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el10t

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Sorry for being a bit controversial, but...

 

On this thread Jeremy shows off the new map server he has implemented for the site. Unfortunately it currently only covers the US and it looks like other countries are going to be some time down the road, if ever at all.

 

I can't help feeling that charter members outside the US are subsidising the best features for the US only. Apart from the maps we still haven't got benchmarks for the UK despite providing the information as required.

 

Anyone else feel the same? I'm happy to be shouted down. icon_smile.gif

 

Rich

mobilis in mobili

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quote:
Originally posted by el10t:

I can't help feeling that charter members outside the US are subsidising the best features for the US only. Apart from the maps we still haven't got benchmarks for the UK despite providing the information as required.

 

Anyone else feel the same? I'm happy to be shouted down. icon_smile.gif


I think you are right. Non-US charter membership should be cheaper as we get far less features and facilites.

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We have benchmarks - well trigpoints now.

 

It took me so much time and effort to get it to its current limited state of functionality I almost hope it never gets implemented on gc.com.

 

I sort of agree with the general point though. I'm not going to ask for my money back because I viewed it as a donation to keep the site running, but I think renewals next year should be cheaper for non-USA people.

 

-------

jeremyp

The second ten million caches were the worst too.

http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

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If only we were allowed to webscrape and cache the maps on streetmap.co.uk, I could have a map server running in a few weeks. If anyone out there has a licence to redistribute decent quality maps on the web, I'd be happy to write the software...

 

It does seem that UK geocaching is being a bit sidelined on geocaching.com. Some time ago, I sent Jeremy the code to provide OSGB grid references + links to streetmap and offered to give coding time to help implement it, but nothing happened. A similar thing seems to have happened for OS trig points. I don't much like writing 'bolt-ons' which sit 'on top of' geocaching.com; I'd far rather be involved with improving the main site so that we can keep everything in one place. That way, everyone will benefit. But the development team seems to want to stay small, and only concentrate on features for the US audience. icon_frown.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by jeremyp:

We have benchmarks - well trigpoints now.

 

It took me so much time and effort to get it to its current limited state of functionality I almost hope it never gets implemented on gc.com.


 

And very good they are too. I think I was really making a general point about features of the site for those outside the US. The maps and benchmarks are just examples of things we are missing out on.

 

Its only because of the dedication of the likes of Teasle, jeremyp, Mark the Cat, Chris and anyone else who has added to Gecaching functionality that we outside the US get these highly useful tools. And these volunteers don't get any of the charter membership donations.

 

Overall, it seems to me that expansion of existing features to cover places outside the US is being given a much lower priority that the development of new features covering only the US.

 

Rich

mobilis in mobili

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quote:
Originally posted by el10t:

Overall, it seems to me that expansion of existing features to cover places outside the US is being given a much lower priority that the development of new features covering only the US.


 

It does seem a shame that as we are the 3rd biggest country in terms of geocaching yet we seem to have almost no clout with Jeremy.

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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This may sound shocking, but the availability of maps in the US doesn't have anything to do with a centrist view. It has to do with expense and availability. The United States offer their basemaps for free through the Census department. As a result there are tons of free and inexpensive services to have access to that data. Ajoining countries like Canada and Mexico are easier as well because of their cooperation with the US for street level maps.

 

As I said in the main discussion forum, if you have access to street level maps, in GeoTIFF, MrSid, or Shapefile format, by all means send me email and let me know how I can get my hands on it. Otherwise I have to search the 'net for freely or low cost data to augment the map service. And it is extremely sparse.

 

I definitely object to screen scraping, but if there is a site out there that does Europe maps I can do some kind of ftp arrangement to send the files. My geocache shapefiles have the name and URL to the cache page, which gives enough info to redirect to the correct cache page.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

This may sound shocking, but the availability of maps in the US doesn't have anything to do with a centrist view. It has to do with expense and availability.


Thanks for the reply Jeremy.

 

As I mentioned above, I was making more of a general point, not just the maps (despite the title I chose for the thread!). The needs of those people geocaching outside the US seem to me to be very much on the back-burner.

 

When we supplied information to you for the UK version of benchmarking the reason given for not implementing it was that you were busy developing the pocket query stuff. Now that is complete the next priority has been the development of map server for the US. There seems to be no place in the priority queue for outside-US features.

 

We still can't do postcode searches for caches on geocaching.com. There are other features too that are outside our reach.

 

Rich

mobilis in mobili

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quote:
Originally posted by Nia:

I hope someone understands that 3rd paragraph. because it means nothing to me.

Explanation anyone?


 

Yes, that's got me worried as well! I hope it means that Jeremy isn't prepared to write something for geocaching.com which grabs UK maps from streetmap.co.uk, and sticks little cache icons all over them. That's fine because i) it'd be horribly inefficient and ii) HM Govt would make nasty, legal squeaking noises...

 

What I hope it doesn't mean is that Jeremy objects to people scraping all the UK pages off geocaching.com and putting them into their own database which allows, eg UK postcode searching. 'Cos that's exactly what I'm doing at geocacheuk.com!

 

Jeremy, before I do too much more work on the geocacheuk stats database, please could I have your blessing (or at least a grudging agreement not to plonk trbf.com into your firewall config file anytime soon! icon_wink.gif ) There's actually been a webscraper database at geocacheuk.com for a long time now, though the new version should hammer the server a lot less.

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The UK may be ranked 3rd in a list of placed caches but we still have only 4% of the number of caches in the US. So, of course, Jeremy's emphasis is going to be on the US.

 

And his point about availablity of affordable UK street-level (and topo) maps is one I guess we can all appreciate.

 

It is unfortunate, though, that a couple of easy-to-implement enhancements have been overlooked for so long. Namely, presentation of OSGB co-ords (in addition to WGS84 and UTM) and a link to streetmap.co.uk (as well as MapQuest, et al). I was unaware that Teasel had already requested these of Jeremy. Furthermore, it wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to restrict display of these items to UK cache pages - to avoid confusing non-UK cachers ;o)

 

We shouldn't be too upset that geocaching.com is US-centric. After all, it's a free service to us and an excellent one, at that. We're not yet compelled to contribute to funding it.

 

So, as long as Jeremy is willing to condone (perhaps even endorse and co-operate with) geocacheuk.com's (and others') efforts to provide local enhancements and services to UK cachers we should be grateful. I know I am.

 

So, a massive vote of thanks to Jeremy, to Teasel and to all the others who enhance the sport.

 

There's no such thing as a free lunchbox.

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quote:
Originally posted by washboy:

We shouldn't be too upset that geocaching.com is US-centric. After all, it's a free service to us and an excellent one, at that. We're not yet compelled to contribute to funding it.


 

I agree - it is a free service and we are not compelled to contribute. What I am saying is that at the moment even though I do contribute but feel less and less inclination to do so in future because of the reasons I have already stated.

 

Anyway, at the end of the day its just my feeling icon_smile.gif

Keep up the good work Jeremy, Teasle et al.

 

Rich

mobilis in mobili

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quote:
Originally posted by washboy:

 

We shouldn't be too upset that geocaching.com is US-centric. After all, it's a free service to us and an excellent one, at that. We're not yet compelled to contribute to funding it.


 

Please read el10t's original post. Nobody is complaining about the free service. It's just that there is an option to donate money to geocaching.com. To make us paying members feel our money is well spent, Jeremy is adding some extra services. Unfortunately, so far some of the extras have been a bit US centric which means that some Europeans are questioning whether we should have to pay as much to become members as the Americans.

 

-------

jeremyp

The second ten million caches were the worst too.

http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

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quote:
Originally posted by Teasel:

 

hope it means that Jeremy isn't prepared to write something for geocaching.com which grabs UK maps from streetmap.co.uk, and sticks little cache icons all over them.


 

No. I mean I would be happy to partner with an organization that provides online maps in other countries. I am not a hypocrite and do not suggest I will ever "screen scrape" anyone else's web site, especially without their permission.

 

quote:

What I hope it _doesn't_ mean is that Jeremy objects to people scraping all the UK pages off geocaching.com and putting them into their own database which allows, eg UK postcode searching.


 

That's exactly what I'm saying. If I had the postcode database georeferenced and sent to me I could add it in a matter of a couple of hours. Stealing data from other web sites is usually frowned upon, regardless of your justification.

 

Regarding trig points, it isn't a simple matter to integrate it into the database, since the trig points are an entirely different data design than the 700,000 benchmarks. It's also a side project to Geocaching and therefore does not have as much clout as a map server.

 

And for building the map server, I have to focus on the areas where we're receiving the most subscriptions which is currently the US. Then we look at access and cost to acquiring the data. In the interim we'd be happy to work with a mapping company in Europe and supply them the shapefiles so they can make their own maps.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location™

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy (Admin):

If I had the postcode database georeferenced and sent to me I could add it in a matter of a couple of hours.


I can let you have what you need plus the logic behind Mapping UK Postcodes to locations it is really quite simple.

 

quote:
That's exactly what I'm saying. If I had the postcode database georeferenced and sent to me I could add it in a matter of a couple of hours. Stealing data from other web sites is usually frowned upon, regardless of your justification.


Is there no way round this? Good people like Mark, Teasel & JeremyP are trying to provide facilities which significantly enhance the experience of Geocaching out here in the minor leagues. It would be a shame if the functionality we need was locked out whilst not being availble on the main site. Have you considered some form of limited licencing or making some sort of ftp download available to us?

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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quote:
Originally posted by Chris n Maria:

 

Is there no way round this? Good people like Mark, Teasel & JeremyP are trying to provide facilities which significantly enhance the experience of Geocaching out here in the minor leagues. It would be a shame if the functionality we need was locked out whilst not being availble on the main site. Have you considered some form of limited licencing or making some sort of ftp download available to us?


 

Certainly. I am definitely open to a dialog. It's the grabbing without asking that I have some issues with.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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Great to see this feature extended to the UK. Just tried it and it's spot on.

 

One correction - the "Seek a cache" page still says that you can only enter a US only zip code, although the function is there.

 

Any particular reason why the code is truncated? We normally use all the characters of our postcodes eg "SN14 0UE" but the function only allows "SN14 0". Could you set it up to just ignore the last two characters?

 

Dave

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Chris n Maria mentioned the issue with the last two characters. Since we search for Canada and US zipcodes in the same database, I can't lop off the last two characters or I affect the other searches. If there is an obvious way to detect whether it is a UK zipcode I can do this by detecting it. Any ideas?

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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It does not seem to work for me either:

 

SO45 1

 

I've used capitals and the space and left off the last 2 letters.

 

Tech-no notice

 

Error Type:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers (0x80040E14)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]

Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '1'.

/seek/nearest_cache.asp, line 396

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

Chris n Maria mentioned the issue with the last two characters. Since we search for Canada and US zipcodes in the same database, I can't lop off the last two characters or I affect the other searches. If there is an obvious way to detect whether it is a UK zipcode I can do this by detecting it. Any ideas?

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location


With regular expressions a UK postcode matches this pattern:

/b[a-z]{1,2}d{1,2}[a-z]?s*d[a-z]{2}b/i

 

and a US one matches this:

/bd{5}(?:[-s]d{4})?b/

 

So I think if it begins with 1 or 2 numbers followed by 1 or 2 letters it's a UK code. Any help?

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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quote:
Originally posted by Dan Wilson:

One problem, my postcode is HP190GJ and i cant get it to work no matter how i put it in, can someone help the stupid here icon_wink.gif thanx.


quote:
Originally posted by Nia:

It does not seem to work for me either:

SO45 1

 

Error Type:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers (0x80040E14)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]

Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '1'.

/seek/nearest_cache.asp, line 396


 

The file of postcodes we are using is a little old. Some newer postcodes might be missing. I will work out the coords for these ones and let Jeremy have them to add to the db. Without subscribing to the postoffices monthly updates this is as ggod as we are likely to get.

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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quote:
Originally posted by Chris n Maria:

The file of postcodes we are using is a little old. Some newer postcodes might be missing. I will work out the coords for these ones and let Jeremy have them to add to the db. Without subscribing to the postoffices monthly updates this is as ggod as we are likely to get.


 

I'm willing to use the UK subscriptions to purchase a newer version (I did this for Canada). I just need to know a source to purchase georeferenced zip codes. The larger the database the better.

 

I'll get to work on a better detection scheme tomorrow. I'll also find out why that error occurs. Just got back from watching the Thievery Corporation at the Showbox in Seattle, so I need some sleep. icon_smile.gif

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

I'm willing to use the UK subscriptions to purchase a newer version (I did this for Canada). I just need to know a source to purchase georeferenced zip codes. The larger the database the better.

 

I'll get to work on a better detection scheme tomorrow. I'll also find out why that error occurs. Just got back from watching the http://www.eslmusic.com/artists/thievery.html at the Showbox in Seattle, so I need some sleep. icon_smile.gif

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location


 

I recon your best bet is something like this - though I can't see anywhere on the site how you buy it. But they are US based which should be helpfull for you.

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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quote:
Originally posted by Nia:

The neighbors tell me that SO45 1** has been the postcode here for over 20 years, so its not new.

 

I have a complete set ok UK postcodes that cost me £18 and i've never had a problem.


Hmmm,

 

I knew Dans was a newish postcode so that could have been the problem there. The dataset we had just didn't include SO45 1 but did have loads of similar ones. The complete set of Postcodes - does it include co-ordinates? If so can you let Jeremy know where you got it from?

 

Chris

Bear rescues a speciality!

London & UK Geocaching Resources: http://www.sheps.clara.net

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quote:
Originally posted by Nia:

The neighbors tell me that SO45 1** has been the postcode here for over 20 years, so its not new.

 

I have a complete set ok UK postcodes that cost me £18 and i've never had a problem.


 

Yes... The problem is finding a set of UK postcodes with the actual coordinates.

 

Mapinfo is notoriously expensive (and came up with the $14,000 cost on world city maps). I'll see how much the postal code data costs. It was relatively easy to locate Canada postal codes but UK is harder to find.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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I have to say I do not understand exactly what you need, and if the program I use would be any use.

 

I just type in any postcode, and it gives me the co-ordinates in a choice of 4 formats:-

 

one of these is OSGB which I can translate to WGS84.

 

I have to admit that Pid's is not on it, but it is 4 years old

 

Example:

 

AB10 1AD is N57 09 11 W002 06 12

 

(This was just the first postcode on the list)

 

Tech-no notice

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

quote:
Originally posted by Chris n Maria:

 

Is there no way round this? Good people like Mark, Teasel & JeremyP are trying to provide facilities which significantly enhance the experience of Geocaching out here in the minor leagues. It would be a shame if the functionality we need was locked out whilst not being availble on the main site. Have you considered some form of limited licencing or making some sort of ftp download available to us?


 

Certainly. I am definitely open to a dialog. It's the grabbing without asking that I have some issues with.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location


Sorry! There has been a webscraper at geocacheuk.com (and others elsewhere) for longer than I have been geocaching, and I wrongly assumed that this meant that you did not have any objections. I should have checked before releasing the new features.

 

I have now switched off the stats pages at geocacheuk, but hope we can reach some sort of agreement whereby we can continue to provide them. They provide a range of features which I hope are both useful (eg searching by UK Towns / Counties) and fun (eg hunting Tim & June bears!).

 

Once again, appologies for stealing your data without permission!

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