Active R&D — Open Hardware & Software

See what the
earth hides

An open-source geophysical survey platform — hardware, software, and simulation — built to make multi-sensor subsurface imaging accessible to researchers, archaeologists, and recovery teams.

Why This Exists

Building tools I wish existed

Professional geophysics equipment costs tens of thousands of dollars. That price locks out university field schools, small archaeology firms, and humanitarian recovery teams — the people who often need subsurface imaging the most but can least afford it.

I started TERRASCRY because I kept running into the same gap: the science is well-understood, the sensors are commodity parts, but nobody has put them together into an open, affordable platform. Whether it's a research excavation, an environmental site assessment, or a DPAA mission to bring the fallen home, the underlying physics is the same.

So that's what this is — open-source hardware anyone can build, open-source software anyone can extend, and a rigorous physics simulation engine to validate everything against theory. No black boxes, no vendor lock-in. Just instruments and code you can inspect, modify, and trust.

The Instruments

Three instruments, one platform

Each instrument is open-source hardware (CERN-OHL-S v2.0) designed to be built, modified, and improved by the community.

Pathfinder

Prototype

Surface Reconnaissance

Handheld multi-sensor fluxgate gradiometer for rapid magnetic survey at 10 Hz. ESP32-based, GPS-synchronized, with real-time anomaly detection. Built with PlatformIO and off-the-shelf sensor modules.

Fluxgate Gradiometer EMI Conductivity RTK GPS IMU Tilt Correction

HIRT

Design Phase

Subsurface Tomography

Crosshole dual-channel system for 3D subsurface imaging. Combines magnetic induction tomography (MIT-3D) and electrical resistivity (ERT-Lite) in a single deployment. Shares Pathfinder's sensor pod for seamless data fusion.

MIT-3D ERT-Lite Crosshole Arrays Joint Inversion

GeoSim

Active Development

Physics Simulation

Python physics engine for magnetic dipole forward modeling, gradiometer simulation, and multi-physics joint inversion via SimPEG. Validates field data against theory before you dig.

Dipole Magnetics Gradiometer Sim Scenario Modeling SimPEG Integration

Field Workflow

From surface to subsurface model

01

Reconnaissance

Deploy Pathfinder for rapid surface survey. Multi-sensor data streams in real-time via MQTT to the edge compute node.

02

Target Refinement

Target

Anomalies flagged in the field guide HIRT crosshole deployments. Surface gradient maps constrain the 3D inversion mesh.

03

Simulation & Validation

Target

GeoSim forward models validate field observations against physics. Joint inversion fuses magnetics, EMI, MIT, and ERT into a unified subsurface model.

Applications

Who this is for

TERRASCRY is being designed for teams who work in the ground — archaeologists, geophysicists, environmental engineers, and recovery specialists.

Archaeology & Cultural Heritage

Non-destructive subsurface mapping for research excavations, cultural resource management, and site preservation. Identify buried structures and features before breaking ground.

Environmental & UXO Survey

Detect and characterize buried ordnance, contamination plumes, and subsurface hazards. Multi-sensor fusion aims to reduce false positives in complex sites.

Recovery & Forensic Archaeology

Subsurface survey support for humanitarian recovery missions and forensic archaeology. Designed with the workflows and constraints of DPAA missing personnel recovery in mind.

Academic & Research

Open simulation engine and survey tools for university geophysics programs and field research. Reproduce results, extend the physics, publish with confidence.

Software

Platform architecture

The cloud platform is in active development. These interfaces are functional but evolving.

Survey App

In Development

Real-time survey visualization with 2D heatmaps, 3D terrain, and basemap draping. The primary field operator interface.

app.terrascry.com

Admin Portal

Internal

Organization and project management. Not yet open for external access.

portal.terrascry.com

Viewer

Public Preview

Embeddable viewer for sharing survey data. No authentication required.

viewer.terrascry.com

REST API

Experimental

Datasets, scenarios, and survey data. API surface is unstable and subject to change.

api.terrascry.com

Get Involved

Follow along or collaborate

TERRASCRY is open source and in active development. Hardware designs are published under CERN-OHL-S v2.0, software under MIT. If you're working in geophysics, archaeology, or recovery operations and want to collaborate, I'd like to hear from you.

Some novel sensor implementations and signal processing methods may be subject to future patent filings.