The blue dot is only as good as two things: how precisely you calibrated each level, and how good a fix the visitor's device can get where they're standing. You control the first completely and can help with the second. Here's how to get the most out of both.
Where GPS works well — and where it doesn't
Mapvera asks the device for a high-accuracy fix, but the device still depends on its surroundings. GPS is strongest outdoors and in large, open spaces with a clear view of the sky; it weakens indoors, under heavy roofing and among tall structures.
| Setting | Typical accuracy |
|---|---|
| Open outdoor areas — car parks, campuses, showgrounds | Best — a few metres |
| Large open interiors — atriums, warehouses, halls | Usually good |
| Deep indoors — small rooms, basements, dense multi-storey | Poor — the dot may drift or jump |
Calibrate as precisely as you can
The single biggest factor you control is calibration quality. A dot can only be as accurate as the corners you captured.
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Zoom in before you capture
In the positioning tool, zoom the street map right in on the building before lining up the overlay. Small misalignments at low zoom become metres of error on the ground.
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Use Distort to match the real walls
A building rarely sits perfectly square to north. Switch to Distort and drag each corner onto its true real-world corner, rather than settling for a plain rectangle.
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Check with Opacity
Fade the overlay down and confirm the walls line up with the map underneath before capturing. Capture stores each corner to about centimetre precision — so it's worth getting the fit right.
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Calibrate every level
Set all four corners on each level. This keeps the dot accurate floor to floor and also sharpens wayfinding distances.
The dot's size never lies
Zooming the map never changes the dot's size — it stays a consistent marker so visitors don't misread a big dot as a precise pinpoint. Accuracy comes from calibration and the device fix, not from how far in the map is zoomed.
Help visitors who can't be located
Some visitors will have location switched off, or will be somewhere with no fix. Two optional prompts on the GPS tab guide them without cluttering the map. Each shows at most once per browsing session.
| Prompt | When it helps |
|---|---|
| Warn when device location is off | The visitor's browser or device is blocking location — the message points them to their device settings. |
| Warn when outside the map area | The visitor's fix is outside every calibrated level — the message explains the dot can't be shown here. |