NSS Convention 2026

0Bar Maps: Interactive Maps for Your Cave Phone
, 205

An 0Bar map — spelled with a zero — is a fully interactive, deeply zoomable cave map that lives in a single HTML file and runs in any cave phone browser with no app, no account, and no signal required.

0Bar maps are created with Breakout, a new web-based authoring tool. The workflow starts in Illustrator: first you draw the map, design the buttons, and lay out the switchable views; next you run a script to produce a structured SVG; finally you open it in Breakout to assign behaviors to your layers and export a finished file you can share or carry underground.

Custom pan and zoom controls bypass the browser limits to let you zoom in as much as you want. Custom layer controls let a viewer switch cave levels, hide or show survey data, flip between map sheets, or jump to named locations — all designed to be as simple or intricate as you choose. All visual content is authored in Illustrator; Breakout controls only how it behaves. The behavior settings stored in every map can be used as a template to quickly update any changes you make in Illustrator or to start a new map.


Dwight Livingston