Feature request: Pocket Query using Google Maps API

[+auban1]

Hi

I have been thinking of this feature a long time. But it's only recent that I have been thinking of posting something about it. I have made a quick scan on the forum and haven't found anything about this, although I am pretty sure I am not alone to have thought of this. Anyway my idea is as follows...

 

I am wondering if it would be possible to go into building a new pocket query simply by drawing a connected shape on the map?

 

Say I want to go on a caching trip around some of the towns up here in the north of Sweden. Sure I can make a PQ with "Caches Along a Route" but that won't give me that many caches around the towns as I would like without getting a lot of unnecessary caches far away from the road.

 

If I want to do this today I usually do a "Caches Along a Route" plus a separate PQ (in this case four) for each town I plan on visiting along the way.

 

I figure if you could draw on the map, that would be great!

 

It could perhaps look something like this?

 

I am not aware of any "drawing support" in the Google Map API as of today but perhaps there could be some sort of workaround? (I am not so skilled in the arts of programming )

[+dfx]

ain't gonna happen, such a query would put immense load on the servers.

 

nice idea though

[+Lil Devil]

As you say, "Caches Along a Route" works for this. But instead of adding 4 more regular PQs, just add a few extra steps in the route to increase the area around each town along the way. Basically zig-zag through each town. As long as the total number of caches will stay under 500, this should work well.

[+Markwell]

Yep - easy enough to do something like this:

[+Lil Devil]

Great visual, Markwell! Thanks for expanding on what I was trying to say.

[+benh57]

Yes it can be done with CAAR, but allowing polygonal selection wouldn't necessarily put any more load on the server than CAAR does. With creative programming and lots of math, one could turn any polygon into a 'route'.

 

Consider a 'polygon' just a small bit wider than the area that Markwell drew on his map. The internal lines could be calculated at creation time by the generator. If you really wanted to do it that way. But it would probably actually be less 'points' (and less load on the server) to just use the polygon lines themselves.

Edited April 15, 2010 by benh57

[+Lil Devil]

Yes it can be done with CAAR, but allowing polygonal selection wouldn't necessarily put any more load on the server than CAAR does. With creative programming and lots of math, one could turn any polygon into a 'route'.

True, but we have CAAR now. And it took years to get that after the idea was first proposed. So you can use CAAR to accomplish this today, or wait until 2014 or so and use polygons. But by then there will probably be an even better way to get the data.

[+auban1]

Yes it can be done with CAAR, but allowing polygonal selection wouldn't necessarily put any more load on the server than CAAR does. With creative programming and lots of math, one could turn any polygon into a 'route'.

True, but we have CAAR now. And it took years to get that after the idea was first proposed. So you can use CAAR to accomplish this today, or wait until 2014 or so and use polygons. But by then there will probably be an even better way to get the data.

 

Hehe, I see your point, it usually takes quite a bit of time to get new features implemented

Nice idea about the CAAR though, I have never really thought of zigzagging like that before, I will give it a try next time I'm going on a caching trip.