+TheBeast Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I an working on a mobile application that will sit on top of Google maps and display caches in the immediate area. How can I go about querying the GC database? I've seen how the queries that return html are formatted, but parsing that would be tough. Are there queries that return xml, gpx or loc? Link to comment
+blb9556 Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I an working on a mobile application that will sit on top of Google maps and display caches in the immediate area. How can I go about querying the GC database? I've seen how the queries that return html are formatted, but parsing that would be tough. Are there queries that return xml, gpx or loc? Do you realize how hard the area would be to do? You would have to make a xml of everywere. I think at least. Work on central ohio first. We will have it it first Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 3, 2008 Author Share Posted July 3, 2008 I an working on a mobile application that will sit on top of Google maps and display caches in the immediate area. How can I go about querying the GC database? I've seen how the queries that return html are formatted, but parsing that would be tough. Are there queries that return xml, gpx or loc? Do you realize how hard the area would be to do? You would have to make a xml of everywere. I think at least. Work on central ohio first. We will have it it first My idea is to use positional data from the device's GPS and then request an area around that position. The query that gets executed when you search from GC.com looks like this. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?lat_ns=1&lat_h=40&lat_mmss=05.879&long_ew=-1&long_h=83&long_mmss=04.775&dist=5&submit8=Search lat_ns=1 tells us that it's North lat_h=40 is 40 degrees lat_mmss=05.879 is the decimal minutes. these are the same for the Longitude dist=5 says that we want to search a 5 mile radius. This returns an html file that the browser displays. I want to make a similar query that returns an xml file that I can parse right away to show that caches on the map. I wouldn't be keeping the xml files around and I would only have caches on the map in the area around where you are looking at that time. Link to comment
+StarBrand Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I am pretty sure that app would violate the TOU agreement. Better check before proceeding. Also sounds a lot like the trimble navigator Software - have you looked into that? Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 3, 2008 Author Share Posted July 3, 2008 I am pretty sure that app would violate the TOU agreement. Better check before proceeding. Also sounds a lot like the trimble navigator Software - have you looked into that? TOU agreement? I've heard of TOS, what's TOU and do you have a link to it? Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 3, 2008 Author Share Posted July 3, 2008 I am pretty sure that app would violate the TOU agreement. Better check before proceeding. Also sounds a lot like the trimble navigator Software - have you looked into that? Good call, I sent an email requesting permission and information. Thank you. I am writing this app for the Android platform, so the Trimble software won't work for me. Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 7, 2008 Author Share Posted July 7, 2008 I am pretty sure that app would violate the TOU agreement. Better check before proceeding. Also sounds a lot like the trimble navigator Software - have you looked into that? Good call, I sent an email requesting permission and information. Thank you. I am writing this app for the Android platform, so the Trimble software won't work for me. While waiting for Groundspeak to get back to me I started off with loading in gpx and loc files so I could have something loaded. I now have it load in the file and display the caches on a map. You can pan / zoom the map and when you click on the cache it gives you the option to see the cache page or to navigate to it. Both of these seem to be working though I can't be 100% on the navigation screen until I get real hardware to test it on. Anyway, here are some screen shots of what I have so far. The accuracy is so bad because I am using a built in GPS simulator that has the accuracy hard coded to 100m. Link to comment
+blb9556 Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 I am pretty sure that app would violate the TOU agreement. Better check before proceeding. Also sounds a lot like the trimble navigator Software - have you looked into that? Good call, I sent an email requesting permission and information. Thank you. I am writing this app for the Android platform, so the Trimble software won't work for me. While waiting for Groundspeak to get back to me I started off with loading in gpx and loc files so I could have something loaded. I now have it load in the file and display the caches on a map. You can pan / zoom the map and when you click on the cache it gives you the option to see the cache page or to navigate to it. Both of these seem to be working though I can't be 100% on the navigation screen until I get real hardware to test it on. Anyway, here are some screen shots of what I have so far. The accuracy is so bad because I am using a built in GPS simulator that has the accuracy hard coded to 100m. Looks like you may get it to work. Good luck. Link to comment
+DavidMac Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 That looks awesome. Could it work with Pocket Queries? That should get around any TOU issues. Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 9, 2008 Author Share Posted July 9, 2008 That looks awesome. Could it work with Pocket Queries? That should get around any TOU issues. It already is working with pocket queries! That's how I'm loading the data you see in there now. I still have an email out to Groudspeak, because I think it would be awesome if it could update the display dynamically, but this is a good intermediate step! Link to comment
+trainlove Posted July 10, 2008 Share Posted July 10, 2008 I thought that there was mention that V.2 of the web site would have 'instant' PQ's. If your phone broswer could be used to generate one, and process one (no email needed as I see it) then your idea should work. Link to comment
+blb9556 Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 But will it filter out Premium member only caches!? Keep that in mind. I hope it gets famous, then I could say that I have the creator on my friends list! Link to comment
+TheBeast Posted July 15, 2008 Author Share Posted July 15, 2008 But will it filter out Premium member only caches!? Keep that in mind. I hope it gets famous, then I could say that I have the creator on my friends list! You would need to log in to create the pocket query or to (eventually) do the automatic querying so GC.com should do the filtering automatically. Link to comment
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