Tiles and styles

The tile server (https://maps.updraftmaps.com) serves MapLibre styles, vector tiles (MVT), fonts (glyphs), icons and raster PNG tiles.

Styles

Style	Address
Pilot eye, light	`https://maps.updraftmaps.com/styles/pilot-light.json`
Pilot eye, dark	`https://maps.updraftmaps.com/styles/pilot-dark.json`

Pilot eye: contours and ridges stand out, power lines and cable cars are emphasised, open fields (landing candidates) are set apart from forest and scrub, cities are plain; Updraft's approved take-offs, landings and hazards are on top. You may change the style (colours, layers, labels); the attribution line stays and a changed map must not look endorsed by Updraft (Attribution).

3D terrain is off in the style; to turn it on: map.setTerrain({ source: 'terrain', exaggeration: 1.3 }).

Sources

Each source's TileJSON is at https://maps.updraftmaps.com/{source}; tiles at /{source}/{z}/{x}/{y}.

Source	Type	Zoom	Content
`base`	vector (OpenMapTiles 3.16 schema)	0–14	Land cover, water, roads, cable cars, boundaries, labels
`contours`	vector, layer `contour` (`ele`, `idx`)	9–14	Contour lines (z≤10 100 m, z11–12 50 m, z13 20 m, z14 10 m)
`hillshade`	raster 512 px	5–12	Hillshade
`terrain`	raster-dem 512 px, `terrarium`	5–11	3D terrain
`power`	vector, layer `power` (`class`, `voltage`, `cables`, `name`)	9–14	Power lines and towers (OSM)
`sites`	vector	6–14	Approved take-off and landing sites
`hazards`	vector	9–14	Hazards (power line, cable …)
`skyways`	vector	7–14	Skyway lines
`thermals`	vector, layer `thermals`	8–14	Thermal grid (below)
`regions`	vector	4–12	Flying regions

The information layers (sites, hazards, skyways, thermals, regions) carry no exact pilot counts: they give confidence_tier (low, medium, high) and min_pilots (steps 3, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100) (Privacy).

Thermal grid

thermals is a function source: the breakdown is chosen with the query string of the TileJSON address, and the tile addresses carry it.

https://maps.updraftmaps.com/thermals                               all months, all day, all directions
https://maps.updraftmaps.com/thermals?month=7                       July
https://maps.updraftmaps.com/thermals?month=7&hour_bucket=6         July, 12:00–14:00
https://maps.updraftmaps.com/thermals?hour_bucket=7&wind_sector=6   14:00–16:00, wind from the west

Parameter	Values	Default ("all")	Meaning
`month`	1–12	0	Local month (`Europe/Istanbul`)
`hour_bucket`	0–11	12	Local two-hour slot: 0 = 00–02, 6 = 12–14, 11 = 22–24
`wind_sector`	0–7	8	45° sector the 850 hPa wind blows from: 0 north, 1 north-east, 2 east … 7 north-west

An invalid value returns an empty tile. H3 hexagons of ~5 km² at z8–10 and ~0.1 km² at z11–14; there are no tiles below z8, above z14 the client overzooms.

Field	Meaning
`h3`	H3 index of the cell
`avg_climb_ms`	Mean climb, m/s (rounded to 0.1)
`confidence_tier`	`low`, `medium`, `high`
`min_pilots`	"At least N distinct pilots" (3, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100)

A cell is served only when enough distinct pilots (5 by default) found thermals in it. The wind sector comes from the model wind at the flight's take-off cell; flights without a model wind are only in the "all directions" breakdown.

Raster tiles

PNG tiles drawn from the same style, for clients that cannot draw vectors:

	Address
256 px	`https://maps.updraftmaps.com/raster/pilot-light/{z}/{x}/{y}.png`
512 px (same area, high-density screens)	`https://maps.updraftmaps.com/raster/pilot-light/{z}/{x}/{y}@2x.png`
TileJSON	`https://maps.updraftmaps.com/raster/pilot-light.json`

Zoom 5–16 (404 outside); dark theme pilot-dark. Raster tiles hold the base map only (land cover, water, roads, cable cars, contours, hillshade, power lines, labels); thermals, skyways, take-offs and landings are not in them. Example: flutter_map.

Caching

Response	`Cache-Control`
Base, contours, hillshade, terrain, power (stable names)	`public, max-age=3600`
Information layers and thermals	`public, max-age=60`
Raster PNG	`public, max-age=3600, stale-while-revalidate=86400, stale-if-error=604800`, `Last-Modified` + 304

The base map is rebuilt monthly, power lines weekly, the thermal grid nightly. For offline use in a mobile app extend the cache freshness on the client or use region packs (PMTiles per region; base map, contours and terrain only).

Keyed and public access

Path	Checks	Counted for you
Without a key	Coarse limit per client address; a plain 429 without a body when exceeded	No
With a key (`X-Api-Key` header or `?key=`)	`tiles` scope, per-key rate limits; 401/403/429 with the API body	Yes

For browser requests the tile server only admits registered origins (CORS); tell us your site's origin when you ask for a key. Use the keyed path in your application: the limits are set per key, we can see your usage and reach you if something goes wrong.