Defining zones in Urwigo

[+Zero Montana]

We're halfway through 2017 and with me being the trailing-edge guy that I am, I'm just now getting serious about putting out a WIG. Yeah, I know: a whole new level of 'baby steps'

 

But I digress...

 

A question about setting up zones in Urwigo. I've seen tutorial videos that show this being done just by clicking on the map. But that seems pretty dicey as far as accuracy. Looks like a crapshoot, to say the least. I would think visiting the area with a GPSr and doing waypoint averaging would be the way to go. Or am I overthinking this and that doing so would really be some kind of overkill?

 

tnx!

zm

[+Vooruit!]

I guess it depends on how large you want your zones to be. If they're, like, 30 by 30 meters, I guess it doesn't really matter. Either way, you can't go wrong with waypoint averaging.

[+Forest-Ghost]

I think some of the coolest wherigos take you to an interesting location, whether those can be found by satellite imagery or by taking a gps reading really depends on the location and how much is visible in the map. I have setup wherigos using both methods although as a general rule I think it is better to have the zone based upon something actually visited so that you can have a better idea for where the player will be going.

 

Other things to consider: Wherigo cartridges and or Wherigo players tend to not be very accurate. This partially maybe due to the size of the zones and partially to the apps(although I am not fully sure about the second part). For most of the cartridges I have played the compass seldom points in the actual direction of the zone. Also the iPhone and android players have different ways of handling how they interact with a zone. In the android you can choose to navigate to the center of the zone or to the edge of the zone. This means there could be a variety of spots the player will be navigating too if it is set to the latter. I think in the iPhone navigation is set to the edge of the zone although this is not confirmed.

 

Larger zones will give the player a more general area where as if you want them to goto a specific spot and have greater accuracy of zones you may consider using smaller zones and then trigger events "on proximity." Another thing to consider is that the more points there are in a zone, the more memory is being used by the Wherigo player.

[Ranger Fox]

Also, don't forget that the satellite view of a location could be taken at an angle while the coordinates you get in the field would be from a top-down view. There can be some skewing as to what you define as a zone and where it is in the world.

 

The best example I have of this skewing is a multi I placed. The reviewer didn't want to publish the cache because it looked too close to the railroad tracks. Fortunately for me, I had walked on the tracks while scouting locations, so I had their precise coordinates. The reviewer still refused to publish the cache. When I asked what he was using, he said Google's satellite view. When I looked at the satellite imagery, I saw the view was skewed a little. I'm not joking: I drove an hour back out there and took a video of the first stage and walking to the tracks, showing what my GPSr said for the distance. After that, the cache was published.

[+Zero Montana]

OK.. tnx, guys. There won't be but maybe 4 or 5 zones but two of them are going to be small and close together -opposite sides of a residential street. Sounds like getting back out there and doing some averaging will be time well spent.

[+keenonkites]

If there are two zones too close it might happen, even if you have accurate coordinates in the cartrdige, that the player is ending up in the wrong zone due to bad gps signal reception or something similar.

I consider this the bigger problem than correct zone coordinates (down to 1 meter or similar).

You would have to consider this in your cartdridge.

 

One way around this would be having only one of the two nearby zones active, if the game plot allows this.

 

Cheers

Patrik