Add GC-code to the "Your Geocaching details"-page

[+leuvies]

While Geocaching, I've taken more than 15000 photos already and the number keeps climbing. In the post-processing I like to add the GC-code of the geocache we visited to that photo.

 

Since I'd rather be out Geocaching than post-processing my photos it tends to take a while until I get to them. But when I do, I just look at the date the picture has been taken and use the "Your Geocaching details"-page ( https://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx ) to look up the caches I did in the order I did them in (that part's important too, since on some days we've visited dozens of geocaches and it's hard to look at a photo and tell from memory to which cache it belongs ).

 

At the moment I have to click open each cache page, and then I can copy the GC-code from the cache page, or as I do now, I open them all, close them and they're on the top of my Recently Viewed Caches-list. When I click 'view all', this page also includes the GC-code.

 

Would it be possible to include the GC-code in the day-by-day history?

[+Auld Pharrrt]

Sorry, can't help with that one, but what if you include the GC number when taking the photograph?

Either a small piece of paper (maybe take a second picture to include the paper) or include your GPS display?

[+MartyBartfast]

Look at the Geocaches tab of your public profile here https://www.geocaching.com/profile/ and you can get a list of your finds, with dates, names, and GC codes, e.g. https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=leuvies

[+noncentric]

Another option would be adding the GC-code to the photo when it's taken.

 

If using a smartphone to take pictures, then there should be a "Rename" or similar option for the photo. The name could then be changed to the GC code.

I'm not sure this option works as well if the photos are taken with a digital camera though.

[+leuvies]

Thanks for thinking along here

 

Sorry, can't help with that one, but what if you include the GC number when taking the photograph?

Either a small piece of paper (maybe take a second picture to include the paper) or include your GPS display?

This is a suitable workaround, a bit like how I always take a picture of my feet before and after I shoot a panorama. The feet photos indicate where the pano begins and ends. Might be a bit difficult technically to get a readable shot of the GC-code, but I'll look into that.

 

Look at the Geocaches tab of your public profile here https://www.geocaching.com/profile/ and you can get a list of your finds, with dates, names, and GC codes, e.g. https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=leuvies

Yeah, I saw that one but the lack of date selection makes it a needle in a haystack. I have 280 pages of finds there.

 

Another option would be adding the GC-code to the photo when it's taken.

 

If using a smartphone to take pictures, then there should be a "Rename" or similar option for the photo. The name could then be changed to the GC code.

I'm not sure this option works as well if the photos are taken with a digital camera though.

 

Smartphone photos are a last resort for me But it's an added element, my wife does take a lot of smartphone photo's and from time to time I get photos from other people who I went caching with. I always try to give those the same treatment, to keep it a little organized. I can select a naming scheme on my dslr but that would take 5 minutes to set up for each cache.

[+thomfre]

I don't know what kind of camera you use, but maybe you can add a GPSr to it?

 

I have a GPSr attached to my Canon DSLR, which geotags all my photos. I can then just look up the coordinates to see which cache the photo is taken at.

[+Hynr]

It is probably possible to get something put together even if you do not have a camera with an integrated GPS receiver feature. Generally all modern GPRs units have a track log feature. You may need to set the option in the GPSr to save those. You can load those into the software that comes with your GPSr. Each point that is in the track log has a time-stamp to at least the nearest second.

 

The files that are your photos in the camera will also have time-stamps, also to the nearest second. So you would find the point in the tracklog that is closest in time to the file timestamp. For this to work accurately, you need to set the date and time in the camera to be exactly as on your GPSr.

 

For each of your found goecaches find the point in the tracklog that is nearest to those coordinates.

 

I cannot imagine even considering to do something like this without automation software. I would certainly get GSAK involved to avoid having to go to each web page. I vaguely recall that someone did some macro programming for GSAK to do this sort of processing (using the track-log to match things up). So if you feel that using GSAK might be an option for you, then post at the GSAK forums. Here is a link that might show you the direction this might take: http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=16480&st=0entry204898

If your photos do have coordinates in their EXIF info (i.e. if you are taking the photos with a GPR enabled device such one of the Garmin units with a camera feature) then this macro probably does what you are asking.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Hynr

[+leuvies]

It is probably possible to get something put together even if you do not have a camera with an integrated GPS receiver feature. Generally all modern GPRs units have a track log feature. You may need to set the option in the GPSr to save those. You can load those into the software that comes with your GPSr. Each point that is in the track log has a time-stamp to at least the nearest second.

 

The files that are your photos in the camera will also have time-stamps, also to the nearest second. So you would find the point in the tracklog that is closest in time to the file timestamp. For this to work accurately, you need to set the date and time in the camera to be exactly as on your GPSr.

 

For each of your found goecaches find the point in the tracklog that is nearest to those coordinates.

 

I cannot imagine even considering to do something like this without automation software. I would certainly get GSAK involved to avoid having to go to each web page. I vaguely recall that someone did some macro programming for GSAK to do this sort of processing (using the track-log to match things up). So if you feel that using GSAK might be an option for you, then post at the GSAK forums. Here is a link that might show you the direction this might take: http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=16480&st=0entry204898

If your photos do have coordinates in their EXIF info (i.e. if you are taking the photos with a GPR enabled device such one of the Garmin units with a camera feature) then this macro probably does what you are asking.

 

Yes, I always match the tracklog to the photos. I have Exiftool set up for that. I also wrote a batch file a few years ago which matches the timestamp of the photo's taken attribute to the nearest cache point based on the geocache_visits.txt. This works well for a few caches on a day, but gets messed up once you have multi caches where you find traditionals along the trail, or where you first do a few traditionals and then a longer multi route.

 

I like the idea of the GSAK-macro, I'm familiar with it, wrote a couple of macros myself to automate tasks. But while the macro you pointed to is very nice, it's also very prone to failure with caches with unknown waypoints.

 

You did get me thinking in another direction, also a bit of a hassle but I can get GSAK to cough up a list of caches based on GC code, which I can extract by date from the GC-visits archive. I can make it output the fields I want by getting the cache data through the GC api.

 

On another note, is there a specific reason the "my finds" pocket query doesn't output the correct timestamp that a find was logged? Even when logging on the website, there should be a timestamp when I clicked 'submit'.

[+MartyBartfast]

 

Look at the Geocaches tab of your public profile here https://www.geocaching.com/profile/ and you can get a list of your finds, with dates, names, and GC codes, e.g. https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=leuvies

Yeah, I saw that one but the lack of date selection makes it a needle in a haystack. I have 280 pages of finds there.

 

 

OK so use the new search page https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?f=1 and scroll down to the find date you're interested in.

[+Hynr]

Yes, I always match the tracklog to the photos. I have Exiftool set up for that. I also wrote a batch file a few years ago which matches the timestamp of the photo's taken attribute to the nearest cache point based on the geocache_visits.txt. This works well for a few caches on a day, but gets messed up once you have multi caches where you find traditionals along the trail, or where you first do a few traditionals and then a longer multi route.

 

I like the idea of the GSAK-macro, I'm familiar with it, wrote a couple of macros myself to automate tasks. But while the macro you pointed to is very nice, it's also very prone to failure with caches with unknown waypoints.

The only way that could be made to work is if you go back after you found puzzles and multi-caches and entered the final locations into the database as corrected coordinates.

 

You did get me thinking in another direction, also a bit of a hassle but I can get GSAK to cough up a list of caches based on GC code, which I can extract by date from the GC-visits archive. I can make it output the fields I want by getting the cache data through the GC api.

It seems to me that you will have an ongoing hassle regardless of how you do it. But if your collection is of value to you, then perhaps it is worth it. In any case, you could probably maintain a Found database with GSAK and regularly update it by loading your My Finds PQ into that. You can refresh those records to get the API version of data if you want that. There is a corrected coordinates feature which would help with the puzzles and multies. Matching images to caches could be done with a macro which offers you all potentially relevant photos to attach to the record. GSAK lets you create and maintain custom fields and you could store the image file name there; alternately in the usernote which has the ability to have images within notes. If you have macro writing experience, then this would seem to be entirely feasible. You just have to build the system and maintain it.

 

On another note, is there a specific reason the "my finds" pocket query doesn't output the correct timestamp that a find was logged? Even when logging on the website, there should be a timestamp when I clicked 'submit'.

The answer is "yes". The reasons are rather complicated and I don't recall the details. You might want to look at this page

http://gsak.net/help/hs23810.htm

and scroll down to g_GcDate() and look at the text there. If there is a better way to find the absolute correct time that a log was generated, then I do not know what that is.

You might also note that the API delivers two dates for a log, one is the date that represents the date when the cache was found and the other is the time-stamp when the log was put into the logs database in Seattle. The former is what is sent in the PQ because that is what has traditionally been important to folks and that has no useful time information anyway. The latter would be reasonably accurate if it were not for the fact that there were programming errors along the way so that some of those time-stamps are off. Then you start factoring in issues with time-zones and daylight-savings-time and it will make your head spin.

[+dprovan]

You might also note that the API delivers two dates for a log, one is the date that represents the date when the cache was found and the other is the time-stamp when the log was put into the logs database in Seattle. The former is what is sent in the PQ because that is what has traditionally been important to folks and that has no useful time information anyway. The latter would be reasonably accurate if it were not for the fact that there were programming errors along the way so that some of those time-stamps are off. Then you start factoring in issues with time-zones and daylight-savings-time and it will make your head spin.

That, and the fact that the time when I log the find has nothing to do with when I actually found the cache, of course.

[+leuvies]

OK so use the new search page https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?f=1 and scroll down to the find date you're interested in.

While this page has all the info I need in one place, this also messes up the order in which I found and logged the caches

 

It seems to me that you will have an ongoing hassle regardless of how you do it. But if your collection is of value to you, then perhaps it is worth it. In any case, you could probably maintain a Found database with GSAK and regularly update it by loading your My Finds PQ into that. You can refresh those records to get the API version of data if you want that. There is a corrected coordinates feature which would help with the puzzles and multies. Matching images to caches could be done with a macro which offers you all potentially relevant photos to attach to the record. GSAK lets you create and maintain custom fields and you could store the image file name there; alternately in the usernote which has the ability to have images within notes. If you have macro writing experience, then this would seem to be entirely feasible. You just have to build the system and maintain it.

It is a hassle, that's why I do it manually. But I've kept it up for more than 5 years now, and it makes it really easy to look something up.

 

You might also note that the API delivers two dates for a log, one is the date that represents the date when the cache was found and the other is the time-stamp when the log was put into the logs database in Seattle. The former is what is sent in the PQ because that is what has traditionally been important to folks and that has no useful time information anyway. The latter would be reasonably accurate if it were not for the fact that there were programming errors along the way so that some of those time-stamps are off. Then you start factoring in issues with time-zones and daylight-savings-time and it will make your head spin.

That, and the fact that the time when I log the find has nothing to do with when I actually found the cache, of course.

 

When I submit a log from GSAK it includes the date and time as registered in the txt file on the Garmin. I would suspect the same happens when importing that file directly on GC. It appears those dates don't get stored then, that's a shame.

[+MartyBartfast]

If I was doing what you're trying to do I would forget about using the website and GSAK completely. All the information you need is on your GPS, if it's a Garmin it will be in a file called geocache_visits.txt which when you have it plugged into your PC will be in the Garmin folder, it looks something like this:

 

GC107YK,2008-09-27T20:29Z,Didn't find it,"Missing"

GC10BYQ,2008-09-27T20:45Z,Found it,"This was an easy find"

GC1FX1A,2008-09-27T21:04Z,Didn't find it,"Looked everywhere but couldn't see it"

GC13F40,2008-09-27T21:57Z,Found it,"TFTC"

GC1FQ60,2008-09-27T22:18Z,Found it,"TFTC"

 

Note the date/time is in UTC time, not your local time so you would have to either convert it or account for it by adding/taking time off, or you could set your camera to UTC too so the timestamp on your camera pictures will be the same as the timestamp of the finds. If you're up for a bit of code writing it wouldn't be difficult to write a script which would automatically tag your photos for you, somebody might have already done it so it would be worth doing a google search.