Scalable Maps

[+The Adams Family Circus]

I'm having trouble finding EXACTLY what I want: A scalable map showing current caches.

- Geocaching.com shows all the caches, but the maps provided are on an individual cache basis.

- Buxley's maps will bring it down to a City-wide area, but you can't zoom in closer.

- Tiger Census has decent maps, although Zoom in appears to be only one level in.

- MapQuest allows you to set a pin - ONE pin, based on Lat/long coordiinates.

 

I'm happy to input the data myself, if necessary, but I'd like something I could look at and try to determine a caching 'route' on the weekend a bit more easily.

 

Suggestions for the Circus?

 

Earl, Ringmaster

(Attitude - the difference between

Ordeal, and Adventure!)

[+ClayJar]

- MapBlast! lets you set up to, I think, 6 pins.

 

When the advanced search is finished, *then* you'll be able to load all the waypoints into whatever program you want (possibly with a bit of indirection in there), but until that comes along, I'm not completely sure there's a good answer for you. (Or for me, for that matter. )

[+ClayJar]

- MapBlast! lets you set up to, I think, 6 pins.

 

When the advanced search is finished, *then* you'll be able to load all the waypoints into whatever program you want (possibly with a bit of indirection in there), but until that comes along, I'm not completely sure there's a good answer for you. (Or for me, for that matter. )

[Elias]

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Adams Family Circus:

I'm having trouble finding EXACTLY what I want: A scalable map showing current caches.

- Geocaching.com shows all the caches, but the maps provided are on an individual cache basis.

---

Have you tried our clickable maps? If you pick a state map, you'll get more detail as you zoom in, and the legend will show you cache's you've found as well as new caches within the last 7 days.

 

-Elias

[+M-D-M Explorations]

I agree it would be nice to be able to get road maps with multiple waypoints listed. Usually what I will do before heading out for a waypoint hunt is to create a map for all of the ones I intend to hit by taking the individual maps of each waypoint and cut-n-paste them together for one big map. Takes a little time but it does help with organizing the travel path.

 

M-D-M Explorations

MrSki and DogMa

40º 07.874'N

88º 11.647'W

[OFF RODE]

National Geographic Topo! software will allow you to

place all the waypoints on a topo map. you can do it manually by entering the lat/lon or you can use EasyGPS to download all that you want then upload those to your GPSr then download them to NG Topo or if you have a site like we do here in Az, SnapTek,

you can D/L all the caches already formated for Topo!.I have all 500+ caches in Az on a map, Its great!

 

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." Yogi Berra

[+headmj]

I have Mapsend Topo for my magellan GPS. It will allow me to set large numbers of way points and save them in files. The maps are also scaleable and can be easily printed to your printer. I am very happy with this set up. I frequently will use very detailed maps for an individual cache and then have an overview map that shows me all the caches I have posted for the days hikes.

[jfitzpat]

Depending on name length, you can put 15-30 markers in on either the aerial or topo maps at http://www.lostoutdoors.com

 

There is a free demo at http://www.etree.com/tech/notsofreestuff/maptools/vbsample.html

 

It is is just a quickie VB app, but it will let you plot up to 500 markers on aerial, topo, and tiger views of the same area (I think it uses a post to get around tiger's URL limit). The tiger map zooms in pretty close, but I haven't compared it to the online interactive Tiger maps.

 

Both LostOutdoors and the sample will read directly from Magellan or Garmin units, so you could go Geocaching.com->EasyGPS->GPSr-> to avoid data entry.

 

Good Luck,

-jjf

[+mrcpu]

I use MS Streets and Trips all the time. My buddy Servman has an import file that he maintains for Canada:

 

http://ian.kenetic.com/

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

Mobile Cache Command

[mtnsteve]

OFF ROAD is right on about National Geographic Topo, it is especially good if many of your maps or caches are actually in the mountains or REALLY off road. This program works great to print out your own maps, but I don't believe you can load them into your GPS. It also allows you to input your routes right on the maps, great if you want to see exactly where you wandered.

 

I use WebShots to post maps for some of the more difficult level 4/5 caches I have placed in the mountains...I put the site address under "Additional hints"., and usually show the roads into the area, or sometimes the location of the cache itself.

http://community.webshots.com/album/18786349sewmdCZNMv

 

It's not about the mistakes we make, it's about what we learn from them....

[+mrp]

...you might want to give ExpertGPS a try. It's like a souped up version of EasyGPS with lots of mapping features added. It downloads topo and aerial photo maps, and can overlay waypoints (and tracks from your GPS) on top of them.

 

Here are some examples from near my home with waypoints overlaid:

 

Topo maps of the Berkeley area at a 0.5 mile

and at a 500 ft. scale.

 

Maps of Briones park at 0.5 mile scale (Topo and Photo)

 

Zoomed in on Briones at a 500 ft. scale (Topo and Photo).

 

And here is a overlay of my (unsucessful) hunt for the cache Turkey Shoot on a photo at the 200ft. scale.

 

It also takes the the files from the download links on geocaching.com. All in all, this was the best $70 I've ever spent on software.

 

-- Mitch

[+fizzymagic]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pneumatic:

 

...you might want to give http://www.expertgps.com a try. It's like a souped up version of EasyGPS with lots of mapping features added. It downloads topo and aerial photo maps, and can overlay waypoints (and tracks from your GPS) on top of them.

---

 

Nice examples, Mitch. Thanks. I must say that, based on those, I believe that ExpertGPS is way overpriced. I could see paying $60 for a program that had its own data, but that price for something that relies on somebody else's Internet data is ridiculous.

 

And yes, I have looked at all the other capabilities ExpertGPS has.

 

Of course, this is just my opinion. I'd probably be willing to spend $20 for the program, but it's not worth three times that much.

[+sbell111]

Doesn't Mapsource allow you to create maps of several caches?

[+mrp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by fizzymagic: (....}

I could see paying $60 for a program that had its own data, but that price for something that relies on somebody else's Internet data is ridiculous.

---

Well, once it downloads the data, it's cached locally, so the reliance on the net connection isn't crucial. As for ownership and price, Microsoft makes the terraserver data available, but is is all based on publicly available USGS data. If they decide to pull that data, or to make it such that expertGPS can't download it, then I would have to agree that $60 would be high for the remaining capabilities, although another popular mapping product that relies on external map data OziExplorer, costs $75 to register, and doesn't even support automatic retrival of data, although it does support taking image files, treating them as maps, and overlaying waypoints on them.

 

However, most of the data for mapping programs comes from similar "public" sources (tiger cencus data, etc.) I've got Garmin's Roads and Rec data which "has it's own data" (althoguh based on data from tiger.census.gov), and although it's much more expensive ($100) I'm far less happy with the product. The only real advantage is that it can upload maps into my legend. I've heard similarly awful things about Magellan Mapsend, though I haven't used it personally.

 

And finally, when I've had problems with expertGPS, i've gotten excellent customer service. Dan, the programmer, and sole proprieter of the company has responded to almost all inquires within 24 hours, and I usually have a fix/solution within 48 hours. I've sent bug many bug reports to Delorme about their SA 9 product, and so far haven't even gotten a reply (though I have gotten a lot of spam from them.)

 

Don't buy it if you don't think it's worth it, but like I said before, I'm far happier with (and get far more use out of) this program that any other mapping software I've bought.

 

-- Mitch

[+travisl]

This is the sweetest mapping program I've ever used (and I'm not a big Microsoft fan, either). I apologize in advance for some rather large images, but each one is worth a thousand words...

 

First, my map of caches in the Seattle/Tacoma area:

 

The nice thing about MapPoint is that it can import files from Excel. The nice thing about Excel XP is that it can read XML files. The nice thing about the XML file format is that's how the Geocaching ''EasyGPS'' data comes.

 

I've edited individual cache locations, based on my knowledge of them. A plain purple X is a cache I haven't looked for yet. A green check mark is a cache I've found. A circle and slash is an archived cache. A frown is a cache I looked for and couldn't find. And a red square is a cache that showed up on my latest data import. Red flags are caches I've placed.

 

The large square around the Tacoma area is the beginning of my zoom. I zoom into that area, and see this:

 

I now am seeing major surface streets. In the northeast corner of the map, I've drawn another zoom square. I zoom into that area, and see:

 

At this level, I see all streets. One more level of zoom (in the northwest corner of this map) shows all street names:

 

Because it's using the XML data from the web site, it builds clickable links into the map. Double clicking on a point brings up it's information balloon. Clicking on the link in the balloon opens the cache's web page.

 

In addition, MapPoint has a ''location sensor'' which will tell you the coordinates of the mouse (in XX.XXXXX° format). It also has a ''measuring tool'' which will tell you how long a route is that you draw on the map (I usually trace roads).

 

And finally, it does a fairly good job with the ''traveling salesman puzzle.'' I can pick a certain number of caches in an area, tell MapPoint to ''Optimize Stops'' and it will sequence them and plan a route which will usually take the shortest amount of time.

 

As a point of interest, I also plotted all benchmarks within a 30 mile radius of my house and Redmond, which picked up most of the south Puget Sound area. Again, each ''X'' is clickable, and brings me to the benchmark's web page.

As I said... sweet.

 

'''I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)'' -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

[JDMC]

USAPhotoMaps is kind of like ExpertGPS without the Topo map capability (although it does allow you to get USGS elevation data and overlay it onto the aerial photos). And it's free.

[jfitzpat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by JDMC:

USAPhotoMaps is kind of like ExpertGPS without the Topo map capability (although it does allow you to get USGS elevation data and overlay it onto the aerial photos). And it's free.

---

 

I can heartily recommend Mr. Cox's USAPhotoMaps. Had I known it existed at the time, I probably never would have done the Map Maker on LostOutdoors.

 

-jjf

[Growley]

I too must highly recommend USAPHOTOMAPS. although topo maps are not yet available this is one sweet little program for the geocacher. I use it constantly when planning to hunt or place a cache and believe it or not, it's free!

[Growley]

I too must highly recommend USAPHOTOMAPS. although topo maps are not yet available this is one sweet little program for the geocacher. I use it constantly when planning to hunt or place a cache and believe it or not, it's free!