Hi Florian-
You should definitely be able to do that. We do something similar in our Animate 3D Symbols sample - Animate 3D symbols—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt | ArcGIS for Developers
You can use either C++ or QML - it is up to you. If you are comfortable in C++, I would recommend going that direction, because it ultimately will lead to more flexibility with writing more custom classes, handling threading, etc. But if you are from a JavaScript background, QML should come very quickly to you, and should suffice for the job as well. The performance of the API itself should be about the same, but if you need to start adding complex JS code in your QML app, you may start to find that the C++ app will get better performance.
You can develop your app using Qt's IDE - Qt Creator. We support version 5.6.2, 5.7.1, and 5.8.
As for data, you will need at least 2 things - the elevation surface and the basemap. The surface can be obtained through a Tiled Elevation Service, and the basemap can be a tiled map service or a local tile package.
I recommend you take a look at the developer page to get started Guide—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt | ArcGIS for Developers. If you install Qt, install the SDK, go through samples, and copy/paste the bits you are interested in into your own app, you should be off to a good start.
-Lucas