Any way to put a 528 ft circle around caches on maps?

[+chrisrayn]

I've been looking unsuccessfully for some sort of macro that will throw a 528 ft circle around cache locations either on Groundspeak or Google earth. It would make hides a lot easier, and would help me better separate cache locations in my little hometown.

 

Anybody know of a macro like this that exists somewhere?

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

I don't know........ but then, I am computer illiterate.

 

I would load up the GPSr with all the caches in the area of interest, then use the 'nearest waypoint' list function. That should provide you with distance to all those caches from where you are standing.

 

A roundabout way of doing it, but it should suffice.

[+rob3k]

This site will do it, but it's by no means streamlined:

 

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/calculators

 

It's the bottom form on the page and there are directions for plotting multiple circles.

 

I don't know of a macro that does it, but I'm not a macro expert.

Edited August 31, 2009 by rob3k

[+Isonzo Karst]

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

[+sbell111]

This can be done pretty easily in MapPoint. I don't know of a way to do it in Google Earth.

[+Walts Hunting]

That's a pretty neat feature. Looks like not much room in that area. Of course the poster will still have to worry about puzzle caches and the such which are hidden and that would restrict his choices plus also delete the shown location for them since they don't affect the .1 rule.

[+Castle Mischief]

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/53d953...51e17b7e01c.jpg

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

Wow. Are those all physical caches? Cause some look a little on the too-close side.

[knowschad]

If you use GSAK, go to the macro listings and search for the word "circle". I believe there are a couple there that will do what you ask.

[+rob3k]

If you use GSAK, go to the macro listings and search for the word "circle". I believe there are a couple there that will do what you ask.

 

Nice. I'm going to play around with a few of those.

[+chrisrayn]

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

That's absolutely beautiful. :-( If I wasn't so in love with gsak, I might actually pay for the upgrade. :-s

[+The Jester]

You can do this in MS Streets & Trips using radius circles.

 

I've also use my GPSr (on a couple of different Garmin) using the proximity alarms - it draws a circle around the cache/waypoint on the map. This is a bit limited as the map isn't very big, but works nice int he field.

[+scottch]

That's absolutely beautiful. :-( If I wasn't so in love with gsak, I might actually pay for the upgrade. :-s

I am guessing you use GSAK. If that is the case, download the following marco: GoogleEarthCircles.gsk. I use it and like it.

There are a couple of over lapping circles, but these are due to puzzle/mystery caches yet to be solved.

[GOF and Bacall]

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/53d953...51e17b7e01c.jpg

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

Wow. Are those all physical caches? Cause some look a little on the too-close side.

 

They aren't mutually exclusive circles. The 528ft exclusion is a radius around any given cache. As long as the center point of any of those circles is not inside any other circle they aren't too close. Of course non-physical caches or legs of caches aren't restricted by the 528ft. rule.

[+Markwell]

http://dev.bt23.org/keyhole/circlegen/

 

Even though it's only one at a time, it does a pretty good job.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Markwell

[+Castle Mischief]

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/53d953...51e17b7e01c.jpg

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

Wow. Are those all physical caches? Cause some look a little on the too-close side.

 

They aren't mutually exclusive circles. The 528ft exclusion is a radius around any given cache. As long as the center point of any of those circles is not inside any other circle they aren't too close. Of course non-physical caches or legs of caches aren't restricted by the 528ft. rule.

 

Ah. That makes sense. Thanks for pointing that out.

[+chrisrayn]

If you use GSAK, go to the macro listings and search for the word "circle". I believe there are a couple there that will do what you ask.

 

Did it. Used one. Worked perfect.

 

Thank you almighty knowschad. :-)

Edited August 31, 2009 by chrisrayn

[+Castle Mischief]

I just want to add that you don't ever want to be caught at work with a compass held up to your workplace monitor trying to draw circles on the LCD surface.

 

I mean, hypothetically, that would be awkward to explain.

[+wimseyguy]

There's a puzzle cache around here that I'm pretty sure uses this technique to get you to the correct location. But since I mostly ignore the puzzles I haven't taken the time to follow through on my hunch.

 

@ Castle Mischief-just as the blond who already has the white out on her monitor screen if you can borrow her desk for a minute.

[+Castle Mischief]

@ Castle Mischief-just as the blond who already has the white out on her monitor screen if you can borrow her desk for a minute.

 

Thanks man, you're a lifesaver. I mean, you would be for somebody that had done such a thing.

 

Which, of course, I did not do.

 

(PS: what's with the "@"?? This ain't twitter!)

[+wimseyguy]

I don't twit, so I wasn't aware of that. But since the tangential portion of my post was directed at you I thought it was OK usage for a forum too? Isn't it?

Edited August 31, 2009 by wimseyguy

[+Castle Mischief]

I don't twit, so I wasn't aware of that. But since the tangential portion of my post was directed at you I thought it was OK usage for a forum too? Isn't it?

 

We're driving down an off-topic road headed for a pile of admin bricks, but...

 

I'm sure it's fine. Twitter is just where I see it most these days. (And it's "tweet". But I agree in most cases, twitter is kind of "twit" heavy.)

 

Now back on track...

 

 

Does GSAK do all that on it's own or is there some other program that's used in conjunction to make the cool circles? Clearly, I'm not utilizing but a fraction of GSAK's tools and functionality.

[+Cache O'Plenty]

The GSAK macro, "GoogleEarthCircles.gsk" doesn't need any other third party software. Just set your filter to whatever you want and then run the macro. It will then generate the circles. It will not tell you which caches it's plotting though on the map.

 

To do that, you can run the other GSAK macro (GoogleEarth.gsk) first. This plots your filtered list of caches in GoogleEarth (with icons that match the cache type) with the description in a popup and links to the actual GC.com cache page.

 

Then run the GoogleEarthCircles.gsk macro and you'll have the best of both worlds. And it's quick too.

[+mospeed1]

that would be good for multi caches for the 2nd or 3rd stages...i hate when you goto hide a new cache and the review says it's to close to another stage

[+Cache O'Plenty]

It's not perfect because the existing intermediate physical waypoints and finals to puzzles are not available anywhere. But it does give you all the primary waypoints in your filter. And, if you've entered any "corrected coordinates" into GSAK (like solutions to puzzles), they are plotted in the corrected locations.

[GOF and Bacall]

I just want to add that you don't ever want to be caught at work with a compass held up to your workplace monitor trying to draw circles on the LCD surface.

 

I mean, hypothetically, that would be awkward to explain.

 

Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over too well. All that LCD sauce all over your desk and all. Why make more work for the cleaning staff.

[+ZeroHecksGiven]

I just zoom google maps in until the little conversion is 500ft for every inch. The memory card(CF) for my camera fits it perfectly and I just kind of wiggle that around. Lots of cool ideas in here though, will be checking them out.

[AZcachemeister]

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

HEY! There's an open spot...right in the middle of the lake...

[GOF and Bacall]

 

That image, of caches in park in Pinellas County FL, each with a .1 mile reddish circle, was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS. Because I own that, I've not bothered to search for other means. Not quite the answer you are looking for, ie, not Google Earth or GC.com maps, but an answer of sorts.

 

HEY! There's an open spot...right in the middle of the lake...

 

There are actually a couple of spots on dry land to. I guess they lack any concealment opportunities.

[+fizzymagic]

That's absolutely beautiful. :-( If I wasn't so in love with gsak, I might actually pay for the upgrade. :-s

The capabilities of GSAK and ExpertGPS are orthogonal; that is, they are useful for completely different things. I highly recommend ExpertGPS. You can generate a GPX file with caches in an area, and then select the ones you want with a mouse to send to your GPS.

 

It doesn't communicate with my PN-40 (yet) but I still use it all the time.

[+Fuzzywhip]

Hmmm.... Wouldn't you want the circle to be a radius of 264 feet (1/2 of 528)? Then as long as the circles around the caches do not touch, they are far enough apart from each other?

[GOF and Bacall]

No, that would leave lots of uncovered spots that would still be unavailable.

[+mrbort]

Hmmm.... Wouldn't you want the circle to be a radius of 264 feet (1/2 of 528)? Then as long as the circles around the caches do not touch, they are far enough apart from each other?

 

Unless you're searching for caches that overlap the .1mi zone you would probably want the .1mi boundary since anything covered by that is breaching the proximity rule. If you're searching for caches that impose on the saturation rules (or just as an instructive lesson in how close some areas come to a hexagonal closepack lattice arrangement) the 264 foot radius would be useful

[+Chrysalides]

...was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS.

Wow... I think you've convinced me to buy it. Is this the Home version? The Pro versions get pretty pricey..

[+rob3k]

I thought just eyeballing this on the GC google map was good enough for me, but I have to say seeing the circles plotted on Google Earth really does help nail down good areas to scout. Although one area I'm looking to hide has 3 puzzle caches I have yet (and don't know how) to solve. Guess I'll just place em and hope for the best.

 

I have had one placement blocked by an unsolved puzzle cache so far. But I used it as motivation to solve that puzzle.

[+Team Cotati]

This can be done pretty easily in MapPoint. I don't know of a way to do it in Google Earth.

 

I'm running mappoint 2004. Do you know if it can be done in that version? If so, what would be the procedure?

 

Thanks.

[+Team Cotati]

...was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS.

Wow... I think you've convinced me to buy it. Is this the Home version? The Pro versions get pretty pricey..

 

I've seen it for $50.00, $60.00.

 

Don't know if there is a home version, is there? How much have you seen the Pro version selling for?

 

From the developer TopoGrafix:

 

"This is a revolutionary product called Expert GPS, Expert GPS is highly useful for people interested in Hunting, Scouting, Mountain biking, Fishing, Tracking, state and local agencies in the US as well as geometric studies. It is available for Windows XP & Vista and it is helpful in viewing map points, Topo Maps, arial photos and many more."

Edited September 1, 2009 by Team Cotati

[+d-dixon]

...was done on Expert GPS, the paid upgrade from Easy GPS.

Wow... I think you've convinced me to buy it. Is this the Home version? The Pro versions get pretty pricey..

 

Or even better, buy its sister product GeoBuddy instead - the same code as Expert GPS but with additional geocaching features, and for the same price. Even better, if you're outside the US and don't want the US maps, the "bronze" version is nearly half price!

[+Chrysalides]

Don't know if there is a home version, is there? How much have you seen the Pro version selling for?

http://www.expertgps.com/purchase.asp

 

$110 for Pro, $160 for Pro with CAD/DFX.

 

Guess it should be the regular (home) version mentioned here.

 

Or even better, buy its sister product GeoBuddy instead - the same code as Expert GPS but with additional geocaching features, and for the same price. Even better, if you're outside the US and don't want the US maps, the "bronze" version is nearly half price!

Something else to check out. Thanks!

[+Team Cotati]

You can do this in MS Streets & Trips using radius circles.

 

I've also use my GPSr (on a couple of different Garmin) using the proximity alarms - it draws a circle around the cache/waypoint on the map. This is a bit limited as the map isn't very big, but works nice int he field.

 

This ought to work in MS-Mappoint as well. Would you mind sending me the steps involved in an email via my profile? Thanks.

[+pixpixpix]

The 3rd party app Cachly has this as a display option:

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by pixpixpix

[+igator210]

Looking4Cache has it as well

[+thebruce0]

Wow, 10 year thread revival takes the cake.

 

I suppose I'll add - GME extension for Chrome/Firefox also lets you add proximity circles, of custom radii. (but not automatically for all visible icons)