City Strata
An interactive map and AR/web app that lets you peel back any city street and see what's underneath — water mains, sewers, subway tunnels, fiber, gas, foundations — in 3D, with plain-English explanations.
curious urban residents, students, tourists, and infrastructure enthusiasts who want to understand the hidden systems beneath their city
- Map view showing every utility layer under any city street in 3D
- Tap any pipe or conduit for a plain-English explanation of what it does and how old it likely is
- Cross-section view at any intersection that overlays every utility at once
- Walking audio tour mode for a chosen neighborhood
the Practical Engineering HN post hit 84 points with 10 comments — clear evidence of strong latent curiosity about urban infrastructure that no mainstream consumer app serves today
HN post with 84 points/10 comments shows moderate latent curiosity, but all listed visualization tools target enterprise users, signaling consumer demand remains unvalidated at scale.7 Best Underground Infrastructure Visualization Tools ↗
All 7 leading underground visualization tools (UtiliSource, SubSurface Viewer, ARUtility, ArcGIS, Atlas) target engineers/utility crews/municipalities; no mainstream consumer-facing app serves the curiosity/student/tourist niche.7 Best Underground Infrastructure Visualization Tools ↗
Existing tools monetize via enterprise seats for field crews; consumer willingness-to-pay for educational/curiosity content is unproven and likely capped at low single-digit dollars.ARUtility ↗Top 5 AR Apps for Navigating Cities and Tourist Attractions ↗
Underground infrastructure persists for decades and cities continuously evolve, supporting long-term relevance; however data freshness and city-by-city coverage create ongoing maintenance burden.
3D AR rendering is doable but the hard blocker is acquiring authoritative utility data (water/sewer/gas/fiber/foundations) — most is proprietary, restricted, or non-digitized, making per-city launch expensive.Subsurface 3D Utility Model - GIS Use Cases | Atlas ↗