Geocaching and Google Earth

[geeojeff]

Anyone tie-in Google Earth with Geocaching? Their coordinates are nearly right on! You can get a top down view of nearly any cache possible. I wonder if any clever games, challenges, applications or ideas can be dreamed up by tying the two together. Anyone have any cool ideas?

[+edscott]

Anyone tie-in Google Earth with Geocaching? Their coordinates are nearly right on! You can get a top down view of nearly any cache possible. I wonder if any clever games, challenges, applications or ideas can be dreamed up by tying the two together. Anyone have any cool ideas?

 

Put your GPS on eBay?

[+Airmapper]

The latest release of GE took out the pay to use GPS restriction, so now if you happen to have an air card and USB GPS receiver, you can take the show on the road.

[+Hrethgir]

Anyone tie-in Google Earth with Geocaching? Their coordinates are nearly right on! You can get a top down view of nearly any cache possible. I wonder if any clever games, challenges, applications or ideas can be dreamed up by tying the two together. Anyone have any cool ideas?

 

The latest release of GE took out the pay to use GPS restriction, so now if you happen to have an air card and USB GPS receiver, you can take the show on the road.

 

I can pretty much already do that with my DeLorme PN-40 Takes up a lot less space than my laptop, too! Can't really think of any games or challenges that you could do with it that you couldn't do without it, though.

Edited February 15, 2009 by HondaH8er

[+ghettomedic]

Google Earth is good but it shows my geocaches WAY off.

This picture shows over 200 feet from actual placement to where Google Earth shows it is

[+edscott]

So which is the correct spot.. the green box or the yellow pin? Google says the yellow pin is correct. I've never had a google map off that far except overseas.

Edited February 16, 2009 by edscott

[+Prime Suspect]

Google Earth is good but it shows my geocaches WAY off.

This picture shows over 200 feet from actual placement to where Google Earth shows it is

The site's GE function has a built-in fuzz factor. It's not supposed to show exact locations.

[ao318]

Also is that a KML download or did you actually enter in the coordinates of the cache. I have noticed and it has been stated that the KML locations are off a bit. When I have entered in the coordinates it seems pretty accurate.

 

edited: Prime kinda beat me with similar info.

Edited February 16, 2009 by ao318

[+NYPaddleCacher]

The latest release of GE took out the pay to use GPS restriction, so now if you happen to have an air card and USB GPS receiver, you can take the show on the road.

 

That may work for caching in urban areas or for caches that are close to a road but I wouldn't want to carry my laptop (a 17" Dell behemoth that I use for software development) to where most of the cache I find are located, especially to spots like the one I found last weekend. I parked about 1.7 miles from the cache and bushwacked the last .64 miles and back.

 

There was a thread awhile back about the use of GE for geocaching and someone posted an example of an area, I believe in Nebraska, which showed a residential development which he assured us did not exist but showed up on the GE maps.

[CoyoteRed]

There was a thread awhile back about the use of GE for geocaching and someone posted an example of an area, I believe in Nebraska, which showed a residential development which he assured us did not exist but showed up on the GE maps.

In South Carolina GE has a whole town duplicated a few miles south.

[+edscott]

There was a thread awhile back about the use of GE for geocaching and someone posted an example of an area, I believe in Nebraska, which showed a residential development which he assured us did not exist but showed up on the GE maps.

In South Carolina GE has a whole town duplicated a few miles south.

 

In Southeastern PA there are lots of typos on the street map pages but the photos are fine. The satellites do their jobs, but the guys on the ground often screw it up.

[+edscott]

 

In South Carolina GE has a whole town duplicated a few miles south.

 

Ahh... you know all those little southern towns look alike

[+ghettomedic]

So which is the correct spot.. the green box or the yellow pin? Google says the yellow pin is correct. I've never had a google map off that far except overseas.

 

The yellow push pin is the actual location, entering the coordinates manually gets you very close but the automatic ones do not come even close.

[geeojeff]

All good thoughts on the accuracy of Google Earth vs. our GPSr's, but rather than a debate on the use of your PC to trumble through the bush (inconvienient and appearently not so accurate), can anyone think of some interesting applications for looking down from above? Just a interesting look? Is there a possible tie-in between the two? Use of Google Earth for a Multi-cache challenge? A good way to avoid taking the wrong path on the onset to a cache site (i.e. the long way around)?

 

Thanks for the feedback so far.

[+ChicagoCanineCrew]

All good thoughts on the accuracy of Google Earth vs. our GPSr's, but rather than a debate on the use of your PC to trumble through the bush (inconvienient and appearently not so accurate), can anyone think of some interesting applications for looking down from above? Just a interesting look? Is there a possible tie-in between the two? Use of Google Earth for a Multi-cache challenge? A good way to avoid taking the wrong path on the onset to a cache site (i.e. the long way around)?

 

I was looking at Google Earth to try to find the best parking areas for a few caches in a local forest preserve. There are at least 3-4 different parking areas to choose from. While doing this I also noticed that there was a canal or river branch cutting through the forest preserve so IF Google Earth is accurate enough it could also tell me which side of the canal/river I ought to start from to reach the cache with dry feet.

[+edscott]

All good thoughts on the accuracy of Google Earth vs. our GPSr's, but rather than a debate on the use of your PC to trumble through the bush (inconvienient and appearently not so accurate), can anyone think of some interesting applications for looking down from above?

 

Yes. I call it Geocaching

 

Just a interesting look? Is there a possible tie-in between the two? Use of Google Earth for a Multi-cache challenge? A good way to avoid taking the wrong path on the onset to a cache site (i.e. the long way around)?

 

Thanks for the feedback so far.

 

The multi-cache idea has potential. I have a multi-cache that has competitive orienteering quality maps at each stage showing where the next stage is located, however I also included coordinates for the navigationally impaired.

[+edscott]

So which is the correct spot.. the green box or the yellow pin? Google says the yellow pin is correct. I've never had a google map off that far except overseas.

 

The yellow push pin is the actual location, entering the coordinates manually gets you very close but the automatic ones do not come even close.

 

Google maps is close to the yellow pin. I've never seen the automatic entry and a manual entry disagree if they are the same. Check for typos?

Edited February 20, 2009 by edscott