Appearance
ACROWRX - Formation Page Overview
⚠️ - SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED
The Formation module requires a special subscription. You can purchase it from your Personal page.
📢 - INFO
This page provides an overview of the Formation page and its main controls. The Formation page allows you to analyze formation flights with multiple airplanes simultaneously.
Page Layout
The Formation page is divided into four main panels arranged in a resizable layout:
- Map View (top-left) — A Cesium-based map showing the flight trajectories, playback controls, and the leader airplane selector.
- Strip Chart (bottom-left) — A time-history chart for comparing flight data across all airplanes in the formation.
- Chase View (top-right) — A 3D perspective view from any angle or from a specific airplane in the formation.
- Judge View (bottom-right) — A 3D view from the judge's perspective, or a synced video view when a video is loaded.
All panel boundaries are resizable — drag the handles between panels to adjust their size to your preference.
Four sidebars can be accessed from icons stacked on the left edge of the screen. Each sidebar slides open from the left and is associated with its own icon (from top to bottom):
File Sidebar — Flight upload, video upload, and observer height controls.
Obstacles Sidebar — Load and display obstacle overlays (towers, antennas, etc.) on the map.
KML Overlay Sidebar — Load and manage KML overlay files for displaying geographic references on the map.
Configuration Sidebar — Airplane configuration including model selection, alignment adjustments, and unit preferences.
Only one sidebar is visible at a time — opening one automatically closes any other. Clicking on the main background area also collapses the open sidebar.
Playback Controls
The playback controls are located at the bottom of the Map View panel. They provide standard media-style navigation:
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Skip -10 | Step back 10 seconds |
| Skip -5 | Step back 5 seconds |
| Skip -1 | Step back 1 second |
 /  Play / Pause | Toggle playback |
| Skip +1 | Step forward 1 second |
| Skip +5 | Step forward 5 seconds |
| Skip +10 | Step forward 10 seconds |
Timeline Slider & Crop Markers
Below the playback buttons, the Timeline Slider provides both playback scrubbing and trajectory cropping. It has three knobs:
- Left crop marker (rectangular) — Defines the start of the visible trajectory on the map.
- Center playback knob (round) — The current playback position, displaying the elapsed time. Drag it to scrub to any point in the flight.
- Right crop marker (rectangular) — Defines the end of the visible trajectory on the map.
By dragging the left and right crop markers, you can limit the visible trajectory to a specific segment of the flight. Only the portion of the trajectory between the two crop markers is displayed on the map when the trajectory toggle is enabled.
/ 
Lock / Unlock Button
To the left of the timeline slider, a Lock / Unlock button controls how the three knobs interact:
- Unlocked (default): The crop markers and the playback knob move independently. You can position the crop markers to define a region of interest, and scrub the playback position freely within or outside that region.
- Locked: All three knobs move together as a group, maintaining their relative spacing. Dragging any knob shifts all three by the same amount. This is useful when you want to slide a fixed-size window across the flight while keeping the crop region constant.
📌 - TIP
Use the crop markers to isolate a specific maneuver or segment of the formation flight. Combined with the trajectory toggle on the map, this lets you visualize just the portion of the flight you're analyzing.
When a video is loaded, an additional Video Offset Slider appears below the timeline to fine-tune the synchronization between data and video.
Keyboard Shortcuts
The Formation page supports several keyboard shortcuts for efficient operation:
Playback
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Play / Pause |
| Arrow Right | Advance one frame forward |
| Arrow Left | Go back one frame |
| Shift + Arrow Right | Fast-forward (5x speed) |
| Shift + Arrow Left | Fast-reverse (5x speed) |
Display Toggles
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| H | Toggle automatic judge head tracking |
| T | Toggle trajectory display |
| P | Toggle protractor overlay |
| F | Toggle flat / 3D trajectory |
| K | Toggle flight controls display |
| I | Toggle additional info display |
Indicators
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| 0–9 | Place a numbered indicator marker at the current position |
| C | Clear all indicator markers |
Video Synchronization
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| V | Set sync marker at current data position |
| Ctrl+V | Apply video offset — aligns the marked frame with the current position |
| , (comma) | Nudge video offset +0.05s |
| < (Shift+comma) | Nudge video offset +0.2s |
| . (period) | Nudge video offset -0.05s |
| > (Shift+period) | Nudge video offset -0.2s |
📌 - TIP
A keyboard shortcut reference image is available by hovering over the 
help button located in the top-left area of the screen.
What's Next?
For detailed information about each area of the Formation page, visit the following pages:
- Map View — Map controls, trajectory display, basemap selection, and overlays.
- Chase View — 3D perspective controls, terrain, and free-look mode.
- Judge View — Judge perspective, video integration, and HUD displays.
- Sidebars — Obstacles, file upload, KML overlays, and airplane configuration.
- Strip Chart — Time-history data visualization and airplane line selection.
- Leader & Chase Airplane Selection — How to select the leader and chase airplanes and what these selections control.