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Viewing caches on google earth


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Are you talking all caches you have yet to log "not found" on, or are you talking just caches you have attempted and logged a "did not find" log?

 

If the former, you should be able to use GSAK to just pull all unfound caches within a certain radius, then use the Google Earth macro to display the database in GE.

 

If the latter, you would still be able to use GSAK, but you may have to pull all the unfound caches in your area, then use a GSAK search for logs by you to filter down to just your DNFs before you used the Google Earth macro.

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My question pertains to Google Earth on my computer. When I open GE there is an option in "places" that allows one to see geocaches directly in GE. It shows ALL. My question, is there a way to manage that display to correlate it to caches I have not yet found. This would greatly reduce the clutter on the map.

 

I do not use GSAK and have not been able to master it in the past when I did attempt to use it.

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Hopefully someone else can answer, then.

 

I don't find GSAK that hard. Download pocket query, open in GSAK, and search. Now that it can link to geocaching.com directly, often you can even skip step one. But I know it's not for everyone, so if you find another way that works better for you, then by all means, go forth and do good things.

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As previously suggested, get a *.gpx pocket query (or queries) of the unfound caches in your area(s) of interest and open it (them) up in GE. GE can handle *.gpx files just fine.

I have no idea what sort of extension or file you're already using to see caches in GE, but doing it yourself allows you to select whatever you want in your queries for display in GE.

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I have no idea what sort of extension or file you're already using to see caches in GE, but doing it yourself allows you to select whatever you want in your queries for display in GE.

It sounds like the OP is using the Geocaching Google Earth Viewer. If that's the case, there's no way that I'm aware of to limit the display to only caches you haven't found. In fact, I don't think the plug-in has any options

 

I'll add my vote for GSAK. Take the time to learn how to use it and you won't be sorry.

 

--Larry

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Also, the Google Earth Viewer fuzzs the location. It is best only for getting an idea of what is in the area. From the GS page regarding the viewer.

 

"Please Note: The coordinates used in Google Earth are only an approximation and can be up to 100 ft from the actual location. The Geocaching Google Earth feature is a tool for viewing geocaches in a general location. Do not use the coordinates in Google Earth for finding or placing geocaches."

 

Skye.

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Also, the Google Earth Viewer fuzzs the location. It is best only for getting an idea of what is in the area. From the GS page regarding the viewer.

 

"Please Note: The coordinates used in Google Earth are only an approximation and can be up to 100 ft from the actual location. The Geocaching Google Earth feature is a tool for viewing geocaches in a general location. Do not use the coordinates in Google Earth for finding or placing geocaches."

 

Skye.

 

Yes I accept that point. My reason for viewing on Google earth is to see parking access and general terrain features and plot a route. It just would have been a lot easier to be able to clear those caches i have already found from the screen.

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My reason for viewing on Google earth is to see parking access and general terrain features and plot a route. It just would have been a lot easier to be able to clear those caches i have already found from the screen.

I just do my planning using the geocaching.com map with the space view or terrain views turned on and found caches turned off. Sometimes I pull up another more versatile map on the side, but since by that time I'm looking at something specific, it's not important that that map doesn't have the caches on it.

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Also, the Google Earth Viewer fuzzs the location. It is best only for getting an idea of what is in the area. From the GS page regarding the viewer.

 

"Please Note: The coordinates used in Google Earth are only an approximation and can be up to 100 ft from the actual location. The Geocaching Google Earth feature is a tool for viewing geocaches in a general location. Do not use the coordinates in Google Earth for finding or placing geocaches."

 

Skye.

 

Yes I accept that point. My reason for viewing on Google earth is to see parking access and general terrain features and plot a route. It just would have been a lot easier to be able to clear those caches i have already found from the screen.

 

I have used Google Earth to plan a route, and got bitten a couple of times. Because of the deliberate inaccuracy, Google Earth showed a cache on the opposite side of a river. And, it was fifty miles between bridges. In another case, it put me at the bottom of a cliff, when the cache was meant to be reached from the top. Twenty miles driving to find a way to get to a parking place at the top of the cliff.

 

So, I use GSAK (with the Google Map macro) for route planning, and upload the caches into a TomTom for driving directions. I see only the caches I am interested in. If I suspect that the TomTom will have trouble getting me to the right place, I add a Parking Child Waypoint to the cache in GSAK before I update the TomTom.

 

Skye.

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Also, the Google Earth Viewer fuzzs the location. It is best only for getting an idea of what is in the area. From the GS page regarding the viewer.

 

"Please Note: The coordinates used in Google Earth are only an approximation and can be up to 100 ft from the actual location. The Geocaching Google Earth feature is a tool for viewing geocaches in a general location. Do not use the coordinates in Google Earth for finding or placing geocaches."

 

Skye.

 

Yes I accept that point. My reason for viewing on Google earth is to see parking access and general terrain features and plot a route. It just would have been a lot easier to be able to clear those caches i have already found from the screen.

Roger that. I use the map that appears within GSAK for each cache as it is selected to obtain parking, path, trail or whatever other access information I can obtain. However, there are times when aerial views are better than satellite, so once in a while, I'll fire up Bing to get that kind of view to clarify things a bit. For those that don't use Bing, it's certainly easy enough to load an entire PQ into Google Earth (the app) and review all of the access information that way, too, and there, the coordinates are NOT 'fuzzed'. Alignment is good enough here that if the coordinates are good, you know which tree to search.
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For those that don't use Bing, it's certainly easy enough to load an entire PQ into Google Earth (the app) and review all of the access information that way, too, and there, the coordinates are NOT 'fuzzed'. Alignment is good enough here that if the coordinates are good, you know which tree to search.

 

You have brought up an interesting point.

 

Would you explain in a bit more detail how i can get my PQ information onto my I phone and then connected to Google earth.I use PQs on my Garmin450 so the generation knowledge is there.

 

While my original question was with respect to the computer this would be a advantage while in the field.

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....

Would you explain in a bit more detail how i can get my PQ information onto my I phone and then connected to Google earth.I use PQs on my Garmin450 so the generation knowledge is there.

 

While my original question was with respect to the computer this would be a advantage while in the field.

 

Most, if not all of the geocaching apps for the phone will support downloading PQ's to the phone app for offline use. The phone apps will allow you to view the caches and waypoints on Google or Apple maps on your phone. With the Groundspeak Geocaching app, you run a PQ as usual on the web site. When it's ready for download, it will show up in the phone app and you can download it directly to your phone. And then display the caches on the map.

 

Although I do 99.99% of my navigation with a Garmin 64s, I consider having a phone app a necessity as well. They really complement each other.

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Most, if not all of the geocaching apps for the phone will support downloading PQ's to the phone app for offline use. The phone apps will allow you to view the caches and waypoints on Google or Apple maps on your phone. With the Groundspeak Geocaching app, you run a PQ as usual on the web site. When it's ready for download, it will show up in the phone app and you can download it directly to your phone. And then display the caches on the map.

 

Although I do 99.99% of my navigation with a Garmin 64s, I consider having a phone app a necessity as well. They really complement each other.

 

Yes I can view caches via Google Earth on my phone but my question is how do I limit the caches I see to those in the PQ? That would exclude those caches I am not interested in and hopefully display a larger area of caches than the Geocache search function does.

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You have brought up an interesting point.

 

Would you explain in a bit more detail how i can get my PQ information onto my I phone and then connected to Google earth.I use PQs on my Garmin450 so the generation knowledge is there.

 

While my original question was with respect to the computer this would be a advantage while in the field.

I have no idea what the UI looks like for GE on an iPhone... not an iPhone guy. I didn't know that GE even had a version of their app that would run on an iPhone. If it is possible to use a GE iPhone app to load a local file, that local file would need to be your PQ.
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