Short, direct answers to the questions people ask before choosing an indoor navigation or wayfinding system — from how it works without beacons to what it costs.
Indoor navigation is turn-by-turn guidance inside buildings — hospitals, malls, airports, campuses and offices — where GPS does not work. It combines an indoor map of each floor, a way to know where the visitor is, and a router that plans the walk across corridors, lifts, escalators and stairs.
Without beacons, the visitor’s position comes from things they already have. With MakeMyAtlas they scan a printed “You are here” QR sign (or tap the map), and “Walk with me” mode follows them with the phone’s step counter and compass, snapped to the route. Re-scanning any sign corrects drift.
No. MakeMyAtlas maps run in any modern mobile or desktop browser. Visitors open a link or scan a QR code; nothing is installed. The same map can be embedded in your website or existing app.
With MakeMyAtlas you can build and publish one venue free. Paid plans start at $79 per venue per month (₹3,999 in India, AED 299 in the GCC), with optional managed mapping from $390 one-time. Because it needs no beacons or other hardware, there are no installation or battery costs.
Import what you already have into the free Venue Studio — a DXF/CAD drawing, IMDF, GeoJSON, SVG, or simply a PNG/JPG of the floor plan — set the scale, trace or confirm the rooms, add lifts and stairs, and press Publish. A typical floor takes 30–60 minutes the first time; or we build it for you.
A QR scan places the visitor exactly on the sign. While walking, step-and-compass tracking is snapped to corridors and the route; it can drift a few metres over long distances, which is why signs are placed at entrances, lifts and key junctions to re-anchor.
For hospitals, look for step-free (accessible) routing, routes across buildings and floors via lifts, department search with opening hours, links you can put in appointment letters, and no app to install for patients. MakeMyAtlas provides all of these in the browser, with QR signs at entrances and lift lobbies.
Yes. Turning on accessible routing in MakeMyAtlas avoids stairs and escalators and uses lifts and ramps instead. The route, distance and walking time update immediately.
MakeMyAtlas imports AutoCAD DXF (DWG via “Save As DXF”), Apple IMDF, GeoJSON, SVG (Illustrator, Figma, Inkscape), PNG/JPG/WebP floor-plan images, PDF exported as an image, and CSV/Excel directories with names, categories, hours and phone numbers.
IMDF (Indoor Mapping Data Format) is an open GeoJSON-based format, created by Apple and now an OGC community standard, that describes venues, levels, units, openings and amenities. MakeMyAtlas can import IMDF zips directly.
Each printed code encodes the map link plus the exact spot where the sign hangs. Scanning it with the phone camera opens the map with the visitor’s position and facing set, ready for directions — no app and no Bluetooth needed.
Yes. Every published MakeMyAtlas map can be embedded with an iframe, white-labelled, and linked to a specific place, floor or route (for example from the car park to a clinic, step-free).
Yes — up to about ten editors at once. Each publish is a new version; if two people publish at the same time their changes are merged place by place, and only a change to the same detail asks who should win. The last 20 versions can be restored.
Routing runs on the phone, and MakeMyAtlas keeps a copy of maps a visitor has opened, so returning visitors still get the map if the network drops.
There is no practical limit. The map is served from Cloudflare’s global edge cache and all routing runs on each visitor’s phone, so 10,000 people using the same map at the same time is normal.
Bluetooth beacons can show a live blue dot but must be bought, installed, powered and replaced, and usually need an app. QR signs cost nothing to run, work in any phone camera and give an exact starting point; combined with step-and-compass tracking they cover wayfinding for most public buildings.
With clean drawings, a first version of one floor is usually ready the same day in the Venue Studio, and a whole venue in days rather than months. There is no hardware to install.
The visitor map is available in English, Spanish and Hindi today, with more languages added on request.
Import a floor plan in the free Venue Studio and publish today — or send us your drawings and we’ll build it.