Cartos · Inside the interface
Aging GIS makes you a cartographer before it lets you be an analyst — dozens of dialog boxes, projection errors, a license per seat, and a consultant on retainer. Cartos collapses all of it into one screen: satellite, 3D, live operations, and an AI analyst that does the work with you. No GIS experience required.
One screen
Live data, a layer catalog, the map, and the Cartos agent — side by side in the browser. The whole operating picture, from one URL, in your own deployment.
The delta
These aren't features bolted onto an old core. They're the reason Cartos exists — and the reason a thirty-year-old GIS stack can't follow.
City, port, and emergency operations are slices over one shared data fabric, agent, and shell. Turn a capability on per account — you don't rebuild, re-license, or re-train to add the next one.
Aging GIS: every new use case is a fresh project, a new server, another integrator.An AI analyst is wired in from the first click. Ask a question in plain language; it focuses the map, pulls the layers, and runs the workflow using the platform's own tools — and shows its work.
Aging GIS: a toolbox of 800 tools and a model-builder you have to learn first.Runs in-territory on infrastructure you control, fed by Space42's own satellites. The same substrate is growing into change detection, 3D reconstruction, and auditable reporting — your deployment gains them without a migration.
Aging GIS: perpetual upgrades, data lock-in, and a roadmap you don't own.01 · The front door
In every other GIS, the first thing you meet is a wall of tools you have to learn. In Cartos, the first thing you meet is a chat box.
Ask "what's happening near the light rail?" or "show me units by jurisdiction" and the Cartos agent drives the platform for you — focusing the map, switching on the right layers, and running the query, then explaining what it did. It's docked beside the map at all times, with suggested prompts so a brand-new user is productive on the first click. This is the agentic-first delta, made literal.
The skill you need isn't GIS. It's knowing what you want to ask.
02 · The decision surface
Operations aren't run from a basemap alone. Every module pairs the map with a live dashboard — units active, incidents open, response times, asset health — so the picture and the numbers never live in two different tools.
KPI rings, incident severity, response-time trends, and a live incident feed — a full operational read-out beside the map, not a separate BI tool to license and stitch in. It updates as the situation does.
The same data, one click away from a holographic theme built for a command-centre wall. Dark for the ops floor, luminous for the briefing — no rebuild, no second dashboard to maintain.
03 · Getting data in
The hardest part of legacy GIS is often just getting the data onto the map: formats, projections, server connections. Cartos turns that into a marketplace and a search box. Browse, search, or paste a URL — and it lands as a styled, persistable layer.
GeoWizard curates national and global catalogs — federal, international, and UAE-specific sources — each one ready to add as a layer. No hunting through portals, no format wrangling: the discovery step that used to take a day becomes a browse.
Type "traffic", "hospitals", "mangroves", "sentinel" and results come back from Esri's Living Atlas ready to drop on the map with one click. Open data discovery, collapsed into a single search field.
04 · Seeing the world
One surface renders every way you need to see the world: your own high-resolution imagery, photoreal 3D, continuous sensor surfaces, and styled vector networks — without ever exporting to a second application.
High-resolution satellite layers stream straight onto the surface — backed by Space42's own constellation. That owned data position is something competitors can't simply license into, and it's available to every module by default.
Tilt into a photoreal scene — terrain, buildings, infrastructure — in the same workspace. No separate 3D app, no export-and-import dance between tools.
Environmental and sensor surfaces render as smooth gradients — turning raw measurements into something a decision-maker reads in a second, not a spreadsheet.
Road and mobility networks render as living vector layers — corridors, flows, and assets you restyle on the fly to surface exactly the pattern you're chasing.
Zoom from a single incident out to coverage across territorial waters — assets, vessels, and context in one continuous picture, governed by the same team-level access rules throughout.
The contrast
The legacy desktop GIS model was built for a cartographer at a workstation. Cartos is built for an operator, an analyst, and an agent working the same picture together.
| Aging desktop GIS | Cartos | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Install, license, train for weeks | Open a URL — no experience required |
| Doing the analysis | Hunt through a toolbox of hundreds of tools | Ask the agent in plain language |
| Adding data | Wrangle formats, projections, connections | Browse or search a marketplace, click add |
| New use case | A new project, server, and integrator | Switch on a module on the same fabric |
| 2D, 3D & dashboards | Separate apps and add-on licenses | One workspace, all included |
| Where it runs | Vendor cloud or aging on-prem | Sovereign, in-territory, on infra you control |
| Where it's going | Upgrade treadmill, data lock-in | Compounds into change detection, 3D & auto-reporting |
If a new analyst can be useful on day one without a course, the tool finally fits the mission — not the other way around.
See it on your geography
Bring a real operational workflow and a sovereignty constraint; we'll stand it up on the platform — your data, your territory, your imagery — under NDA.