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ARGUS User Manual

Tactical hologram mode

Tactical hologram is a rendering effect applied on top of Cesium 3D mode. It replaces the photorealistic imagery with a dark void, re-shades OSM Buildings with a Fresnel-edge cyan shader, and overlays vector-tile roads as cyan glowing polylines.

It’s the cleanest, lowest-GPU way to read a Cesium scene — designed for:

  • Command-post LED walls where glare washes out photoreal.
  • Operators with older integrated-GPU laptops where Photoreal tanks the frame rate.
  • After-action briefings where photo-realism is a distraction from the mission narrative.

Tactical hologram is only available when the map is in cesium3d mode — it’s an enhancement layered on Cesium, not a separate map mode.

Turning it on

Open the Layers sidebar and click the Tactical hologram toggle at the top of the list. The transition is staged over a few frames to avoid a single jank spike — each step yields to the browser before moving to the next.

What’s shown

  • Dark globe backdrop — solid near-black base colour replaces Photoreal imagery.
  • Buildings — OSM Buildings re-shaded with a custom Fresnel-edge fragment shader. Edges glow cyan where they face the camera; flat faces stay dark. Gives buildings a holographic, wireframe-like feel without being a true wireframe.
  • Roads — vector-tile road network from OpenFreeMap, rendered as cyan polylines with a slight glow effect. Uses the VectorTileHologramLayer component.
  • All mission overlays — drones, docks, flags, polygons, VMS cones all render unchanged on top. Their colours stay accurate so you don’t lose information.

What’s hidden

  • Google Photoreal imagery — replaced with the dark backdrop.
  • Sky + atmosphere — disabled, so the globe sits in a flat black void.
  • Fog — disabled.
  • Terrain lighting — removed (buildings’ Fresnel shader is self-lit).

Leaving tactical hologram

Click the toggle again. The restore sequence walks back in reverse:

  1. Imagery layers restored with their previous alpha.
  2. Globe base colour restored.
  3. Sky + atmosphere re-enabled.
  4. Buildings shader destroyed; OSM Buildings return to standard rendering.
  5. OpenFreeMap road layer destroyed.
  6. Each step yields to the browser between runs to keep FPS steady.

The transition usually completes in ~200 ms depending on system load.

Mission overlays in tactical

All overlays are unaltered by tactical hologram — they render with full original colour:

  • Drones keep their accent colour + trail.
  • Flags show their type colour + icon.
  • Polygons draw with their type colour (green geofence, red no-fly, etc.).
  • Panoptic entities and sensor-fusion layers render on top.

This is deliberate: the hologram look should not obscure mission-critical data — it removes base imagery noise and replaces it with a visually lighter substrate.

Interaction with vision filters

The tactical vision filter is a different thing — it’s a CSS colour cast applied to whatever rendering mode you’re in (2D, 3D, or Cesium). The tactical hologram is a deep rendering substitution inside Cesium.

You can combine them — turn on tactical hologram, then apply the amber or nvg vision filter, for instance. Many operators prefer hologram + noir for the cleanest read on bright screens.

Performance

Tactical hologram is dramatically lighter than photoreal. On GPUs that struggled with Photoreal at 20 FPS, tactical typically sustains 60 FPS — no photogrammetric meshes, no complex lighting, most tiles cached as simple vector data. It’s the go-to mode for laptops, long sessions, and outdoor command posts.

Known limitations

  • Not available in 2D or Google Earth 3D — Cesium only.
  • OpenFreeMap coverage — road data is from OpenFreeMap vector tiles, which are OpenStreetMap-derived. Remote areas may have fewer roads than photoreal imagery shows. This is normal.
  • No road names. The vector-tile road layer renders geometry only; labels are disabled for visual clarity.