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Realtime New Zealand graphical cache page.

nandor

By nandor
in New Zealand

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nandor

+nandor

Posted
Posted

Hi people,

 

I've recently put together a graphical cache page (Similar in style to Buxleys) just for us New Zealand geocachers. The URL is www.nzcaches.tk

 

The site is powered by an application I've written which runs 24/7 as a background task on my work computer maintaining a current database of NZ caches. The site updates 5 times daily at midnight, 7am, noon, 5pm and 8pm.

 

I'd like to say a particular thanks to Nick (BigNick) for his input and help with the maps - I'm sure you'll agree they look fantastic.

 

Enjoy!

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BigNick

+BigNick

Posted
Posted

I must admit that when Nandor mentioned the idea of a NZ Buxley site I was not convinced about replicating something that already existed, but when I saw the initial beta I knew he was on to a winner - the closeups of the areas that appear as densely populated blobs on the NZ view is a stroke of genius.

 

I now have a new default 'home' page in Mozilla.

 

Thanks for all the work Nandor.

 

Cheers

Nick.

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kiwitonita

kiwitonita

Posted
Posted

Hi Nandor, yes, that's exactly what it is!

 

The story with this photo is a B grade Hong Kong film crew used the Manapouri Power Station in the late 80's as a set one weekend while I was

on shift. Rather cool effects. This is bullet's hitting G4 and setting it alight - they had metal trays of fireworks type powder sitting on the generator edge and set off electrically. They used local & NZ extras including a couple of stunning blondes of course. icon_cool.gif The film was called "Aces Go Places" ...cringe...

 

I've just posted a CD of higher resolution pics from that weekend plus other Station stuff to Neill, as he was asking too. Maybe Neill could forward it to you? Have just received the new memory batteries from Neill so will report how the replacement goes.

 

Cheerio for now - Tony

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The Artful Dodger

The Artful Dodger

Posted
Posted

I am visiting New Zealand and Sydney for a holiday for the month of December and its great to see some great caches around. I'll have to look for a few while I am there.

 

Naturally I will be placing a few caches of my own for you guys to seek.

 

By the way, I mentioned to Ed (Buxley) about this great map and he thinks it looks fantastic!

 

He promised to create a few zoom levels of crowded cache areas in Aus/NZ once he has a moment on his schedule.

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kiwitonita

kiwitonita

Posted
Posted

It's certainly a clever site! All they need now is a "visit all caches" option.

 

I found it quite easy in the end to download all caches to EasyGPS, from there to the GPS & from there to Topomap Pro.

 

A bonus as a subscribing member is the customised search thing so it's easy to get all new caches emailed to me in EasyGPS format for the past week etc. This makes it easy to keep the Topo file up to date, ready for the summer hols 'cache round-up. icon_biggrin.gif

 

Cheerio for now - Tony

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nandor

+nandor

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hi people - I've been rather busy recently (With non-geocaching stuff icon_frown.gif ) but I have managed to switch on a rather handy function with the nzcaches.tk site - you can now download all the NZ geocaches in EasyGPS .loc or OziExplorer .wpt format. I've even implemented a cool little function which manages to squeeze the geocache names down to 6 characters - you'll notice it does a better with some caches than with others!

 

It is my endeavour to split these data files into areas - maybe just South Island and North Island, but time is very scarse at the moment ... Ahhh - features, everyone want features! Don't worry, I'll look into getting those highways on the maps soon - I'm moving to Sweden in March ... If someone wants to draw them on themselves, I can send them the original bitmaps and they can have a go from there ...

 

In the meantime, enjoy the new data feature icon_smile.gif

 

Tim

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ssarc

+ssarc

Posted
Posted

Is there any way to add a feature that will show what caches travel bugs are in (without going through each lot of cache pages)

 

What I was thinking- the older caches have blue dots, the new ones have red dots, well is it possible that when a travel bug is placed in a cache the cache as seen on nandors cool site would be shown as a different colour ie yellow.

 

Its just an idea, I have no idea at all on computer programming so it may not even be possible to do icon_confused.gif

 

Food for thought anyway icon_smile.gif

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BigNick

+BigNick

Posted
Posted

I suspect that the machine that builds the map pages at Nandor's work may have been shutdown over the Xmas break - I have looked at the access log for the updates (the maps are hosted on my server) and the program has not tried to connect since Dec 22 07:00:16am (although as usual, lots of script kiddies trying anonymous access!)

 

I will fire off an email to Nandor, but I think he is on holiday, so he may not be able to do much until he is back.

 

Cheers

Nick.

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nandor

+nandor

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Yep - something's happened at work and it looks like the updates have stopped coming through! Bugger. I'm on the West Coast at the moment and there's not a lot I can do from here ... I'll be up in Nelson next week (Plan to nab some more geocaches) and back in ChCh the week after. I'll sort the problem out as soon as I get back - sorry people!

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nandor

+nandor

Posted
  • Author
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Steve & Ruth:

Is there any way to add a feature that will show what caches travel bugs are in (without going through each lot of cache pages)

 

What I was thinking- the older caches have blue dots, the new ones have red dots, well is it possible that when a travel bug is placed in a cache the cache as seen on nandors cool site would be shown as a different colour ie yellow.

 

Its just an idea, I have no idea at all on computer programming so it may not even be possible to do icon_confused.gif

 

Food for thought anyway icon_smile.gif

 

Hi guys - great idea - would be rather handy to know where the travel bugs are. Just off the top of my head, I can't think of any "Geocaching.com-friendly" way of getting that information out.

 

The webmaster of geocaching.com doesn't like automated apps crawling through the site looking for little bits of information changing 'cause it costs him too much $$$ in wasted traffic. The way my app works at the moment is very friendly, because it appends caches to a database kept on my computer.

 

Perhaps, if anyone could find one page at geocaching.com which displayed all the New Zealand travel bugs then that could be a go ...

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

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wlswat

wlswat

Posted
Posted

Hi there.

Inspired by the work at www.nzcaches.tk I thought I should do my bit for the nz geocaching community.

 

But dont take this the wrong way. its not meant to be a psuedo-spoiler-thingee, well, not really.

 

I've added an 'x' to the maps on:

http://www.geosoft.co.nz/

for each cache in NZ.

 

Ive never made it to a cache yet. But I am keen to do a Dunedin one this w/e.

 

So not having done one, I would appreciate anyones advice on how close I've managed to get the coordinate conversion. I dont have a GPS, yet, so I'm keen to know if the x's are showing up in approximately the right places.

 

Cheers,

Simon.

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BigNick

+BigNick

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by wlswat:

So not having done one, I would appreciate anyones advice on how close I've managed to get the coordinate conversion. I don't have a GPS, yet, so I'm keen to know if the x's are showing up in approximately the right places.

They look fine to my eyes, well done (don't you hate the WGS84->NZMG conversions, what formula do you use?)

What is up with map data - poor old Quail Island is missing (I am not nasty enough to put a cache on a buoy (though that gives me an idea Mwhahaha))

 

Cheers

Nick

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BrentC & Pam

+BrentC & Pam

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by wlswat:

 

I've added an 'x' to the maps on:

http://www.geosoft.co.nz/

for each cache in NZ.

 

Cheers,

Simon.

 

icon_biggrin.gif Very good icon_biggrin.gif

 

Any way of adding better zoom control

 

To see all of Christchurch, you have to zoom out to 128km - about 5 zoom outs - pick a cache mark - then another 5 zoom ins to about 8km to get the pan close enough to show the X on the lower map.

 

Ciao,

Brent

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Nemesis

Nemesis

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by wlswat:

...Ive never made it to a cache yet. But I am keen to do a Dunedin one this w/e....I would appreciate anyones advice on how close I've managed to get the coordinate conversion. I dont have a GPS, yet, so I'm keen to know if the x's are showing up in approximately the right places.

 

Welcome to Geocaching! It's great to have someone else that is interested in Dunedin. icon_smile.gif

 

I had a quick look at your map for my Botanical Gardens cache, it seems spot on.

 

You will have a great deal of trouble finding most caches without an GPSR, but, you can pick one up cheaply if you shop around.

 

Good luck in finding a cache this weekend, it's a pity about the rain.

 

Cheers,

Donovan.

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