+travisl Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 I've never been fond of TerraServer, and didn't understand why GC.com had a link to the fairly useless 20-mile wide images. Zooming in didn't center on the cache, and at the closer levels, the cache location isn't even in the image. I tried it again today, and with a little manipulation of the URL, discovered something pretty cool. GCHVXQ, for example, has a TerraServer link to http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.asp...Lon=-122.355417. If you add a &s=8 to the end of the URL, it actually zooms into the right spot. Some places are more up-to-date and higher resolution than LostOutdoors.com's maps. Even better, though, is if you click the Info link on the top of the page, it'll drop nearby latitude and longitude lines into the image, making it fairly easy to determine the cache location. Now if only I could drop a dot on specific coordinates like LostOutdoors.com, I'd never have a no-find again. (Well, I almost said it with a straight face.) Quote Link to comment
+wildearth2001 Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 thats cool, i didn't realize that terraserver had the new 1m resolution color photos but I guess they do Quote Link to comment
+RocketMan Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 I always thought they were pretty lame also until I started using USAPhotoMaps. This program allows you to download all the terraserver maps for an area and then zoom in/out and scroll through them as you please. The best part is that you can add waypoints to the terraserver maps. You can even download waypoints from your GPS which means that you to dump the waypoints from a PQ right on top of the terraserver maps. It really works nicely. RM Quote Link to comment
+Markwell Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Lostoutdoors.com will put the dot on the image for you. I can't seem to get the &s=8 to work in my area. I keep getting the message Could not locate any image at (-88.132800,41.754520) or whatever lat/lon I use. Quote Link to comment
+bigredmed Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Terra server only works well for some parts of the planet and then not the same in all parts of the country. If the photos of Omaha were any older, you could see and arial view of Brigham Young. Parts of the US that have security assets must be blinked out of the system. Quote Link to comment
+bons Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 note that you may need to adjust the number. &s=10 may work where &s=8 doesn't. Quote Link to comment
+JeepCachr Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 That program is incredible! Quote Link to comment
+wildearth2001 Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 They don't have the new color ones for the nearest city to me (tucson) and the USGS says that they do have them, the pics for my area are 1992 Quote Link to comment
+JeepCachr Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 thats cool, i didn't realize that terraserver had the new 1m resolution color photos but I guess they do Wheres the color maps? Are they only available for certain areas? Quote Link to comment
+wildearth2001 Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 thats cool, i didn't realize that terraserver had the new 1m resolution color photos but I guess they do Wheres the color maps? Are they only available for certain areas? the usgs only has color photos for major cities. Terraserver only seams to have the color ones for some of the cities that they are made in Quote Link to comment
~Jay~ Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 How did you know to use "&s=8" particularly? I can't imagine you just randomly added stuff till you found that... so how'd you know? Quote Link to comment
+bons Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 If you look at the urls for the zoom in/zoom out bar on the page, you may notice that one of the input fields is a "s" and that the number gets smaller as you mouse over the ones that zoom in. Quote Link to comment
martmann Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 USA PhotoMaps, is the only way to use TerraServer, see Rocket Man's link. If you have USA PhotoMaps you will never have a need for the Terra Server web site. Quote Link to comment
+Poindexter Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 Try Acme Mapper, you can type in the coordinates in either of the three formats and it will place a bullseye at the location. Quote Link to comment
martmann Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 Try Acme Mapper, you can type in the coordinates in either of the three formats and it will place a bullseye at the location. pretty cool. Quote Link to comment
+JeepCachr Posted March 14, 2004 Share Posted March 14, 2004 I've been playing with USAPhotoMaps and its absolutely incredible. I can import caches in as way points and copy airel photos with the cache marked on them to my PDA or print them out. Next I want to import Topo data into it. Has anyone done the topo data? If so how hard is it? Acme mapper is pretty cool because you can overlay a paper map but it doesn't have near the features or the offline capability that usaphotomaps has. Quote Link to comment
+Timpat Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 'Next I want to import Topo data into it. Has anyone done the topo data? If so how hard is it?" JeepCachr...When you are using USAPhotoMaps to download aerial photos, all you have to do to grab USGS Topos is use two key strokes. Simply hit the "t" key, followed by the "f" key, and it fills the screen with topo mapping. The "t" signifies TOPO, and the 'f' signifies FILL. You can toggle back to aerial photos by keying "p", then 'f'. Pretty cool! I use it all the time with work and play and love it. You can zoom in/out, and pan around as well. Check out the text file that is available when downloading the program. It gets saved to the C:/Program Files/USAPhotoMaps/ folder. It's titled: USAPhotoMaps.txt Enjoy! Quote Link to comment
Cruz1n4Cache Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 Tried the Terra-Server and added the &s=8 with no luck. Then tried with &s=10 and it worked!!! It zoomed all the way in and centered the cache location directly in the middle of the page. Thanks for this bit of info! Quote Link to comment
+JeepCachr Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 Tried the Terra-Server and added the &s=8 with no luck. Then tried with &s=10 and it worked!!! It zoomed all the way in and centered the cache location directly in the middle of the page. Thanks for this bit of info! Cruz if you try USAphoto maps(mentioned above in this thread) to get the terraserver data you will never go back to the web interface again. Not only can you zoom into the cache site. You can import your caches as waypoints and have a point placed precisely on the map where the cache is. Quote Link to comment
+Ian5281 Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 I have give my two thumbs up to usa photomaps. It's the program that does all the stuff you WISH the other sites/programs did. Topo maps and photos in a clean tidy package. It works super slick. Its freeware, too. I sent the author a few bucks this morning, as a matter of fact... Ian Quote Link to comment
+travisl Posted March 15, 2004 Author Share Posted March 15, 2004 USA PhotoMaps doesn't have the super-zoomed in color photos yet. Or am I missing something? Quote Link to comment
+JeepCachr Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 USA PhotoMaps doesn't have the super-zoomed in color photos yet. Or am I missing something? They aren't likely to get them anytime soon either. The data from the terra server is provided freely from the goverment. The color super zoom maps I have seen would be worth paying the $100 a year if you could have a interface like USAphotomaps to go with them. Thanks for the topo tip Timpat. I guess I thought contour lines and topo information were related when I skimmed the instructions. Their does seem to be some process to getting contour lines inputted but the topo info is very easey. Now all I need is a way to get more than one screen of data to d/l at a time. Though it soon won't matter as I will have all the data local for the area that I want. If I had wireless internet access then I wouldn't need it local... Quote Link to comment
+DamOTclese Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 I've used Terraserver for getting air photographs of desert facilities built and maintained by organized criminal enterprises. Terraserver will censor official goverment bases -- try looking up Indian Springs, Nevada and notice that the Air Force Base on the North side of the highway is totally missing; also look up Mercury, Nevada, the nuclear test site and note that it's missing -- but Terraserver doesn't censor anything else that I've noticed. So it's good for some of the work I do in the organized crime arena. Speaking only for myself and these are my opinions only. Quote Link to comment
+Timpat Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 I've been using the TerraServer aerial photography for a long time, both for work and my GPS/Geocaching play. With my GIS/GPS field engineering work in upstate New York I have found every location I've needed, nothing has been blocked. From prison facilities to nuclear power plants to major airports. For anyone interested there are also various State GIS websites that offer free aerial (OrthoPhotos) photos that are georeferenced for download. Check out our NYS GIS Clearinghouse site here: http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/gateway/mg/i...ctive_main.html These are projected in NYS Plane, NAD83(Feet), so you need to reproject your WGS84 data to overlay. Lots of cool stuff out there! Quote Link to comment
+in2art Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 The question is... At one time I saw much higher newer and higher res photos. Where did they go? When I look at my house now it is not even there. Did they downgrade the images? Quote Link to comment
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