Map & GPS Track Defaults

Every map in UAV Desk starts in a particular state — a street or satellite base map, a flat 2D or a tilted 3D camera, terrain on or off, and a set of floating overlay panels. The Map & GPS Track Defaults section of User Settings decides what that starting state is, so you no longer have to re-apply the same toggles every time you open a flight.

The defaults are stored with your account, so they follow you to any browser or device you sign in with. Changing a setting from the map toolbar while looking at a flight only affects that view — it never overwrites your saved defaults.

Base map

Choose between the street map (OpenStreetMap tiles) and satellite imagery. If you mostly fly over open terrain where roads and labels tell you little, setting satellite as your default saves a click on every flight.

A shared link that already carries an explicit map style (?mapStyle=satellite) keeps the style from the link, so deep links you send to other pilots still look the way you intended.

Open in 3D view

Controls whether the flight map starts with the tilted 3D camera or the flat top-down 2D view. The 3D view shows the altitude profile of the track directly; the 2D view is better for judging ground distances and comparing the track against the map.

3D terrain and 3D buildings

3D terrain renders elevation relief from the terrain model, which matters for mountain and valley flights where flat ground would misrepresent your clearance. 3D buildings extrudes building shapes at high zoom levels, useful for urban flights. Both can be turned off if you prefer a plain map or are on a slower connection.

Ground shadow

Projects the flight track straight down onto the surface, making it easy to see the ground path underneath a three-dimensional track.

Color track by

The flight track is drawn as a gradient over one telemetry attribute. Pick the one you check most often as your default:

• GPS quality — number of satellites, for spotting reception problems.
• Altitude — height profile along the track.
• Speed — ground speed along the track.
• Vertical speed — climb and descent rates.

Overlay panels

The floating panels on top of the map — Digital HUD, control sticks, animation controls and telemetry indicators — can each be visible or hidden when a flight track opens. Turning off the panels you rarely use leaves more of the map visible; their positions and sizes stay remembered per panel as before.

Resetting

Reset to defaults restores the built-in starting state (street map, 3D view with terrain and buildings, ground shadow on, track colored by GPS quality, all overlays visible). The reset is applied when you save.