Polygon Pocket Queries

[+BigBadger & Li'l SG]

Polygonal Pocket queries are available in so many other Geocaching applications, why oh why can't we get them on this premier and wonderous website? Being able to get many caches at once is the basis feature of all premium membership! It can be accomplished in many ways, and not just by drawing a ploygon, though that would be the most user friendly method.

 

Radius PQ's overlap and are a pain in the a** to organize a largely saturated grouping of geographical areas.

 

GSAK has it right. We can organize and plot areas so easily. Geocaching.com seems to be adding all sorts of features that I never use including those taken right from GSAK but still nothing to make PQ's easier. Yes, I use GSAK but I obviously still wish to make my PQ's more efficient.

 

Please please please please please......... :D :D :D

 

[jholly]

That would be a nice addition, but probably will not see the light of day. The best option is GSAK GetGeocaches with a rectangular search area.

[AZcachemeister]

The best option is GSAK GetGeocaches with a rectangular search area.

 

I've used that, and it is AWESOME...excellent for when you are on vacation and you don't want to fiddle around with your PQs.

[+BigBadger & Li'l SG]

The best option is GSAK GetGeocaches with a rectangular search area.

 

I've used that, and it is AWESOME...excellent for when you are on vacation and you don't want to fiddle around with your PQs.

 

Yup it's great. So why won't GC.com do it? Bounding boxes are a perfect alternate to Radius PQ's. Can't imagine it's using any more computer resources than allowing GSAK to do it.

[+Mitragorz]

I'm very much in favor of this idea. In fact, I've made a very similar suggestion:

 

Click-And-Drag on Map

 

My idea was that you should be able to click and drag to draw a box on the map, so you could add numerous caches at once. There are some example pictures in that link.

 

I think something like this would be more convenient than running a PQ, and especially clicking each individual cache!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I'm very much in favor of this idea. In fact, I've made a very similar suggestion:

 

Click-And-Drag on Map

 

My idea was that you should be able to click and drag to draw a box on the map, so you could add numerous caches at once. There are some example pictures in that link.

 

I think something like this would be more convenient than running a PQ, and especially clicking each individual cache!

 

I commented in that thread and I think that you presented the feature suggestion really well. I think a polygon or multiple bounding box selection mechanism would be really useful, especially when traveling. I recent went on a trip where I visited and geocached in three different countries. Because the amount of free time I had in two of them was very limited there was only a fairly small area in each country where I could reasonably expect to visit. In the end, I used the Save as a Pocket Query feature from the existing map to create thee separate PQs, then had to merge the results using GSAK.

 

I can't really see implementing a features like this without generating a PQ, or at least generating a list (like a bookmark) that could be used to generate the PQ. Changing the PQ mechanism such that it can handle multiple regions is likely quite be a pretty significant rewrite, but using a multiple polygons or bounding box to create a list, which can be used to generate a single PQ might be easier to implement.

 

The same issue (not an objection) that I had with the multiple bounding box suggestion also applies to a Polygon pocket query suggestion. That is that the mapping page is using a commercial API to provide the functionality we get on the mapping page. If the API doesn't support drawing bounding boxes or polygons it's very unlikely that it's going to get implemented unless they find another API.

[jholly]

I'm very much in favor of this idea. In fact, I've made a very similar suggestion:

 

Click-And-Drag on Map

 

My idea was that you should be able to click and drag to draw a box on the map, so you could add numerous caches at once. There are some example pictures in that link.

 

I think something like this would be more convenient than running a PQ, and especially clicking each individual cache!

 

The same issue (not an objection) that I had with the multiple bounding box suggestion also applies to a Polygon pocket query suggestion. That is that the mapping page is using a commercial API to provide the functionality we get on the mapping page. If the API doesn't support drawing bounding boxes or polygons it's very unlikely that it's going to get implemented unless they find another API.

 

Some how lignumaqua figured out how to use the Google api's to create the polygon tool for searches and the radius and bounding map tool for GSAK's Getgeocache. The question is will Groundspeak do something along those lines or are they again going to rely on the third party solution.

Edited October 10, 2012 by jholly

[+GeePa]

I think this is a good idea and I use polygon filter in GSAK all the time and love them. However, I think that there are some considerations no one has mentioned which impact this being implemented on GC.com.

 

First is how to limit the number to 1000 caches. If using a regular shaped polygon (e.g. circle, square, hexagon, octagon, etc) then you can just give the first 1000 caches closest to the center of that polygon. For an irregular polygon that can be any odd shape then there is no good way to figure what those 1000 caches are.

 

Second is that the current system gives a maximum radius you can query (100 miles I think?). This is harder to do with an irregular polygon. In a regular polygon, you can define this distance as the distance from the center of the polygon. Again, since an irregularly shaped polygon has no easily defined center then it would be hard to define this limit.

 

I guess in a nutshell, the current system of PQs relies to some degree on having a center point defined. I suppose that in the polygon system you could ask the user to pick a point within the user defined polygon to consider the 'center'.

 

Thoughts?

[+frinklabs]

I think this is a good idea and I use polygon filter in GSAK all the time and love them. However, I think that there are some considerations no one has mentioned which impact this being implemented on GC.com.

 

First is how to limit the number to 1000 caches. If using a regular shaped polygon (e.g. circle, square, hexagon, octagon, etc) then you can just give the first 1000 caches closest to the center of that polygon. For an irregular polygon that can be any odd shape then there is no good way to figure what those 1000 caches are.

 

Second is that the current system gives a maximum radius you can query (100 miles I think?). This is harder to do with an irregular polygon. In a regular polygon, you can define this distance as the distance from the center of the polygon. Again, since an irregularly shaped polygon has no easily defined center then it would be hard to define this limit.

 

I guess in a nutshell, the current system of PQs relies to some degree on having a center point defined. I suppose that in the polygon system you could ask the user to pick a point within the user defined polygon to consider the 'center'.

 

Thoughts?

 

Throw some scary-looking math at it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid#Centroid_of_polygon

[+GeePa]

I think this is a good idea and I use polygon filter in GSAK all the time and love them. However, I think that there are some considerations no one has mentioned which impact this being implemented on GC.com.

 

First is how to limit the number to 1000 caches. If using a regular shaped polygon (e.g. circle, square, hexagon, octagon, etc) then you can just give the first 1000 caches closest to the center of that polygon. For an irregular polygon that can be any odd shape then there is no good way to figure what those 1000 caches are.

 

Second is that the current system gives a maximum radius you can query (100 miles I think?). This is harder to do with an irregular polygon. In a regular polygon, you can define this distance as the distance from the center of the polygon. Again, since an irregularly shaped polygon has no easily defined center then it would be hard to define this limit.

 

I guess in a nutshell, the current system of PQs relies to some degree on having a center point defined. I suppose that in the polygon system you could ask the user to pick a point within the user defined polygon to consider the 'center'.

 

Thoughts?

 

Throw some scary-looking math at it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid#Centroid_of_polygon

 

Nice! . I bet this gets even more scary when you consider that the earth is not flat and the coordinate system is not square.

 

Edit: wanted to add that I don't think that the centroid of an irregular polygon actually has to be within the polygon itself. Still gives a point of reference, but one that could be confusing.

Edited October 14, 2012 by GeePa

[AZcachemeister]

 

First is how to limit the number to 1000 caches.

 

Simple.

If the caches inside the polygon >1000, you get an error message, and no results are returned.

Or, perhaps the caches could be ordered by date placed and those over the 1000 limit excluded.

Or, the area of the allowed polygon could be limited so that squeezing in more than 1000 caches would not be possible.

[+GeePa]

If the caches inside the polygon >1000, you get an error message, and no results are returned.

That's a thought, but I would hate to have PQs that worked one day but failed the next because someone hid some new caches.

 

Or, perhaps the caches could be ordered by date placed and those over the 1000 limit excluded.

I like this one because you could use the same polygon for several PQs where you filter for different placed date ranges (as I do currently).

 

Or, the area of the allowed polygon could be limited so that squeezing in more than 1000 caches would not be possible.

What may be <1000 one day may not be in the future so this does not seem to be easy to enforce.