How do you like these maps?

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

How do you like these maps?

 

Western Cape of South Africa aka Cape Town or Cape of Good Hope:

 

http://www.biometrics.co.za/images/WesternCape.htm and

http://www.biometrics.co.za/images/FalseBay.htm

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest Artful Dodger]

Not bad Peter.

 

May I suggest that you include the Cache's Identification text when you roll over the Geocache's ID with the mouse. Eg. GCABC will say 'Table Mountain Cache' when you rollover it with the mouse. Have a look at Buxley's maps for hints.

 

Otherwise, its a lekker looking map (South African lingo there)

 

AD

[Guest Artful Dodger]

Not bad Peter.

 

May I suggest that you include the Cache's Identification text when you roll over the Geocache's ID with the mouse. Eg. GCABC will say 'Table Mountain Cache' when you rollover it with the mouse. Have a look at Buxley's maps for hints.

 

Otherwise, its a lekker looking map (South African lingo there)

 

AD

[Guest Alex]

I like them, but agree with Artful that the cache names would be good. Thats because I think in names not numbers. Keep up the good work.

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

Oops. Yes of course! Done.

 

A bit to much effort manually though. So one of three things must happen:

 

1. Buxley's include Africa

2. Jeremy include Africa

3. I write some code to do this automaticly

 

If 3 then I might as well do it well and include zooms and stuff ... Ed Hall, save me this effort please!

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest Artful Dodger]

Peter

 

Speak to Buxley. I am sure its not a big deal to do South Africa since it has relatively few caches in it. His maps are really good. I refer to them a lot.

[Guest jeremy]

Adding maps soon. I need to split the site into two machines so it can take the additional traffic.

 

I do have South Africa, as well as all the other countries. Depending on the data I can find for each country, roads, water, etc will be listed for each area.

 

There's no way I can be a Mapblast, but I'll do my best.

 

Jeremy

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

quote:

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Originally posted by jeremy:

Adding maps soon. I need to split the site into two machines so it can take the additional traffic.

 

I do have South Africa, as well as all the other countries. Depending on the data I can find for each country, roads, water, etc will be listed for each area.

 

There's no way I can be a Mapblast, but I'll do my best.

 

Jeremy

---

 

Awesome Jeremy! Hey, we don't have anything at the moment, so we're not expecting Mapblast!

 

Any idea on the ETA?

 

Where are you getting the data from?

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest jeremy]

first.

 

Some benefits to be had -

 

1. You'll be able to get custom maps of caches you have already found (indicated by a different icon) so visually you can see the ones you haven't found yet.

2. Hopefully (soon) you'll be able to upload your track data through ExpertGPS (or routes and waypoints through both) and be able to see them on the map itself. That way if you're curious you can actually see the path of folks who visited each cache. Also other waypoints along the way.

3. I generate a shapefile of all the caches, so may offer this to folks who want to build their own mapping applications. I only ask that they link the caches back to my site. This will hopefully encourage folks to create more detailed maps for their region.

 

Jeremy

[Guest bunkerdave]

I like the "sorted maps" idea. I have been keeping two separate files on my magellan MAPSEND software. When I find a cache, it is deleted from my "To find" waypoint file and added to my "Found" file. That way I have a map of where I have been and where I still need to go. My "To go" list has been outpacing my "Gone" list quite a bit of late, though. I have often wished the Buxley maps would do this, but I have noticed that those maps don't to much in the way of updating to the Database. I am patiently awaiting the release of the Jeremy maps - they are sure to be nothing less than magical. Thanks for all your work - and for getting those 3xl tee-shirts out. Ordered two more yesterday. Don't spend it all in one place.

[Guest bunkerdave]

I like the "sorted maps" idea. I have been keeping two separate files on my magellan MAPSEND software. When I find a cache, it is deleted from my "To find" waypoint file and added to my "Found" file. That way I have a map of where I have been and where I still need to go. My "To go" list has been outpacing my "Gone" list quite a bit of late, though. I have often wished the Buxley maps would do this, but I have noticed that those maps don't to much in the way of updating to the Database. I am patiently awaiting the release of the Jeremy maps - they are sure to be nothing less than magical. Thanks for all your work - and for getting those 3xl tee-shirts out. Ordered two more yesterday. Don't spend it all in one place.

[Guest jeremy]

quote:

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Originally posted by bunkerdave:

Don't spend it all in one place.

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Heh. When mapping applications are around $20k for the good ones, I may have to.

 

(The current solution is not $20k. We'll see how well it performs).

 

Jeremy

[Guest jeremy]

quote:

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Originally posted by bunkerdave:

Don't spend it all in one place.

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Heh. When mapping applications are around $20k for the good ones, I may have to.

 

(The current solution is not $20k. We'll see how well it performs).

 

Jeremy

[Guest Artful Dodger]

Excellent Jeremy. Good to see that Geocaching.com is moving another notch up. Appreciate the 'dangling carrot' message.

 

The maps sure will enhance this site by leaps and bounds. Keep up the good work, and thanks.

[Guest zilla]

Here is a link to a topo map that I made. The lines are Mountain bike trails that I ride.. This is my first attempt and I am working on adding a legend, with co-rd's etc.. I plan on adding a similar link to any caches that I will place..

 

http://www.geocities.com/cjsheely/wmtn.html

 

zilla

 

 

[This message has been edited by zilla (edited 26 June 2001).]

[Guest Qman]

Is there a way to download the shapefiles of the caches and the cache info (ie, coordinates, instructions, hints, etc).

 

I'll be on the road next month and would like to collect some caches with the family as I go. I can do Arcview so that's not an issue. I'm just trying to avoid printing out the cache pages for quite a few caches. Be easier if I had it all on the laptop already.

[Guest Qman]

Another take on my question, the cache page allows you to download to EasyGPS but only on a cache by cache basis. Is there an option to download multiple waypoints such as by state?

[Guest PharoaH]

quote:

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Originally posted by Qman:

I'll be on the road next month and would like to collect some caches with the family as I go. I can do Arcview so that's not an issue. I'm just trying to avoid printing out the cache pages for quite a few caches. Be easier if I had it all on the laptop already.

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I recently did something very similar. I don't have any fancy mapping software, but I do have Street Atlas USA 8. It offers the ability to import a latitude/longitude file of "waypoints". That way, when I'm on the road, I can pull up the nearest cache wherever I am.

I wrote a little perl script that will download cache descriptions and parse out the coordinates and names into a latitude/longitude file. I haven't yet added support to "archive" the site, but that would be a trivial hack. I wonder if the text-only archives would fit on a CD-ROM...

If anyone is interested, I will post the latitude/longitude file. However, I won't post my code because I don't want Jeremy to receive any floods of http requests.

[Guest Qman]

quote:

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I wrote a little perl script that will download cache descriptions and parse out the coordinates and names into a latitude/longitude file.

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I know a bit about PERL but let me make sure I understand what you're saying. Did you access the cache page, save it, and then ran the PERL script to parse the information you were after? I was hoping to obtain the data with a single HTTP request rather than multiple.

 

I wanted to check to see if there was an easier way.

[Guest PharoaH]

ran the PERL script to parse the information you were after? I was hoping to obtain the data with a single HTTP request rather than multiple.

 

I wanted to check to see if there was an easier way.

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The script downloads the cache page then stores it in a temp file. Then it parses out the name, coordinates, and cache identifier. It is all terribly automated, so it really wasn't any trouble. It performs this in a loop from the first cache on up until the latest. Of course, I added a throttle value so I wouldn't swamp the website.

[Guest raygun_88]

Really cool maps Peter! Did you get these from the NASA CRSP MrSID site? Is there some way to put this sort of imagery behind our cache locations in NA?

 

http://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

quote:

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Originally posted by raygun_88:

http://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/

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Yes. If you use the no-plugin option then you get large maps.

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest leskowitz]

You computer guys are amazing. It is nice to be in a sport where over half the members use their computer skills to improve it. Keep up the good work. Now only if geocaching kept the cookie so I don't have to log in everytime.