Mapping While School’s Out: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Our Summer Field Work

While students enjoy their summer break and the hallways fall silent, our data collection teams have been full steam ahead—navigating campuses, capturing detailed interior environments, and laying the groundwork for critical public safety enhancements through indoor mapping.

This summer, we’ve been traveling to K–12 schools throughout Illinois, using handheld LiDAR technology to collect highly accurate spatial data. These efforts are helping schools update their floor plans and provide first responders with precise, life-saving information in emergency situations.

This work is being funded through grants from the Illinois Statewide 9-1-1 Administrator, specifically under a program focused on Indoor Mapping for K–12 Schools. The goal of this initiative is to support the creation of standardized, GIS-based indoor map data layers that can be incorporated into 9-1-1 dispatch systems and other emergency response platforms. These layers include detailed floor plans of each building level, room names and numbers, doorway locations, and other crucial features to assist emergency personnel.

Our teams are capturing this data using advanced reality capture methods, which allow us to move efficiently through each school with minimal disruption. The resulting data is integrated into the Esri ArcGIS platform and will become part of the Illinois State Police NG911 GIS Hub, where it can be used in real-time response tools, CAD applications, and long-term planning systems.

We’ve gathered some of our favorite photos from the field to give you a glimpse of what this work looks like in action. From winding hallways to expansive gymnasiums, each school presents its own unique mapping challenge—and we’re proud to be supporting this important statewide effort.