Cameras and Views (Hawkeye)

Hawkeye offers three camera modes, two orthographic rendering options, a theme system for visual customization, and nine vehicle models. For the 3D world-space indicators (trails, ground track, correlation overlays), see In-World Indicators.

Camera Modes

Press C to cycle between the three camera modes: Chase → FPV → Free → Chase.

Chase (default)

Third-person orbit camera that follows the selected vehicle from a fixed distance. Left-drag to rotate around the vehicle. Scroll wheel adjusts field of view.

Chase is the best mode for most flight review. It keeps the vehicle centered while letting you see the surrounding environment.

FPV

First-person view from the nose of the vehicle. The camera rotates with the vehicle's attitude: pitch up and the horizon tilts, roll and the world tilts with you.

Use FPV for understanding what the pilot (or autopilot) was seeing at any moment.

Free

Untethered camera that ignores vehicle motion. Fly the camera manually:

Input	Action
W / S	Forward / backward
A / D	Strafe left / right
Q / E	Descend / ascend
Mouse	Look around
Shift (held)	3× boost on all motion

Use Free mode to set up shots, inspect specific parts of the scene, or capture screenshots from arbitrary angles. Press C to return to Chase when you're done.

Orthographic Views

Hawkeye supports orthographic projection (no perspective distortion) in two flavors: a compact sidebar panel with three views at once, and a fullscreen ortho camera for the main viewport.

Sidebar ortho panel

Press O to toggle a right-side panel with three synchronized orthographic views:

• Top, plan view, looking down
• Front, looking north along the vehicle's path
• Right, looking east from the vehicle's right side

Each panel has a scale bar, coordinate axis gizmo, and 2D trail rendering. The panels follow the selected vehicle automatically.

Fullscreen ortho

Switch the main viewport to a fullscreen orthographic camera with Alt+2 through Alt+7:

Key	View
Alt+1	Return to perspective camera
Alt+2	Top
Alt+3	Front
Alt+4	Left
Alt+5	Right
Alt+6	Bottom
Alt+7	Back

In ortho mode:

• Alt+Scroll adjusts the visible world distance (span)
• Right-drag pans the view
• Side views (Front / Back / Left / Right) include a distance grid with adaptive spacing
• Top / Bottom views show a plan-view grid

Themes

Hawkeye's visual appearance is driven by a theme system. Three themes ship built-in, and you can load custom .mvt theme files at runtime.

Press V to cycle themes: Grid → Rez → Snow → Grid.

Built-in themes

• Grid (default) is a debug-style grid with colored axes on a blue-tinted background. Best general-purpose theme.
• Rez is a teal grid on a black ground with a dark sky. High-contrast cyberpunk aesthetic, good for screen recording.
• Snow is a high-contrast outdoor mode with a bright white ground, dark grid lines, and black-outlined HUD text for visibility on low-nit displays in direct sunlight.

Custom themes

Drag and drop any .mvt file onto the Hawkeye window to load it. The file is automatically copied to the themes/ directory and added to the V-key cycle rotation.

TIP

The web-based theme builder at hawkeye.px4.io/theme-builder lets you edit every theme slot visually and export a ready-to-drop .mvt file. (If the theme builder is not yet publicly hosted, this URL will be updated once it is.)

Classic vs modern arm colors

Press K to toggle between classic (red port / blue starboard) and modern (yellow fore / purple aft) arm color presets. The toggle applies to all vehicle models that support role-based material assignment.

Vehicle Models

Hawkeye ships nine 3D vehicle models:

Model	Group	Typical use
Quadrotor	Quad	Default multicopter
FPV Quad	Quad	Racing / freestyle quadrotor
Hexarotor	Hex	Six-rotor payload platform
FPV Hex	Hex	Racing hexarotor
Fixed-wing	Fixed-wing	Conventional airplane
Tailsitter	Tailsitter	VTOL tailsitter
VTOL	VTOL	Tilt-rotor VTOL
Rover	Rover	Ground vehicle
ROV	ROV	Underwater vehicle

Automatic selection

In live MAVLink mode, Hawkeye reads the HEARTBEAT message's MAV_TYPE field and selects the appropriate model automatically. In ULog replay mode, the same information comes from the vehicle_status topic.

The -mc, -fw, and -ts command-line flags set a fallback group when no type information is available yet. See Command-Line Reference.

Manual cycling

• M cycles through models within the current group (e.g., Quadrotor → FPV Quad → Quadrotor)
• Shift+M cycles across all groups, letting you visit every model regardless of the current vehicle type

Theme-driven colors

Vehicle models use a role-based material system: arms tagged as Port, Starboard, Fore, and Aft pull their colors from the active theme. Switching themes instantly updates arm colors across all visible drones without reloading models.

Body, propeller, and motor colors also come from the theme, though these are more subtle and theme-to-theme differences are smaller.

Edge Indicators

In multi-drone scenes, drones can drift off-screen when you zoom in on one or more vehicles. Press Ctrl+L to toggle screen edge indicators: colored chevrons pointing toward off-screen drones, labeled with each drone's number.

Edge indicators are screen-space (not world-space). They render on the HUD layer like a compass pointer, not inside the 3D scene. For world-space visualizations like trails and correlation overlays, see In-World Indicators.

Indicators:

• Point from the screen edge toward the off-screen drone's actual world position
• Use the drone's fleet color for easy identification
• Show the drone's number inside the chevron
• Fade and resize based on distance off-screen

Use this with 4+ drone swarms when you're zoomed on one pinned drone but want to keep track of where the others are.

Mouse Controls Summary

Input	Action
Left-drag	Orbit camera (Chase) / look around (Free)
Scroll wheel	Zoom FOV (perspective) or span (ortho)
Right-drag	Pan view (ortho modes only)
Alt+Scroll	Zoom ortho span (faster than scroll alone)