Fig. 1: Public Service Announcement detailing the ÆGIS Project, first released at an urban exploration meetup.

ÆGIS INFORMATICS PROJECT

ÆGIS is engineered as an alternative to Google My Maps as a maps system for exploring and quick field recording. In the past, the Bureau has maintained its locations database on Google Maps, but has encountered issues such as:

• Limit of 10,000 points and 10 categories
• Poor functionality offline
• Clunky interface for changing categories, adding pins, etc.
• Cannot add points on a phone
• Frequent crashes

The Bureau of Exploration and its sister research agency, Burden-Cooper Research and Expeditions, are working together to create a new navigation maps system. This system currently allows for:

• Greater than 2 million points
• Full offline functionality
• Rapidly adding points in the field on one’s phone
• Google Maps-style photos and descriptions of points
• Comments, proximity alerts, saved documents, and various other features

We anticipate a release of the full version sometime in 2024, with functionality on phones, tablets, and PC/mac desktop. Presently the beta version of the app is available for iOS devices on the Apple App Store with the title “ÆGIS Personal”. 

If you have any feature requests, feedback, or would like to become a beta tester for ÆGIS, please send us a message.

Fig. 2: Emblem of the ÆGIS Project.