overview of the main services and the data type each supports.

Yes, Esri offers data hosting through ArcGIS Location Platform, ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal for ArcGIS) that allow you to securely store, manage, and access your geographic data as hosted data services.

ArcGIS Location Platform and ArcGIS Online allow you to publish your data as hosted layers, which are hosted and managed by Esri's cloud infrastructure. This includes hosted feature layers, vector tile layers, and map tile layers.

With ArcGIS Enterprise, you can host data services in your own portal's infrastructure and managed database. This gives you more control but requires maintaining your own servers.

You can import and host many different types of geographic data as data services. The main requirement is that the incoming data has geometry coordinates and/or attributes (fields). The main storage formats are features, vector tiles, and map tiles. Some common file types include CSV, XLS, GeoJSON, Shapefile, and File Geodatabase files.

To learn more about supported data types, go to Portal and data services > Data services.

CesiumJS can display data from ArcGIS services by loading them using the appropriate data source or imagery provider.

• Feature services can be requested as vector data (for example, in GeoJSON format) and displayed using GeoJsonDataSource.
• Scene services (3D objects or integrated mesh layers) can be loaded and rendered using I3SDataProvider.
• Map tile services can be added as tiled imagery layers using ArcGisMapServerImageryProvider or UrlTemplateImageryProvider.
• Elevation layers can be used as terrain layers through ArcGISTiledElevationTerrainProvider.

No, your data is your data. You retain complete ownership of your content.

The cost to access ArcGIS location services depends on the type of ArcGIS account you have and the service operation you use.

1. If you have an ArcGIS Location Platform account, you are billed in US dollars. To determine the cost of accessing different services, go to Pricing. A free tier of access is available for some services.

2. If you have an ArcGIS Online account, you are billed in credits. To determine the cost of accessing different services, go to Understanding credits.

If you have ArcGIS Enterprise, there is no cost for accessing your own ArcGIS services.

To find the Esri Terms of Use, go to Terms of use.