gpsvisualizer

Well, GPS Visualizer, my on-line utility, works fine with Macs; it only requires that you have the Adobe SVG Viewer plug-in installed, and I've verified that it works with Explorer, Safari, Mozilla, and Firefox (at least in Jaguar). As for offline Mac OS software, here's one more for your list: Mac SimpleGPS: Mac SimpleGPS can communicate with both Garmin and Magellan units, and it has links for integration with geocaching.com (and hopefully, in the future, with GPS Visualizer). But, it's a work in progress. At the moment, it only handles waypoints, and the GPX files it generates are a little out of spec, but a new beta came out a couple weeks ago and the author told me more improvements are coming soon. If you're interested in seeing it developed further, contact him and let him know there's a demand!

I've posted announcements about my site before, but it seems like GPSV hasn't got a lot of Geocaching traffic so far this year, so bear with me while I engage in some shameless self-promotion. GPS Visualizer -- http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ -- is a free web-based program that takes your GPS data and generates customizable maps or profiles in standard browser-viewable SVG format. Here's some of what makes GPS Visualizer so useful: It's free. (But donations are warmly welcomed!) It accepts a wide range of input file formats, including, of course, geocaching.com LOC files. Both tracks and waypoints can be plotted. Geocaching waypoints are clickable and take you back to the relevant page on geocaching.com. You have a wide range of choices for background maps, including:30-meter Landsat imagery for the entire world Street-level maps for Europe and the U.S. Aerial photos and USGS topo maps for the U.S. Excellent digital background maps for Canada [*]The maps are interactive: labels can be moved or removed, and the backgrounds' position and opacity can be adjusted. [*]It's platform-independent (works great on both Mac AND Windows), because it runs on-line. [*]The output is in the form of vector drawings (SVGs) that can be scaled to any size and/or edited in something like Adobe Illustrator. [*]The owner (that's me) is very responsive to problems and suggestions for improvement, at least when I have time to work on it. Again, the URL is: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ Have fun, and please let me know if there are any problems. Adam Schneider http://adamschneider.net/

I actually have no interest in geocaching either. I just try to fix GPS Visualizer so that it accommodates as many people in as many little subcultures as possible -- geocachers, benchmark hunters, glider pilots, windsurfers, disc golfers, or whatever. I was trying to think, just now, of what an off-line application would be able to do that an SVG couldn't... I suppose the ability to zoom in while keeping the icons small would be helpful if you have a lot of them. And of course that's not really feasible for GPSV. But if you think of anything that might help, let me know. Adam http://adamschneider.net/ http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

Can you think of any ways that GPS Visualizer's output could be modified so that a map with a LOT of points would be more usable? Because I'm open to suggestions (even if I don't always have time to implement all of them!). Adam Schneider http://adamschneider.net/ http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

For Palm OS track logging, I highly recommend Cetus GPS: http://www.cetusgps.dk/, which I'm pretty sure works with the iQue now -- and actually, it looks from your signature like you've already discovered it. The one thing Cetus does not do is display a map while you're hiking... but as Jeremy so kindly pointed out, that's where GPS Visualizer comes in. I originally wrote it because I needed a simple way to draw maps that I recorded on my Palm. GPSV can read raw Cetus track/position logs (among other data formats) without you having to convert them, and it can show your track on a blank background or over a variety of background maps, including USGS aerials and topos. Both of these utilities, by the way, are free -- and Mac-friendly.

Thanks for the recommendation, BigBird, but unfortunately I still don't know of any easily accessible georeferenced satellite maps of the Caribbean... the "Worldwide: physical" map in GPS Visualizer would be the best bet for Cozumel (see example map), but it's not great. -- Adam Schneider (owner of GPS Visualizer)

That would be fine too! Even better, actually, since it would require one less click... I already wrote to what I thought was the relevant e-mail address last summer (about getting a link on there), but I never heard back. Adam

Okay, I have a selfish question: if "cache-advance," who lists himself as a "Geocaching.com Admin," recommends GPS Visualizer, then why is it still not listed on geocaching.com's "Geocaching Software" page? By the way, a future feature might be the ability to manually specify a bounding area (instead of simply using the data to define the bounds). For now, you could, in theory, include an invisible two-point track (as text) along with your waypoints, and use that to define the area. Ask me if you want details. -- Adam Schneider (owner of GPS Visualizer)

A minor update of interest to Nordic GCers: I just fixed GPS Visualizer so that accented letters in geocaching.com LOC files are now displayed properly. (The bug was on Groundspeak's side, not mine; they are not properly outputting "special" characters in their text files.)

Hmm, I hadn't checked Iceland yet! Now that I do, however, it seems that it's not covered very well by this new map source. You won't have any problems using GPS Visualizer to get an overview of the whole island, but it looks like street-level maps of Rejkjavik are unavailable. Bummer.

N.B.: the new background map option ("Europe, US, Canada...") is only 100% accurate on small scales (less than 100km or so) -- beyond that, the curve of the earth affects it too much. So, it works very well for plotting single caches, or all caches within a city. But for really wide areas (like "all the caches I've found in Sweden"), I recommend the map labeled "Worldwide: physical"; it does NOT lose its accuracy at any scale. ("MODIS imagery" stays accurate also, but it's somewhat ugly.) [This message was edited by adamschneider on September 26, 2003 at 07:39 AM.]

Hello cachers, I'm the creator of GPS Visualizer, a free on-line program that draws SVG maps from GPS data (including .LOC files from geocaching.com). I thought I'd post a note about it in this forum because I've finally found a source for street-level maps of all of Europe, including the British Isles. (Although, to be honest, I think the Ireland coverage might not be quite as detailed as it is for Britain; still better than what I had before, though.) Please check it out and let me know if the new map option (labeled "Europe, US, Canada: political maps") works as well as I hope it does! The URL: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ Have fun! Adam Schneider adamschneider.net

Hello Nordic cachers, I'm the guy behind GPS Visualizer, a free on-line program that draws SVG maps from GPS data (including .LOC files from geocaching.com). I thought I'd post a note about it in this forum because I've finally found a source for street-level maps of all of Europe, including Scandinavia. Please check it out and let me know if the new map option (labeled "Europe, US, Canada: political maps") works as well as I hope it does! The URL: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ Have fun! Adam Schneider adamschneider.net [This message was edited by adamschneider on September 25, 2003 at 01:02 PM.]

In the meantime, of course, you could (a) turn off waypoint descriptions, or ( pare down your file; it seems like a lot of people are trying to plot too many points to really make a useful map.

quote:I'd like to see a way to have the waypoints and/or descriptions displayed only on hover. Maybe like an ALT tag. That's a thought. Right now the descriptions light up blue when you hover over them; I could maybe make it so there's an option to have them invisible UNTIL you mouse over. (Making it so you get the text by hovering over the point itself is a little trickier.) quote:I'd also like to see an option to output as an imagemap so it's more compatible with browsers. That I don't see happening any time soon; SVG is its own world, and doing a fixed bitmap graphic (GIF or PNG) would require a complete rewrite of, well, everything. Besides, the SVG Viewer plug-in is free and available for almost every browser (although, unfortunately, it seems to crash recent versions of Mozilla in Windows or Linux).

I'm getting the maps straight from the NRCan server. It wasn't completely straightforward, though; I had to dig the necessary URLs out of the CubeWerx "CubeXPLOR" demo at http://demo.cubewerx.com/demo/cubexplor/cubexplor.cgi. FarSideX: if you want more info, e-mail me. I'm also working on a little program whose entire purpose is fishing out background maps; maybe that would be helpful for whatever project you're cooking up.

That'll be interesting; I've seen a lot of glider flights posted to GPS Visualizer (because it supports International Gliding Commission log files), but no balloons yet. If it turns out well, can I put it on the "examples" page?

I've just made a minor change to the Geocache-reading function in GPS Visualizer; it now strips off the last part of the description that says "by (cacher's nickname)." I did it to save space so maps don't get so crowded.... but I hope I haven't commited some horrible geocaching faux pas in the process! (You can still get the full description by clicking on the point and visiting the geocaching.com Cache Details page.) http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

Glad you guys like it... but thank NRCan, not me, for the high quality of the data. (By the way, eventually I'm going to make a stand-alone background tool for people who have handheld GPS software and just want to throw a map on there.) And, SombreHippie, trust me, sometimes it sucks being American too.

Wow, I'm glad we did our trip to Victoria in July instead of early September like we were considering...

I've updated my free on-line mapping program, GPS Visualizer, so that it now directly supports plotting .LOC files from geocaching.com. (It also supports various other file formats for both tracks and waypoints.) The URL: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ (Someone suggested that I should post in this forum because sometimes Canadians feel shortchanged by software that stops its coverage at the U.S. border. Well, here's your chance for revenge: the Canadian background maps available in GPS Visualizer are excellent. Just be aware that sometimes the NRCan server is excruciatingly slow, and sometimes it's down.) Please let me know if you have any problems... and have fun! Adam Schneider adamschneider.net

quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Got GPX support? Of course!

Just to clarify: The .loc files that GPS Visualizer can now handle are the XML files generated by geocaching.com; TerraByte Location Files (which are totally different but also have .loc suffixes) are NOT supported yet.

I just updated my free on-line mapping program, GPS Visualizer, so that it now directly supports plotting .LOC files from geocaching.com. (It also supports various other file formats for both tracks and waypoints.) The URL: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ By the way, it's not obvious, but clicking on a waypoint marker in a GPS Visualizer map will take you to the relevant page on geocaching.com. Please let me know if you have any problems... have fun! Adam Schneider adamschneider.net