Map basics

DroneField’s main working surface is the map canvas in the middle column. Every visual layer of the selected project is shown here.

Map provider

DroneField offers two providers:

Apple Maps (default on macOS)

• The native map engine of macOS
• Fast, smooth, low bandwidth
• Adequate detail across Europe
• Same UX as the native Maps app

OpenStreetMap (OSM)

• The community-built map (osm.org)
• Roads, cadastral context — agricultural areas often have more field-edge and cart-track detail in OSM than in Apple Maps
• Same projection
• Heavier on internet (tile downloads)

Switch under Settings → Map → Provider. The change is applied immediately on every open map.

Styles

Each provider has two main styles:

Satellite

Look at the field directly from above, with actual satellite imagery.

• Apple Satellite (Hybrid) — satellite + labels (roads, towns). Apple Maps Hybrid mode, native.
• Esri World Imagery (if you choose OSM) — high-resolution satellite tiles worldwide (server.arcgisonline.com).

Satellite imagery freshness varies — some areas may be 1–2 years old. Your orthomosaic will always be fresher!

BaseMap (cartographic)

The classical drawn map — with roads, water bodies, labels.

• Apple Standard — native Apple BaseMap, with country-specific labels
• OpenStreetMap Standard — tile.openstreetmap.org tiles

Style switch: Settings → Map → Style.

Active combination

The Settings → Map → Active combination section shows the source currently in use (e.g. server.arcgisonline.com (Esri)) and the style.

Map controls

Mouse / trackpad

• Zoom — mouse wheel or two-finger scroll; pinch on a trackpad
• Pan — click & drag, or scroll while holding ⇧ or ⌘
• Rotate — two-finger rotate gesture on a trackpad

Full list: Keyboard shortcuts.

Layers

The left sidebar (for the selected project) shows the project’s layers. Each has a toggle:

• Flight route — the drone’s flight path
• Orthomosaic — the finished RGB image
• DSM — digital surface model, shown as a colour elevation heat-map with an elevation legend
• MS index / RGB index — vegetation index (NDVI, GNDVI, NDRE… in multispectral projects; VDVI, NGRDI, ExG, VARI in RGB-only projects)
• Boundaries — boundaries you drew / imported
• 3D map — opens the 3D viewer

The application map is not a layer: it is a panel opened with the Application button of the boundary toolbar.

There is no per-layer opacity slider. The vegetation index panel has its own transparency slider, so the index can show through the orthomosaic.

Layer order

Layers render top-down:

[top]     Boundaries
          MS index / RGB index
          DSM
          Orthomosaic
          Flight route
[bottom]  Basemap (Apple / OSM)

The order isn’t manually adjustable, but you can achieve what you need with the toggles.

Missing source file

If you move a project to another machine and the Layers/ folder is partially corrupted, a layer may appear as “Missing source file”. Rerun processing to fix.