CesiumJS Materials, Shaders & Post-Processing

Version baseline: CesiumJS 1.142 (June 2026). All imports use ES module style.

Material System (Fabric JSON)

Material defines surface appearance for Primitives through a JSON schema called Fabric. Materials compile to GLSL and are consumed by MaterialAppearance or PolylineMaterialAppearance.

Built-in Material Types

Surface: Color (color), Image (image, repeat), DiffuseMap, AlphaMap, SpecularMap, EmissionMap (image, channel(s), repeat), BumpMap, NormalMap (image, channel(s), strength, repeat).

Patterns: Grid (color, cellAlpha, lineCount, lineThickness), Stripe (evenColor, oddColor, repeat), Checkerboard (lightColor, darkColor, repeat), Dot (lightColor, darkColor, repeat).

Effects: Water (baseWaterColor, normalMap, frequency, animationSpeed), RimLighting (color, rimColor, width), Fade (fadeInColor, fadeOutColor, maximumDistance).

Terrain: ElevationContour (color, spacing, width), ElevationRamp (image, minimumHeight, maximumHeight).

Polyline: PolylineArrow (color), PolylineDash (color, gapColor, dashLength, dashPattern), PolylineGlow (color, glowPower, taperPower), PolylineOutline (color, outlineColor, outlineWidth).