3PL
Third-party logistics
Customer-specific aisles, mixed SKU storage, daily inventory swaps. The digital twin updates as fast as the floor changes.
Indoor navigation · Mapping · Digital twin
Map any warehouse with a phone. No beacons. No lidar.
Print paper markers. Walk the floor once. Get camera-guided indoor navigation, item-level tracking, and a live digital twin — everything on an iPhone your crew already carries.
- Setup cost
- $0
- Accuracy
- ~30 cm
- Hardware
- iPhone
9:41 TraceCapture 100%
AR navigation
Bay B-14
12.4 m · turn right
Target
Pallet WH-008421 · Customer order #4471
Placeholder screen — replace with real capture
The problem
Indoor positioning has always been a $50K problem.
Bluetooth beacons. UWB anchors. RTLS gateways. Lidar surveys. Integrator fees. Cabling. Quarterly recalibration. The bill of materials for a working indoor navigation system runs five to six figures — before anyone walks the floor.
So most warehouses give up and live with the paper map taped to the office wall. Pickers learn the aisles by muscle memory. New hires spend weeks getting oriented. Auditors guess.
TraceCapture takes a different bet: print fifty paper markers, walk the floor once, ship.
How it works
One phone, one roll of stickers, one walkthrough.
- 01
Print paper markers
ArUco markers print on any office laser printer. Stick them to walls, racking, and ceiling beams at known waypoints. No power, no batteries, no network.
- 02
Walk the floor once
Open the app and walk the building with the camera pointed at the markers. The phone solves geometry as it goes and stitches a 3D map of the space.
- 03
Tag every item
QR, barcode, or NFC — whichever sticker survives your environment. Photo capture auto-classifies the item with on-device ML. Voice notes in any language.
- 04
Navigate by camera
Any phone in the building points to any item, any shelf, any bay. The camera is the compass. Works fully offline; syncs when reconnected.
What's inside
Built for the floor, not the office.
AR navigation
On-screen arrows guide pickers through unfamiliar aisles to any bay, pallet, or item. ~30 cm accuracy. No IMU drift between markers.
Digital twin
Every walkthrough updates a 3D model of the warehouse — exportable as JSON today, glTF on the roadmap. Plug it into your WMS, BIM viewer, or planner.
Item tracking
QR / barcode / NFC tags on items and containers. Append-only audit log captures every scan, photo, GPS, and signature.
Photo + ML capture
On-device Vision tags items, reads OCR labels, extracts dominant color. Search by photo content, not just barcode.
Offline-first
Full operation with no signal — basements, freezers, remote yards. Syncs automatically when reconnected.
Order workflows
Receiving, dispatch, move, inventory, pack-out, claim. Each ends with a digital signature. PDF and XLSX export.
Multi-modal markers
ArUco for navigation, QR for items, NFC for high-touch surfaces, barcode for vendor SKUs. The phone reads whatever survived.
iPhone-only stack
No tablets, no kiosks, no laptops. iOS 16+. One static API key gets a franchise live in an afternoon.
vs. Traditional RTLS
What you'd pay $50K for. For free.
| You need | Beacons / UWB / RTLS | TraceCapture |
|---|---|---|
| Setup cost | $20K–$100K hardware + integrator | $0 — print markers on any printer |
| Hardware on site | Beacons, anchors, gateways, servers | Paper markers + the phones you have |
| Power | Batteries to swap or AC to run | Nothing to power |
| Map updates | Surveyor revisit | Walk the changed area again |
| Item tracking | Separate WMS | Same app, same audit log |
| Calibration | Integrator visit | One person, one hour |
| Offline use | Depends on infra | Fully offline; syncs on reconnect |
| Failure mode | One dead beacon kills a zone | Lost marker? Print a new one |
Use cases
Anywhere people move things through a building.
E-COM
E-commerce fulfillment
Pickers reach the shelf without learning the layout. New hires productive on day one.
MFG
Manufacturing & WIP
Track work-in-progress through stations. Each station scan extends the chain; no paper traveler.
STG
Self-storage & climate
Audit every unit, prove condition on hand-off, find anything in a 100,000 sq ft yard.
RST
Restoration & packouts
Insurance-ready chain of custody for fire/flood crews. Every item, every move, photographed and signed.
RTL
Retail back-of-house
Stockroom maps that survive a seasonal reset. Find the one box you need without unloading three.
FAQ
Questions we keep getting.
- Around 30 cm under normal lighting with markers visible within a few meters. Accuracy degrades gracefully as the camera loses sight of markers — print more, place closer, get more precision.
- Print a new one and stick it back up. The map self-heals as soon as the new marker is sighted. No surveyor needed.
- If the camera can see the marker, yes. iPhone's low-light handling is adequate for typical warehouse lighting. Headlamps cover the rest.
- Fully offline. Capture, navigation, search, signature — all work with no signal. Data syncs automatically when the phone is back online.
- iOS 16 and up. No LiDAR required; A14 (iPhone 12) and newer handle the geometry comfortably. Older devices work for tagging and audit, just not AR.
- We use ARKit underneath, plus ArUco marker geometry for absolute positioning. RoomPlan gives you the floorplan; ArUco gives you the coordinate system. Both run on-device.
- Your choice. Offline-only (free, on-device SwiftData), or hosted backend (FastAPI + PostgreSQL on AWS, or self-hosted). The protocol is the same.
- Today — JSON of nodes, markers, and item metadata. On the roadmap — glTF mesh and IFC export for BIM tooling.
How accurate is the indoor positioning? +
What if a marker gets dirty or torn? +
Does it work in the dark? +
What about network coverage? +
What iPhones are supported? +
How does this compare to Apple's RoomPlan or ARKit? +
Where is data stored? +
Can we export the digital twin? +
Get in touch
Pilot one warehouse. See it map itself.
Tell us about your operation. We'll send back markers, a TestFlight link, and a 30-minute onboarding call. Free pilot — no credit card, no commitment.
- › One franchise / one site, up to 5 phones
- › Full feature access for 30 days
- › We help you calibrate the first walkthrough