It was Friday around 4am at Burning Man, I'd been out to the billion bunny march the day before still wearing a full fur bunny outfit and some 12 hours later I'd just finished off the last of my water after dancing my butt off at Sonic Sound Tribe. I was walking past the crowd and into the sea of bikes and realized that I'd forgotten the visual markers of where I had left my bike. Where's my Bike?

I knew I had it lit up with red LEDs, it should be easy to find, but wasn't. It was a solid hour of work to hunt it down, someone had knocked it over, it was under another bike and the battery pack had been disconnected when it fell over.

As I began the trek to get water the sun was peeking over the horizon, the wind had picked up and a white out had begin. I resigned to calling it a night, cursing I hadn't found my bike sooner.

Fast forward to today, I've decided that I don't want this to happen to you, because I know it will! So, in dust, there is a now a new feature to help you find your bike, camp, the cool art piece you want to show your friend, or any other thing you want to drop a pin on the map to find.

On the home page, there is a new section "Find My". You can press one of the items to show it on the map, or if you haven't set its location it will get a GPS location and save it for you.

The map will show where you are, which way you are facing, and will tell you how far away you need to walk and whether your bike/pin is to your left, right, ahead of you or behind you.

Once you've found your bike don't forget to clear the location (click Clear or Delete in the top right corner).

The GPS on your phone will usually be accurate to 10-20ft which should be enough to help narrow down your search area.

The real trick is to remember to place the pin where you left your bike is in the first place. Hopefully, if you're reading this you'll remember my story when you decide to park your bike outside the big sound camps.

The map in dust is one of the most important features in dust but until now we've been using a simple 3rd party control (called ngx-pinch-zoom) which kinda worked but also wasn't great.

So, over the last month I've built my own map control using WebGL and Three JS resulting a much better map experience:

• The map is 3D rather than 2D!
• You can zoom in much further into the map without losing resolution
• Pins and points are now much more precisely placed
• Pins are now color coded better (green for restrooms, blue for art, purple for medical)
• Maps for camps etc will center on the Pin to make it easier to find

With the basics of the new map in place, it provides some opportunities for some new features in the future. Please take a look and let me know whether you ruin into any issues or have any suggestions.

June has been a busy month for features and fixes in dust and I figured you might like to know what is new.

All Day & Long Events​

We added a new feature to support all days events. On the event edit page is a checkbox for "All Day".

As well as that, the limit for events has been set to 12 hours. A typical problem with long events is that they dominate the event listing, so to prevent this any events longer than 6 hours are listed last. If the event is happening now, it will appear in the "Now" tab of events, however this should prioritize shorter events and make the event listing page more useful.

Open Camping / Other Locations​

We've added support to allow you to enter freeform text for the location of an event when its not at a theme camp or art piece. Just select "Open Camping / Other" from the dropdown when entering an event.

Event Submissions​

Dust now shows a url you can add to your website to allow people to submit their events. Go to Settings > Allow Event & Music Editing and underneath you can copy the URL. When events are submitted from here they are usually for unplaced placed so the location can be typed in. For theme camps and art owners it is best if they login to dust and add their events to their camp / art.

Location / GPS Fixes​

In dust we now support burns that do not release any GPS information. If the event has no GPS data it will not requires access to your location when accessing the map. Additionally, if the burn does use GPS, the prompt to use your location will dismiss for a full day so that it is not annoying to dismiss.

Offline Support​

Dust works offline when you turn on airplane mode however there were situations where you would have cell service but there was 100% packet loss (ie shitty cell service). This happened to cause a really long timeout on the home page and most users rightfully thought that dust was broken. Well, we fixed that problem and dust now always shows the previously remembered list of burns, and will update them in the background if it can. Sorry for the frustration that this caused.

Additionally, in the More button on the home page you now have an option to download an update when a burn has already started. This was added because after a burn starts quite often you are in a situation where the cell service is bad and you don't want to have to wait for an update to download when it may take a very long time.

Directions​

For burns where the Google Maps directions are poor, you can now have text based directions (found in Settings). This is also super useful when you don't want the public to know the exact location of the event.

Favorite Events on the Home Page​

The dust app now shows a list of favorite events if they are happening today. This provides at a quick glance what is happening today without scrolling through the favorites tab.

Map Improvements​

People like the map in dust, so we added a search feature to help find camps, art etc on the map. We also added labels to pins to make it easier to find a camp: if a camp is named "Foo Bar" then the pin will show "FB".

Favorite Events​

You can now favorite events from the event listing page by clicking the star icon in the bottom left corner. If the star icon is missing then the event has occurrences on multiple days/times.

PIN for Burns​

Some burns want to remain private and to do this we introduced an option to require a PIN to entered to access a burn in dust. The PIN is expected to be sent out to ticket holders.

Importing Events​

Event importing has been improved by allowing selection of camp, art or other locations. There is also more cleanup of bad data (like blank lines), and guessing of the event type using the description.

Custom Event Types​

Event Types can be customized in the Settings page. You can also select more than one event type per event.

Event Guide Print Preview​

We've added a new column count selection when using the Print Preview option. This allows those using the event guide export to use it to copy/paste into a design tool.

Other Fixes​

• Feature: Party owners can now delete their party.
• Feature: Theme camp owners can now change ownership of the camp.
• Feature: Event times are now on the top of an event card to make it easier to see.
• Feature: When viewing art it will now list any events happening at that art.
• Fix: The map now shows events that are happening at an art piece.
• Fix: Times are now shown in the burns timezone rather than your device's timezone.
• Fix: When clicking "Move Up" in the links section you could duplicate a link.
• Fix: There was an invisible un-clickable area to the left and right of the footer button.
• Fix: Searching for an event where you added extra spaces now finds the event.
• Fix: Clicking Save on art twice would cause an error.
• Fix: Spacing and layout of the music page.
• Fix: When syncing events with your phone's calendar it gave a permission error on Android.
• Fix: Increased the amount you could zoom into the map.
• Fix: We've locked the app into portrait mode as landscape mode caused problems viewing the map.

There are a bunch of different regional burns happening in June. Here's a quick rundown of them:

Bequinox​

Bequinox is a regional burn in California happening June 5-9 and is using dust. Bequinox has 32 theme camps, 130 events and 21 art pieces.

Apogaea​

Apogaea is a regional burn in Colorado happening June 5-9 and is using dust. Apogaea has 75 theme camps, 278 events and 39 art pieces.

To The Moon​

To The Moon is a regional burn in Tennessee happening June 20-24 and is using dust. To The Moon has 71 theme camps, 139 events and 33 art pieces.

Element 11​

Element 11 is a regional burn in Utah happening June 19-23 and is using dust. Element 11 has 41 theme camps, 147 events and 27 art pieces.

Kiezburn​

Kiezburn is a regional burn near Berlin, Germany happening June 19-23 and is using dust. Kiezburn has 56 theme camps / kieze, 305 events and 37 art pieces.

Freezer Burn​

Freezer Burn is a regional burn in Alberta Canada happening June 20-24 and is using dust. Freezer Burn has 53 theme camps, 140 events and 50 art pieces.

We've implemented some great new features for theme camp owners, regional organizers and attendees. Check out these new features added this month:

Sharing Camp Information​

Theme camps love to share their camp details and events on Social Media, so we've made it even easier to do this. The Share button now creates a shareable link to the camps details including their events. Its been optimized for Social Media and is printable too so you can use to print out for your camp.

Notice that new pretty URL for the burn, the OG image and the web page for the camp.

Camp Listing for your website​

We now have an option for you to display all theme camps on your website. In the dust manager you can click Advanced and copy to the URL for camps and use it in your website as a link or embedded via an iframe. It looks great on desktop and mobile and is a great way to reach attendees who may only visit your website.

Event Listing to your website​

We now have an option for you to display all events on your website. In the dust manager you can click Advanced and copy to the URL for events and use it in your website as a link or embedded via an iframe. It looks great on desktop and mobile and is a great way to reach attendees who may only visit your website.

Sorting by time or distance​

To make it easier for burners to switch between sorting by time or distance we've added a dropdown to the Events, Camps, Art and Music tabs. This should make it easier to know that you can find things that are near you, or events happening soon.

Labels on the Map​

The map button quite popular if you want to find what is around you. Previously it had dots for each camp, art and restrooms but now we've also added labels to help identify camp and art names. The labels are generated automatically from the camp/art name, so Pink Mammoth would be labelled as "PM".

Search on the Map​

You can now search for camps or art on the map. After you start typing a name the first match will be shown on the map.

Other Fixes​

• For party's that went over multiple days we now show this on the correct days.
• The layout for music would sometimes overlap text. This is now fixed.
• The printable event guide now has page breaks for each day of the burn.

SideBurn is a regional burn in Ontario, Canada happening May 16-20 and is using dust.

SideBurn has 44 theme camps, 207 events and 25 art pieces.

unSCruz is a regional burn in California happening May 2-5 and is using dust.

unSCruz has 91 theme camps, 87 events and 70 art pieces. One of my favorite mutant vehicles will be there El Pulpo Magnifico, pictured below at this year's burn.

Gathering feedback on an app is an important part of the process of improvement. In a recent question posted up to the Blazing Swan Facebook group we received a lot of great feedback and have ended up implementing the first feature based on that feedback.

An Interactive Map​

The most requested feature was an interactive map showing all camps, art and points of interest and we've implemented and released this feature today. A point is placed on the map that can be clicked to see events at the camp or art piece or to see where restrooms are located (color coded as blue).

This works quite well for regionals. For Burning Man however, the sheer number of camps and art make it a bit unwieldy but it is interesting nonetheless.

Other Feedback​

Here are some of the features that have been put on the roadmap but have not been implemented yet:

• Dropping a pin - This feature would allow you to drop a pin on the map whether that is for where you are camped or an interesting location you want to come back to.

• Personal Schedule - Many users will use dust to favorite the events and camps they are interested in but then want to avoid bringing out their phone - and instead want a way to print out a schedule. Hopefully we'll be able to add this with an export to PDF from the favorites page.

• Configurable Reminders - dust gives a 15 minutes reminder before an event but some users want to be notified earlier. Making this configurable would allow you time to prepare for events that need a outfit change or are further away.

• Last Minute Notifications - Some users want to be notified of important events such as when a burn was going to start or be rescheduled. We'll take a look into this feature but in order to implement it there needs to be cell service at the event and it also means that the app registers the device for push notifications (we take privacy seriously and avoid tracking users).

At this point its worth noting that dust is an open source project and something I build in my spare time. PRs are welcome and if you have an idea please file an issue to discuss it and we can collaborate on getting it implemented in dust.

Saguaro Man is a regional burn in Arizona happening April 24-28 and is using dust.

Saguaro Man has 59 theme camps, 187 events and 33 art pieces. One of the unique aspects of Saguaro Man is they allow dogs and have a theme camp Dogville for dogs and their humans to hang out at.

Saguaro Man is also the first burn where dust introduced a new feature on the home page: a map button which shows all camps, art and points of interest on the map.

Speaking of maps, here is theirs: I ended up building it in Figma from scratch for dust as the original in PhotoShop had some pixelation due to raster based layers. If you are a regional reading this post then I would highly recommend using Figma for building your map - you can easily collaborate with others who will need it - in this case for different views for print media (posters and event guides), the website, for camp placement, art placement, dust and for permits.

Emergence is a regional burn in South Carolina happening April 18-21 and is using dust.

Emergence has 61 theme camps, 99 events and 19 art pieces. One of Emergence's beautiful features, that is often overlooked, is the map. Check it out in all its glory: