benji55545 Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 I'm nearing the 2000 cache milestone, and I thought it would be fun to making some graphs to visualize my first 2000 (okay, actually 1981) finds. The results turned out pretty cool, and might be descriptive of some larger trends in geocaching, such as the increase in micro placement. Here's a graph of the sizes of caches I've found, excluding virtuals and "not chosen." The large drop labeled SH is due to the creation of a large series of micros in cemeteries around Dayton, OH. I thought maybe ODS would show up on the graph, but I guess I didn't find that many. I think the gradual increase in average size since 2008 is interesting. I wonder if that's a bias on my part or if more regulars are being placed. Or perhaps it's a result of finding more caches in Missouri instead of Ohio. 1=micro 2=small 3=regular 4=large. Difficulty of caches over time. Hasn't changed much. Neither has terrain over time. The squiggly white line is a two week average. Large short-term jumps in terrain usually occur when I go on hiking or highpointing trips. Elevation of all my caches. This is probably my favorite graph because many of my favorite finds stand out due to elevation. Most of the 200-300 meter caches are in the Midwest, primarily Missouri and Ohio. Those close to 0 are obviously near the coast somewhere. I set this all up in excel. I think it would be cool to see other people's graphs. If you want to send me an excel or csv file of your finds (GSAK export) I can make some graphs for you. Email martin@weezed.com Quote Link to comment
+Team GPSaxophone Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 I'd like to get an elevation graph for my finds. How'd you do that? Quote Link to comment
+Q10 Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Elevation of all my caches. I like this one. I cannot get you above sea level, men I have found one (an Earth Cache) at the shore of The Dead See in Israel. This is -400 below sea level! Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 28, 2011 Author Share Posted July 28, 2011 I'd like to get an elevation graph for my finds. How'd you do that? I made the graph myself, but you need to get elevation data for all your caches first. I did it using the FindStatGen plugin for GSAK. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 You can also use Google Earth in time lapse mode to create a video showing the chronological order your finds are made, displayed on a map. What I haven't figured out is how to make each dot appear then fade away. This video shows the opening of Walmart stores across the U.S. That's sort of the effect I'm looking for. Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) You can also use Google Earth in time lapse mode to create a video showing the chronological order your finds are made, displayed on a map. What I haven't figured out is how to make each dot appear then fade away. This video shows the opening of Walmart stores across the U.S. That's sort of the effect I'm looking for. That's pretty cool. Cool enough for me to copy it For some reason the original looks better. Part of it was cpu slowdown, but I also think having my waypoints so close together messes up the images. Also random note... the method used in the original video doesn't seem to work on Google Earth versions beyond 5.11 (OS X). Not sure why. Edited July 29, 2011 by benji55545 Quote Link to comment
+TerraViators Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 How do you do this in GE? Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 Nice! Please share how you did that! I can see where you went on a long road trip in July 2009 Next time for music you could pick the unofficial anthem of geocaching : U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (I also like "Don't Tell My Wife I'm Out Geocaching" by Rob Pearce) Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) Nice! Please share how you did that! I can see where you went on a long road trip in July 2009 Next time for music you could pick the unofficial anthem of geocaching : U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (I also like "Don't Tell My Wife I'm Out Geocaching" by Rob Pearce) Hah, good call on the U2 song. And yes, I did go on a long road trip. The animation would look a lot cooler if I went on a bunch of long road trips while caching the entire way! Anyway, as you probably know the GE time slider appears when you add valid <TimeSpan> tags to your placemarks. To get the falling/fading dot animation, you need to create a series of placemarks with slightly different icon sizes and opacity values. Their <TimeSpan> should be contiguous but not overlapping. Let me show you some .kml code. First, define the icon sizes and colors. 4fffff11 is the color's hex value plus a number for opacity. <Style id="sh_10"><IconStyle><color>4fffff11</color><scale>5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_9"><IconStyle><color>5fffff22</color><scale>4.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_8"><IconStyle><color>6fffff33</color><scale>4</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_7"><IconStyle><color>7fffff44</color><scale>3.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_6"><IconStyle><color>8fffff55</color><scale>3</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_5"><IconStyle><color>9fffff66</color><scale>2.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_4"><IconStyle><color>afffff77</color><scale>2</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_3"><IconStyle><color>bfffff88</color><scale>1.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_2"><IconStyle><color>cfffff99</color><scale>1</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_1"><IconStyle><color>ffffffaa</color><scale>0.4</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> Then you need to have duplicate placemarks for every Geocache, one for each style defined above. Notice how the <TimeSpan> tags are contiguous from one style/placemark to the next. This makes the cool animation. I haven't figured out a way to make GE's animation any slower than it already is. I used a time difference of 2 weeks between each animation frame (placemark). <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-04-12T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-04-26T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_10</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-04-26T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-05-10T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_9</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-05-10T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-05-24T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_8</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-05-24T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-06-07T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_7</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-06-07T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-06-21T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_6</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-06-21T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-07-05T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_5</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-07-05T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-07-19T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_4</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-07-19T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-02T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_3</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-02T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-16T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_2</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-16T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-30T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_1</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-30T00:00:00z</begin><end>2011-12-11T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_1</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> The above code is for just one geocache find. So you need to duplicate it for every find, with the beginning time of the first placemark being the date you found the cache. Doing this all by hand would be incredibly tedious, so I modified a Visual Basic script to make it for me. If some people want to send me an excel file with coordinates and dates I'll make one for you. Especially if you've gone on a lot of road trips Edited July 29, 2011 by benji55545 Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 Alternate view that shows my trips to Hawaii. I wish GE had a flat view so I could animate the entire world in one frame. Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 And a google map I made I know myGME does a similar thing, but I didn't want them grouped together. I also added the date I found it and an excerpt of my log. Quote Link to comment
+sword fern Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) Nice! Please share how you did that! I can see where you went on a long road trip in July 2009 Next time for music you could pick the unofficial anthem of geocaching : U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (I also like "Don't Tell My Wife I'm Out Geocaching" by Rob Pearce) Hah, good call on the U2 song. And yes, I did go on a long road trip. The animation would look a lot cooler if I went on a bunch of long road trips while caching the entire way! Anyway, as you probably know the GE time slider appears when you add valid <TimeSpan> tags to your placemarks. To get the falling/fading dot animation, you need to create a series of placemarks with slightly different icon sizes and opacity values. Their <TimeSpan> should be contiguous but not overlapping. Let me show you some .kml code. First, define the icon sizes and colors. 4fffff11 is the color's hex value plus a number for opacity. <Style id="sh_10"><IconStyle><color>4fffff11</color><scale>5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_9"><IconStyle><color>5fffff22</color><scale>4.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_8"><IconStyle><color>6fffff33</color><scale>4</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_7"><IconStyle><color>7fffff44</color><scale>3.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_6"><IconStyle><color>8fffff55</color><scale>3</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_5"><IconStyle><color>9fffff66</color><scale>2.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_4"><IconStyle><color>afffff77</color><scale>2</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_3"><IconStyle><color>bfffff88</color><scale>1.5</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_2"><IconStyle><color>cfffff99</color><scale>1</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> <Style id="sh_1"><IconStyle><color>ffffffaa</color><scale>0.4</scale><Icon><href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/shaded_dot.png</href></Icon></IconStyle></Style> Then you need to have duplicate placemarks for every Geocache, one for each style defined above. Notice how the <TimeSpan> tags are contiguous from one style/placemark to the next. This makes the cool animation. I haven't figured out a way to make GE's animation any slower than it already is. I used a time difference of 2 weeks between each animation frame (placemark). <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-04-12T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-04-26T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_10</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-04-26T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-05-10T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_9</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-05-10T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-05-24T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_8</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-05-24T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-06-07T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_7</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-06-07T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-06-21T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_6</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-06-21T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-07-05T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_5</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-07-05T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-07-19T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_4</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-07-19T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-02T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_3</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-02T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-16T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_2</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-16T00:00:00z</begin><end>2010-08-30T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_1</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> <Placemark><TimeSpan><begin>2010-08-30T00:00:00z</begin><end>2011-12-11T00:00:00z</end></TimeSpan><styleUrl>#sh_1</styleUrl><Point><coordinates>-84.159283,39.645117,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark> The above code is for just one geocache find. So you need to duplicate it for every find, with the beginning time of the first placemark being the date you found the cache. Doing this all by hand would be incredibly tedious, so I modified a Visual Basic script to make it for me. If some people want to send me an excel file with coordinates and dates I'll make one for you. Especially if you've gone on a lot of road trips My brain hurts even more- Edit: typed bran instead of brain Edited July 29, 2011 by sword fern Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) Thanks for sharing the technique! My map coverage is a lot less interesting than yours, unfortunately (going to try my hand on a GSAK macro to generate this...) Edited July 29, 2011 by Chrysalides Quote Link to comment
+Ike 13 Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 Thanks for sharing the technique! My map coverage is a lot less interesting than yours, unfortunately (going to try my hand on a GSAK macro to generate this...) That would be awesome!!! Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 Thanks for sharing the technique! My map coverage is a lot less interesting than yours, unfortunately (going to try my hand on a GSAK macro to generate this...) That would be awesome!!! The good thing with Google Earth is you can easily zoom in until your close enough to make it interesting A GSAK macro would be awesome. I considered making one myself but you should go ahead because I'd probably never finish it. Let me know if you need any clarifications on the method. And like I said, it doesn't seem to work with newer versions of GE on the mac, but I'm probably just using some deprecated code. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 Let me know if you need any clarifications on the method. Just one for now : do the Placemarks need to be in chronological order when there are multiple caches? Quote Link to comment
benji55545 Posted August 1, 2011 Author Share Posted August 1, 2011 Let me know if you need any clarifications on the method. Just one for now : do the Placemarks need to be in chronological order when there are multiple caches? I haven't tried them out of order, but I don't think it matters as long as the time data tags are attached. Quote Link to comment
+fizzymagic Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 I think that the elevations plot looks best as a line plot. Here is mine: I think that the difficulty and terrain plots would look best as moving averages. I haven't done them for myself yet, but I would have a window width of about 50-100 caches to make it meaningful. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 I'm halfway through the macro, and it is kinda sorta working, but needs major cleaning up. Need to sleep now, have to go to work tomorrow. One thing I found out : the ISO 8601 date format HAS to end with an uppercase "Z" or Google Earth is very unhappy. Quote Link to comment
+Maingray Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 So, Chrysalides , ever get that macro working? Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 You can also use Google Earth in time lapse mode to create a video showing the chronological order your finds are made, displayed on a map. What I haven't figured out is how to make each dot appear then fade away. This video shows the opening of Walmart stores across the U.S. That's sort of the effect I'm looking for. One of the coolest mapping visualizations I've seen was one done that showed changes to OpenStreetMaps in Haiti just after the earthquake a couple of years ago. Before the quake there were only a few major roads mapped in the capital city. A call went out for people to help maps the city to help rescue efforts. Within 24 hours the results were amazing. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 So, Chrysalides , ever get that macro working? I got something working but it was rather rough, and never did polish it up Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.