A Wish

[lumpynose]

Not being a premium member here I don't know what the maps are like on the benchmark search result pages; the panning and zooming and whatnot. Probably similar to the Yahoo and MapQuest maps.

 

But I saw this robogeo page and thought its use of the google maps was pretty slick:

 

http://www.robogeo.com/home/gmaps/sample3/map.htm

http://www.robogeo.com/home/

 

It got me to thinking, if you could have a site devoted to benchmark hunting, what would you like it to have? For example, one thing I'd like is a search function that's a combination of the features of the NGS datasheet search page and the one here, but you could get the results in gpx format, as well as loc, and the raw NGS datasheet format. (And of course the database would be kept up to date/in sync with the NGS database.)

[+Black Dog Trackers]

For whatever reason, GC.com has never seen fit to add benchmarks to the geocaching.com maps. Perhaps when the Waymarking programming begins to augment benchmarking......

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

For whatever reason, GC.com has never seen fit to add benchmarks to the geocaching.com maps.  Perhaps when the Waymarking programming begins to augment benchmarking......

BDT,

 

I think if you check again...the list of maps available to view the coordinates for either the caches or the benchmarks, are the same list. Some are pretty good...some not.

 

Lumpynose,

 

We have never used these maps much, as we use our own mapping program (Mapsend) when we run a "pocket query" - for caches - (Premium mem. only) or download an entire county of benchmarks from NGS & then run either of those files through GSAK, transport all of the info to our map. We do not have pan, but it has everything we find needed for what we do.

 

I wish that our list of benchmark finds had the designation listed right next to the PID #. I do not remember the PID #'s but, I do remember the designation ie. name or number of the benchmark. Especially when it was a 'special' or 'different' or 'long sought after'. This way, when we were researching our finds, we would not have to open GSAK for the that info.

 

Thank you for asking....

Shirley

[lumpynose]

... Perhaps when the Waymarking programming begins to augment benchmarking......

I don't understand this statement. I'm not clear on exactly what Waymarking is but I thought it was about collecting coordinates for likely interesting places anyone might want to go to; theaters, food places, stores, parks, etc. Benchmark hunting seems to me to be more of a subset of geocaching.

 

I also don't understand if you're talking about Waymarking.com or if not, what "Waymarking programming" means.

 

If you're talking about Waymarking.com and if my description of Waymarking is near the mark, I don't see why they'd incorporate benchmark hunting into Waymarking.com.

 

My opinion as to why benchmark hunting gets short shrift on gc.com is that they don't have an excess of programmers or programmer's time, and geocaching is much more popular, so it's a simple business decision to concentrate on geocaching.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

2oldfarts (the rockhounders) -

 

If you bring up a GC.com benchmark page, you will see a map. On that map are the locations of geocaches, but no benchmarks. If you click on the map, you will see lots of options for how to show geocaches on the map. There are no options for benchmaks. That is what I was talking about.

 

lumpynose -

 

I did mean Waymarking.com

 

From what I've seen from Jeremy in the Waymarking forums, GC.com intends to have the programming augmentions involved in the Waymarking project be added to benchmarking at some point in the future. One thing that the benchmarking area doesn't have is the ability to add benchmarks that were not in the NGS database in 2000 or those that were never in the NGS database. GC.com does like locations to be logged, so I'm assuming that there'll be a change to benchmarking to allow that somehow. Whether at that time, the benchmarking section will look just like a Waymarking category then or will look just about like it does no, I don't know. I have no particular information on this.