What it is
DaedalMap is designed for people who need answers about locations, regions, and events without having to assemble a GIS workflow first. Bring your own data to suit your specifc needs.
About
Built to make geographic data
more approachable.
DaedalMap is an open geographic query engine with a map-first interface. Ask a location-based question, get a usable answer, and keep the path from public demo to serious analyst work inside the same system.
Why it exists
Public geographic data is often technically available but operationally fragmented across portals, formats, geographies, and update cadences. DaedalMap is meant to make that terrain navigable again.
What stays open
The engine, schema model, and demo path stay open forever. You're encouraged to understand how the system works and make your own data compatible if you want to run it locally.
What the paid layer is
The commercial value is not ownership of public data. It is the maintained operating layer: source curation, converter maintenance, schema cleanup, metadata, QA, packaging, freshness, and support.
One interface across all your data
Disasters, demographics, economics, climate, and risk - all queryable in the same system. The same engine runs on the hosted app or on your own machine.
Ask a question, get a map. Inspect the source, explore the detail.
Who it is for
DaedalMap is for people who need geographic answers but do not want to live inside shapefiles, disconnected portals, manual joins, or a custom GIS stack just to answer one practical question.
Analysts and researchers
Use the system to move across disaster, demographic, economic, and risk questions without building a fresh workflow for every domain.
Hosted users
Get a working map product with maintained data instead of a directory of sources or a promise that the tooling exists somewhere in the repo.
Teams with private workflows
Start with the hosted surface, then move into local or self-hosted use when privacy, performance, or offline operation matters more than convenience.
Technical users
Keep the option to inspect the engine, understand the schema model, and bring your own data instead of getting trapped inside a sealed platform.
Who it is by
DaedalMap is built by Bryan Hellard. He has a background in Robotics and Systems Engineering, and has spent the past few years getting involved in disaster impacts and response. His goal is to make more data accessible for all, so people can make informed decisions for themselves.
Coverage
See current coverage
Browse the source map to understand which source families are already strong, where the maintained paths are deepest, and how coverage is packaged.
View source mapBuild
Bring your own data
The same system can support your own datasets, pack workflows, and self-hosted deployments if you want to move beyond the public app.
View self-host1. Ask in plain language
The interface is map-first and query-first. The point is to let you ask broad questions, and the chat will help you narrow in on what data is available.
2. Move across domains
The same system works across multiple kinds of geographic data instead of splitting each question into a separate source, portal, or workflow.
3. Use maintained packs
Maintained packs are the core of the operation: cleaned, normalized, versioned, QA-tested releases that are ready to run. Schemas are public so you can always make your own.
4. Keep one product family
The same engine supports public hosted use, broader account access, local analyst installs, and self-hosted deployments. The access model changes. The data does not.
One product path
DaedalMap is built around a simple premise: keep the engine open, the sample paths visible, and the schemas understandable. Open and accessible, always and forever. The paid value is the work required to turn messy source material into reliable, ready-to-use packs if you don't want to do it yourself.
The hosted app is the easiest entry point, but doesn't have optimized performance. A user opens the map, asks a geographic question, and the runtime uses the active catalog of standardized packs to answer it. If that demo piques your interest, you can expand later into broader access, maintained pack libraries, premium workflows, with local or private installs with much faster response times.
Open
What stays public
- Open runtime engine
- Open schema and data model
- Sample and demo path
- Bring-your-own-data compatibility
- Visibility under the hood
Maintained
What the paid layer covers
- Converter maintenance and normalization
- Pack QA, metadata, and packaging
- Freshness, update cadence, and support
- Hosted convenience and broader access paths
- Live data collectors
Hosted and local
The hosted app at app.daedalmap.com is the easiest way to see the system working. Local and self-hosted use is a different operating mode: 2x to 6x faster, offline-capable, with your own private data packs and no cloud dependency. Add an optional local AI model and remove the last cloud dependency entirely.
It is the right path for sensitive workflows, operational environments, and anyone who needs the data to stay on their machine and work without an internet connection. The same engine, the same frontend, the same query model - just running where you control it.
Local install
Get notified when the local app launches
The local version runs entirely on your machine with no hosted lag, no cloud dependency, and no per-query API cost. Install the packs you need, work offline, keep your data private, and get 2x to 6x the performance of the hosted app. Add an optional local AI model and remove the last cloud dependency entirely. Leave your email and we will let you know when it is ready.