A New Server, New Maps, Our Own Satellite and Live Photos on the Live Map

A New Home: SkyTrackPro Runs on New Hardware, With a New Map Stack, Our Own Satellite Imagery, Rebuilt Offline Packs and Photos and Videos on the Live Map

This release is different from the usual feature list: most of it happened under your feet. SkyTrackPro has moved to a new server, and with the move comes a new generation of maps, satellite imagery we serve ourselves, offline packs rebuilt at full detail, and the website side of the live media sharing you already read about in the 1.8.3 app release: photos and short videos on the live map, with proper moderation. Here is what changed and the little you need to do about it.

One Server, Everything Local

Until now the platform was spread across machines: the website on one server, live tracking, scoring, elevation and the map tiles on another, with parts of the map data fetched from remote object storage behind that. Every map tile and every live tracking lookup crossed at least one network on its way to you. All of it now runs on one machine on fast local NVMe storage: the website, the live tracking services, the scoring engine, the elevation data and every tile server. A tile request that used to travel through three systems is now answered next door. The move itself was one short cutover, all URLs stayed the same, and links to the old skytrackpro.ch domain keep working and land on the same page here.

With this improvement we now host as well the satellite images ourselve and the storage space has grown to over 3TB.

A New Generation of Maps

The vector basemap and the elevation model were replaced wholesale.

• New basemap data: the world map now comes from the open VersaTiles Shortbread schema, with our four faces (Topo, Terrain, Dark and Satellite) rebuilt on top of it. Place names show the local name first with the country name in English behind it.
• A dedicated outdoor layer: peaks, passes, mountain huts, viewpoints and springs are served from our own additional source, because a pilot's map without summits is not a map.
• Sharper terrain: the elevation model moved to 512 pixel tiles, which feeds the hillshade, the 3D views, the terrain profiles and the AGL readouts everywhere on the site.
• Airspaces, contours, thermals and obstacles carry over unchanged, including the seasonal thermal layers.

Our Own Satellite Imagery

The satellite basemap no longer comes from a third party provider. We serve our own imagery now, up to street level, with our own labels drawn over it in the same fonts as every other face. One more piece of the platform that depends on nobody else, and one less external service between you and your map.

What You Need to Do

• Update the app. The app carries its own map styles, and the old ones do not know the new map data: an outdated build shows tracks, airspaces and terrain but loses roads, water and place names. The upcoming update from the App Store or Play Store brings the new maps; the app will also tell you itself when a version is too old for the server.
• The browser sorts itself out. Map tiles are cached aggressively, so the site tells your browser once to drop its old map cache on your first visit after the move. If you use Safari and the map looks patchy in places you have looked at before, a forced reload clears it; it also heals on its own over time.

Offline Packs, Rebuilt at Full Detail

Offline map regions are cut fresh on the new server, and the zoom level choice is gone: every pack is now cut at full detail, always. The updated app replaces its old packs on first start; simply download your regions again and they come back in the new format, thermal layers included. The pack infrastructure is shared with our sibling platform TerraLoc, which means one well-tested worker instead of two half-tested ones.

Live Photos and Videos on the Live Map

Pilots who turn on Share photos live in the app now show up on the live map with more than a wing symbol. Each photo taken while live tracking runs appears as a thumbnail ringed in the pilot's wing color, right where it was taken, and short clips of up to 15 seconds appear as a still with a play mark. Open one and a card shows it above the map with the pilot's track drawn, previous and next in the order taken, and a full screen view. The media is temporary by design: it disappears with the session from the live map, after a day at the latest.

Privacy came first: every photo is re-encoded on the server so no camera metadata ever reaches a public URL, and any position a camera writes into a video is blanked. And because the live map is public, it moderates itself: a signed in member can report an item once, three reports hide it for everyone until a moderator restores or removes it, moderators see hidden items faded, and a pilot can always remove their own. A removed item is gone from every open map within about a second. The manual covers all of it in all seven languages.

Under the Hood

The move also cleaned up one year of grown wiring: the live services and the website now talk over localhost instead of a private network, the analyzer reads its elevation data through the same configuration as everything else, and map fonts and sprites are shared, versioned assets. Boring on purpose, and exactly what the next years of features will stand on.

So: update the app (announcement will follow), re-download your offline regions, and go fly somewhere with a view. The live map is waiting for your photos. As always, tell us in the forum what you think and what you want next.

See you in the air.