Map overview
The map tile is usually the largest tile in any layout. It unifies three real rendering modes behind a single tile — the mode picker never unloads the entities you’ve drawn, so you can plan in 2D, switch to Cesium for context, and flip to Google Earth 3D for a different camera without redrawing a thing.
The three real modes
| Mode | What it is |
|---|---|
2d | Flat Google Maps view, satellite imagery by default. Fastest to render, best for planning. |
3d | Google Earth 3D tiles — photogrammetric globe, slightly lighter GPU cost than Cesium photoreal. |
cesium3d | Cesium with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles as the base layer, OSM Buildings overlay, terrain lighting, and the whole Cesium feature surface (measurement, sensor fusion, tactical hologram, Panoptic overlays). |
Anything described elsewhere in this manual as “tactical hologram” or “vision filter” is an effect applied on top of one of these three modes — not a separate fourth mode.
Cycling modes
Click the globe icon in the tile toolbar. The cycle order is
cesium3d → 3d → 2d → cesium3d. One click per step. There is no
keyboard shortcut for the cycle itself.
Your last-picked mode is stored per user per browser, so opening the console in a new session restores whichever mode you were last in.
What persists when you switch modes
- Camera position, zoom, heading — captured before the switch and restored when
you return to that mode. If you were panned over a specific building in
cesium3d, leaving for2dand coming back drops you back where you were. - Polygons, flags, measurement history, polygon-draft state — tied to mission data, so they render in every mode automatically.
- Vision filter + intensity — session-state on the component; a page reload resets them.
What’s dropped when you switch
- Active measurement session — any half-drawn ruler/path/area measurement is cancelled. Completed measurements are also cleared; they’re ephemeral by design.
- Active polygon-draw session — if you were mid-draw when you switched modes, the draft is discarded and you have to start over.
- Camera follow — if the map was locked to a drone (“Snap to drone”) and you
switch into
2d, follow is disabled (2D doesn’t implement the camera-follow binding). Switching back to3dorcesium3dpreserves the follow state.
Core interactions
Camera follow — “Snap to drone”
Click the drone icon in the tile toolbar to lock the camera to the currently selected drone. The map will pan and re-orient as the drone moves. A cooldown of 6 seconds prevents the camera from jittering if the drone position flickers rapidly.
- Click again to release.
- Selecting a different drone in the fleet tile re-targets follow to the new drone automatically.
- In
2dmode the button is hidden — 2D has no follow binding.
Focus region
Every mission has a venue-bounded region. The focus region action recenters the camera to fit that region. Accessible from the tile toolbar; also fired automatically when a new mission is loaded.
Mouse controls (Cesium 3D)
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Left-click + drag | Pan the camera along the ground plane |
| Right-click + drag | Rotate / orbit the camera |
| Middle-click + drag | Tilt |
| Scroll wheel | Zoom in / out |
Left-click as pan is an ARGUS choice overriding Cesium’s default where left-click initiates rotation. It matches Google Maps’ muscle memory.
Mouse controls (2D)
Standard Google Maps — left-click drag pans, scroll zooms. There’s no rotation.
Right-click context menu
Right-click anywhere on the map to get:
- Place Flag — opens the flag panel pinned to that coordinate.
- Draw [polygon type] — opens the polygon-draw tool with the first vertex at the click point. One submenu entry per real polygon type (see Polygons).
- Measure — only while a measurement tool is already active; otherwise hidden.
The layer sidebar
Expand the layer sidebar (top-left of the tile) for per-layer toggles. Organised by tab:
- Layers — basemaps, OSM Buildings toggle, sky/atmosphere.
- FUSION — sensor fusion (coverage, detections, thermal)
and Panoptic feeds. Only visible in
cesium3d. - Vision — the 12 vision filters + intensity slider.
Overlays that draw in every mode
These render identically across 2d / 3d / cesium3d:
- Drones (live position + heading + trail)
- DJI docks (ground location + coverage cone in 3D modes)
- VMS camera FOV sectors
- Polygons (geofence, nofly, sar + any custom-type polygon)
- Flags (all 13 flag types render with their colour + icon)
- Selected drone’s waypoint mission path