About the Project #

BeaconGIS is a Geographic Information System built for Urban Explorers, by an Urban Explorer to cater to the unique needs of our underground communities worldwide. This platform overcomes the limitations often reached by explorers who utilize services such as Google MyMaps which often restrict the ability to work with large datasets.

BeaconGIS is built on robust, well established, and secure open-source technologies – including Ubuntu, Docker, GeoNode, GeoServer, PostGIS, QGIS, and many others. BeaconGIS will allow you to create, import, manage, and share maps that are both comprehensive and highly customizable. Whether your organizing and pinning abandoned structures or developing intricate maps of sewers and mines, BeaconGIS will be there to help you document your research like never before.

Key Features #

• Limitless mapping: There is no limits on layers or features, and we currently accept file sizes up to 100MB (soon to be expanded). Your only limitation is your hardware viewing the features.
• Absolute Control: BeaconGIS utilizes a customizable role-based permission system so you can decide who can view, edit, or share maps or even certain datasets. Permissions can also be given to a group, rather than individuals.
• Seamless Collaboration: BeaconGIS will allow for near real-time editing, allowing changes to be made more efficiently and with less conflicts
• Finally Go Off-Grid: We will support several different GIS phone apps in the near feature that will allow for offline caching. Some clients may support offline editing that will resync once you are back online.
• Universal File Import: KML, KMZ, CSV, Shapefiles, GeoJSON, and more. BeaconGIS can import more GIS files than Google MyMaps ever will support.
• Filter Like No Tomorrow: Imagine being able to filter out noise without having to sacrifice possibly useful data! Since BeaconGIS is a GIS application at its core, it allows for advanced filtering so you can find what you’re looking for.
• Universal Compatibility: Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android. Our website is also responsive and is one of few GIS services you can actually use on a phone.

Roadmap #

BeaconGIS is currently in heavy testing and development. We reached our Pre-Alpha on July 14th, 2025. As we continue with development, we hope to have community members testing our services soon.

In our early stages, expect outages, errors, data loss, and other various issues. This system is more technical than Google MyMaps and there will be a learning curve, but its our goal to train people who are new to GIS and shape you into a more advanced cartographer over time, enhancing your exploration and mapping skills.

Archival Project #

The BeaconGIS Archival Project is an ambitious initiative aimed at preserving vital GIS data related to Urban Exploring from public GIS REST servers. Stormwater, sewer, tunnel, mine, cave, and other maps were often published publicly in government GIS systems, but more recently, they are being privatized behind credentials.

This project will create a digital archive, capturing historical and current data relevant for exploring, organized and styled for ease of use, then make that information available to trusted members of that community. We hope this will foster a collaborative environment within communities around the world; allowing us all to learn and share with our respective communities. This archival effort will serve as a time capsule and living library, ensuring the data we archive remains relevant and usable for years to come.

This is currently being done free hand, using Google Dorking techniques to find and connect to various ArcGIS REST servers around the world. We take these datasets, filter the data if needed, then archive them onto BeaconGIS; making them available to their respective communities to trusted individuals.

If you’d like to join the archival effort, we will be sharing a way you can apply soon.