UK counties map on Findstatgen / GSAK

[+The Chaos Crew]

Just out of interest, does anyone know how GSAK (specifically the Findstatgen macro) decides what county a cache is in for the purpose of colouring in counties on the UK map (example on my profile page)?

 

We’re not the most competitive of geocachers – our humble find count after 2 and a half years in the game illustrates that But one thing I do personally enjoy is colouring in new counties on the map – I’d love to have the whole of the UK coloured in one day, as I do love to travel about, and I’m all for completeness.

 

To this end, I’ve made a point (much to the annoyance of my family, who don’t seem to share my map colouring-in ambitions) to attempt to find at least one cache if we are visiting a new county (even if we don’t really have the time or energy to do so, which is where that annoyance comes in ).

 

Recently we’ve found one in Essex (and I know it was definitely in Essex, not in Greater London, despite being close to the border, as it was about 200 yards from the house I lived in for 18 years), and two in the grounds of Tyntesfield House, near Bristol, which according to its postal address on the National Trust site, is in Somerset. Yet Essex and Somerset remain stubbornly unpainted on my map. I think these caches have been allocated to Greater London and Avon respectively.

 

I had this once before also with a cache I raced out to find between meetings in central London, which didn’t colour in my Greater London blob, despite being about as far into London as you can get. I had to go back another day and find another.

 

Soooo – my question is – is there any way I can find out ahead of time what county GSAK will allocate to a particular cache, so I can avoid upsetting my family for the sake of grabbing a cache that I thought was in a “new” county, only to find out after the event that it ends up being counted in a county I already had? If I could check them in the planning stage, then I could make a point of selecting a cache that would definitely “count”.

 

Does that make sense?

 

Sarah Chaos

[+Von-Horst]

Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?

 

Country, State and County fields Macro

 

Mike

[+The Chaos Crew]

Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?

 

Country, State and County fields Macro

 

Mike

 

You’re a genius!

 

In the discussion of that macro, it mentions a box on the GPX load screen that I’ve never noticed, called “update counties”, so I’ve added a county column, and ticked that box, and it has solved my problem – I didn’t actually need the macro, it seems

 

Yay thank you

 

I do wish I was a more expert user of GSAK – I’m sure it can do so much more than I use it for…. It’s just finding the time to learn it properly….

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

Well well well

 

You learn something new every day.

 

Is there no end to the talents of GSAK

[+Bear and Ragged]

Sometimes GSAK has a polygon that needs tweeking, if a cache is near a border.

Sometimes the cache setter isn't 100% on setting the County when filling in the cache page!

 

You can always edit it yourself in GSAK if you know otherwise.

(If it's a found cache, lock it after editing, or the next GPX file will change it back!)

[+The Chaos Crew]

and the annoying thing is....I was torn between 2 caches when I was visiting my dad in Essex, the one I went for in the end (didn't have time to do both) is in Greater London in GSAK's eyes, it turns out that the other one (less than half a mile away from the first one and almost equidistant from my dad's house) is Essex in GSAK. So I could easily have coloured in that county. Darn!

 

I guess it's a good excuse to visit the old man again soon not that I should need an excuse, of course!

[+Stuey]

and the annoying thing is....I was torn between 2 caches when I was visiting my dad in Essex, the one I went for in the end (didn't have time to do both) is in Greater London in GSAK's eyes, it turns out that the other one (less than half a mile away from the first one and almost equidistant from my dad's house) is Essex in GSAK. So I could easily have coloured in that county. Darn!

 

I guess it's a good excuse to visit the old man again soon not that I should need an excuse, of course!

 

Like Bear & Ragged say.... if you look at the cache location on an OS map and see that the cache is in a different county to that which GSAK calculated it to be in, edit it in GSAK, lock it and rerun the macro.

[+The Chaos Crew]

Like Bear & Ragged say.... if you look at the cache location on an OS map and see that the cache is in a different county to that which GSAK calculated it to be in, edit it in GSAK, lock it and rerun the macro.

 

for some reason, that would feel like cheating so I'll wait till I go back to the area and get one that GSAK agrees with me on

[+Stuey]

for some reason, that would feel like cheating so I'll wait till I go back to the area and get one that GSAK agrees with me on

 

I trust an OS map with county borders on it infinitely more than a GSAK vector created for the purpose of estimating county boundaries. Not cheating at all. Does anyone know how the boundaries were created? I assume someone just drew a line around the county boundary on a map?

[+Gushoneybun]

Does anyone know how the boundaries were created? I assume someone just drew a line around the county boundary on a map?

 

That is exactly how they are created, you open a Google map and draw a line following the county boundary on the map to create the polygons for the county / region. Also the width of the line can affect which side of the line a cache is in.

[+Bear and Ragged]

Go with the map!

Edit the county in GSAK if you need to.

Polygons are NOT that precise.

[Master Mariner]

It is possible that "The Chaos Crew", like myself, do not have all of the UK loaded into GSAK. If I am going to a "new" county I load a KMZ file of the county shape into Google Earth. I then zoom into the part of the county I am interested in and turn on the Geocaching Google Earth Viewer to show what caches are available. I can then use one of those caches as a centre point for creating a PQ file.

 

This method also allows, if all the county polygon KMZ files are loaded, to see where two or three counties join together so you can (easily?) knock off a few counties!!

 

As has already been mentioned, the polygons are not perfect.

[+The Chaos Crew]

It is possible that "The Chaos Crew", like myself, do not have all of the UK loaded into GSAK. If I am going to a "new" county I load a KMZ file of the county shape into Google Earth. I then zoom into the part of the county I am interested in and turn on the Geocaching Google Earth Viewer to show what caches are available. I can then use one of those caches as a centre point for creating a PQ file.

 

This method also allows, if all the county polygon KMZ files are loaded, to see where two or three counties join together so you can (easily?) knock off a few counties!!

 

As has already been mentioned, the polygons are not perfect.

 

You’re all getting scarily techy on me now

 

I think I will change the Essex one next time I update my map (if I can work out how), as I know for certain that was definitely on Essex soil (as an Essex girl by birth, I know when I’m home ), but I’ll leave the other two in Avon, as that will give me an incentive to visit Somerset again….

 

thanks for all your help

 

Sarah

[+Guanajuato]

The map itself just uses whatever county is in the county field.

That can either be filled in by hand (!), automatically when loading new GPX files, or by using the getcounty macro. That uses rough shapes - Close enough for jazz, but near boundaries you might get some oddities.

 

If you have a cache that should be in one county and is calculated as another, just change the entry in the County field, and then re-run FindStatGen and it'll update your map.

The cache setter doesn't set the county - they only set the region and that has no bearing on the county map.

 

Recent releases of FSG allow you to install map files direct from the server, rather than faffing about downloading them to the right location.

 

Oh, and once the county is set, GSAK won't overwrite it unless you specifically ask it to - something to do with the code entered into the 'update county field' on the load page - I think 'YB' will only update blank entries.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Guanajuato

[+The Chaos Crew]

another question - similar to my first so I thought I'd hijack my own old thread

 

I'm just back from a weekend in Belfast, and although the UK counties map does show the 6 Northern Irish counties, it isn't colouring in Antrim for the caches I found out there:

 

 

they are showing as "Antrim" just fine in my actual GSAK database

 

I tried editing one to "Co Antrim" just in case that helped, but still nowt

 

any ideas?

[+Gushoneybun]

another question - similar to my first so I thought I'd hijack my own old thread

 

I'm just back from a weekend in Belfast, and although the UK counties map does show the 6 Northern Irish counties, it isn't colouring in Antrim for the caches I found out there:

 

they are showing as "Antrim" just fine in my actual GSAK database

 

I tried editing one to "Co Antrim" just in case that helped, but still nowt

 

any ideas?

 

 

 

To get them to show up on that map you need to change the state to Northern Ireland, then ensure the county reads Antrim, Tyrone, Down etc (no need to enter the word County) Once changed on my Database I have locked them all as otherwise it updates the state as Ulster amd they will not appear.

 

 

There is another GSAK map showing all the British and Irish counties, if you use that then leave them alone and GSAK will sort itself out.

[+Munkeh]

ok so what about the regions map does anyone else have problems with the recognition of some of the regions, like northern scotland, southern scotland (yea I know its only scotland ) and some of the southern regions

 

for example

 

Edited October 4, 2010 by Munkeh

[+Gushoneybun]

ok so what about the regions map does anyone else have problems with the recognition of some of the regions, like northern scotland, southern scotland (yea I know its only scotland ) and some of the southern regions

 

 

I do not have any issues, but living close to the border of three regions states and continually spotting errors with people assigning caches to the wrong ones. I get GSAK to work out each state a cache is in when loading PQ's, this does delay it slightly but I know all my caches are in the right state. To do this enter the letter S in the State Update box towards the bottom of the load GPX box that is displayed, you might need to deselect the use defaults box to get at this option.

[+Munkeh]

ok so what about the regions map does anyone else have problems with the recognition of some of the regions, like northern scotland, southern scotland (yea I know its only scotland ) and some of the southern regions

 

 

I do not have any issues, but living close to the border of three regions states and continually spotting errors with people assigning caches to the wrong ones. I get GSAK to work out each state a cache is in when loading PQ's, this does delay it slightly but I know all my caches are in the right state. To do this enter the letter S in the State Update box towards the bottom of the load GPX box that is displayed, you might need to deselect the use defaults box to get at this option.

 

I use a macro to fill in the state/region field

 

it seems the regions on the map are not matching the database, although if you look at the map file and the database they are matching, but I can't see why

 

taken from the map file

 

<data> Varname=$NameStates

EM =East Midlands,EE =Eastern England,LO =London,NW =North Wales,NE =Northeast England,NO =Northwest England,

SN =Northern Scotland,SS =Southern Scotland,SO =Southern England,SA =South Wales,SE =South East England,

SW =South West England,WM =West Midlands,YH =Yorkshire and Humberside,NI =Northern Ireland,NN =Nil,

<enddata>

 

[+Gushoneybun]

The polygons are built into GSAK for the regions and counties, so I do not use a special macro to update these fields as GSAK does it automatically. I can not spot the reason for the issue, I would suggest a visit to the GSAK forums. Good luck

[+The Chaos Crew]

 

To get them to show up on that map you need to change the state to Northern Ireland, then ensure the county reads Antrim, Tyrone, Down etc (no need to enter the word County) Once changed on my Database I have locked them all as otherwise it updates the state as Ulster amd they will not appear.

 

 

There is another GSAK map showing all the British and Irish counties, if you use that then leave them alone and GSAK will sort itself out.

 

I've changed state to 'Northern Ireland' and county to 'Antrim', and locked them, but still no luck on the map

 

I will see if I can find the other map you mentioned, thanks for your help.

[+The Chaos Crew]

 

To get them to show up on that map you need to change the state to Northern Ireland, then ensure the county reads Antrim, Tyrone, Down etc (no need to enter the word County) Once changed on my Database I have locked them all as otherwise it updates the state as Ulster amd they will not appear.

 

 

There is another GSAK map showing all the British and Irish counties, if you use that then leave them alone and GSAK will sort itself out.

 

I've changed state to 'Northern Ireland' and county to 'Antrim', and locked them, but still no luck on the map

 

I will see if I can find the other map you mentioned, thanks for your help.

 

hmmmm

 

I've added an Irish map, but it seems to think that Belfast is in Donegal!

 

 

oh well, going to stop worrying about it for now - but if anyone at some point can point me to a better map to use with Findstatgen, I'd appreciate it

[+Gushoneybun]

 

To get them to show up on that map you need to change the state to Northern Ireland, then ensure the county reads Antrim, Tyrone, Down etc (no need to enter the word County) Once changed on my Database I have locked them all as otherwise it updates the state as Ulster amd they will not appear.

 

 

There is another GSAK map showing all the British and Irish counties, if you use that then leave them alone and GSAK will sort itself out.

 

I've changed state to 'Northern Ireland' and county to 'Antrim', and locked them, but still no luck on the map

 

I will see if I can find the other map you mentioned, thanks for your help.

 

hmmmm

 

I've added an Irish map, but it seems to think that Belfast is in Donegal!

 

 

oh well, going to stop worrying about it for now - but if anyone at some point can point me to a better map to use with Findstatgen, I'd appreciate it

 

 

Did you miss out the step I never mentioned? to change the Country, to United Kingdom, I am sure I must have thought it.

[+The Chaos Crew]

 

To get them to show up on that map you need to change the state to Northern Ireland, then ensure the county reads Antrim, Tyrone, Down etc (no need to enter the word County) Once changed on my Database I have locked them all as otherwise it updates the state as Ulster amd they will not appear.

 

 

There is another GSAK map showing all the British and Irish counties, if you use that then leave them alone and GSAK will sort itself out.

 

I've changed state to 'Northern Ireland' and county to 'Antrim', and locked them, but still no luck on the map

 

I will see if I can find the other map you mentioned, thanks for your help.

 

hmmmm

 

I've added an Irish map, but it seems to think that Belfast is in Donegal!

 

 

oh well, going to stop worrying about it for now - but if anyone at some point can point me to a better map to use with Findstatgen, I'd appreciate it

 

 

Did you miss out the step I never mentioned? to change the Country, to United Kingdom, I am sure I must have thought it.

 

ah - yes - I think I did - my telepathy isn't so hot nowadays

 

cheers!

[+The Chaos Crew]

yay! it's working now - thank you gushoneybun

[+Gushoneybun]

yay! it's working now - thank you gushoneybun

 

 

No problem, glad to help.