Jeremy Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 (edited) Our map server provider has been working on integrating some additional map data we purchased around 5 months ago. They have a demo available, sans cache data. We'll be integrating this with our existing US map data and it should be online sometime next week, if things go well. We've been looking forward to this addition for some time. US Residents - If you are in the US, nothing will change and the current link does not contain this data. This is only an enhancement for data outside the US. Edited April 17, 2004 by Jeremy Link to comment
+shunra Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Our map server provider has been working on integrating some additional map data we purchased around 5 months ago. They have a demo available, sans cache data. We'll be integrating this into our current US map data and it should be online sometime next week, if things go well. We've been looking forward to this addition for some time. Looks good! Link to comment
+av8tors32 Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 The topo information of the new maps is nice but the street informaiton is very weak. Is this a replacement for the current maps or just a new option? Link to comment
+Stunod Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 I zoomed all the way in and I still can't find any weapons caches in Iraq. Pretty cool system...can't wait to see it live! Link to comment
+MarcB Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Does this mean that we'll have some map data for the UK? MarcB Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Hurrah Finally maps for Canada. We're no longer lost in the "Great Gray North" as with the existing maps. Link to comment
AJK Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 (edited) I too was wondering which maps these will replace. I really like the current map we have (the one you can pan, zoom, etc.), but I don't like the current ones we have on the cache page - I find that it's either too far zoomed out and I can't see enough detail, or it's too close with no city names ( i have to use the lat/long to judge where it is quickly). I would agree with an above poster that street level detail in the example map is poor. There are no distinctions between types of roads, and no road names. One area I tried was a very busy area, full of plenty of roads and one interstate, yet you could not tell that from the data - The map screen covered about 8 miles by 5 miles. Of course, I'm in the US, so the new maps may be significantly better for non-us cachers. If there was to be an improvement to the current zoomable map, I would just request that you could choose to make it bigger. EDIT: removed link to a map page that did not work (another problem??) Edited April 16, 2004 by AJK Link to comment
+Baptist Deacon Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 (edited) I sure hope more map detail is coming. I zoomed in and no state parks, most of hte major roadways were not even shown. Just my opinion, but I think we are better off with what we already have..... But as long as we keep the link to Microsoft's mappoint, I will be happy. Edited April 16, 2004 by Baptist Deacon Link to comment
Jeremy Posted April 16, 2004 Author Share Posted April 16, 2004 Sheesh. Didn't I say in my original message that I was adding the existing US map data? This isn't a replacement but an enhancement for folks outside the US who currently have no data. Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Will these be used for the Travel Bug maps too? Link to comment
+Right Wing Wacko Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 I checked out the area around my home town (Everett WA) and it appears the data is at least 25 years old and terribly inaccurate. Link to comment
+Baptist Deacon Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Sheesh. Didn't I say in my original message that I was adding the existing US map data? This isn't a replacement but an enhancement for folks outside the US who currently have no data. QUOTE (Jeremy @ Apr 16 2004, 09:55 AM) Our map server provider has been working on integrating some additional map data we purchased around 5 months ago. They have a demo available, sans cache data. We'll be integrating this into our current US map data and it should be online sometime next week, if things go well. We've been looking forward to this addition for some time. IT says you will be integrating this into the current us map data, nothing mentioned about outside the us. My apologies if I somehow did not read that into the statement. Link to comment
+garri Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 (edited) Jeremy I am runnig the demo and I am scared when seeing the data of my region. The names of the cities of Catalunya (Spain) are the names that chose the old fascist regim of Franco when he banned our own language about 60 years ago. These names are obsolete. Edited April 16, 2004 by garri Link to comment
+Doc-Dean Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 Hey, I can almost see my house on it! Link to comment
Jeremy Posted April 17, 2004 Author Share Posted April 17, 2004 If you're in the US, ignore this thread. The (hopefully) improved maps are for outside the US. Link to comment
Jeremy Posted April 17, 2004 Author Share Posted April 17, 2004 The names of the cities of Catalunya (Spain) are the names that chose the old fascist regim of Franco when he banned our own language about 60 years ago. These names are obsolete. Does this mean they are better or worse in comparison to nothing? Obviously I don't want to offend anyone, but for reference it seems better than what we have now. Regardless, I let our map server provider know. Perhaps there is an alternate name we can use from the data which is more Politically Correct. Link to comment
+shunra Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 Regardless, I let our map server provider know. Perhaps there is an alternate name we can use from the data which is more Politically Correct. Interesting. I zoomed in on Palestine. The map shows no borders that are subject to disputes, and as a result neither the old borders of Palestine, nor the cease fire lines of 1949, nor the armistice lines of 1967 are shown. It's all open, which, I think is pretty neat. And nobody can complain Link to comment
evilrooster Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 (edited) And nobody can complain You underestimate the talents of this community. Edited April 17, 2004 by evilrooster Link to comment
evilrooster Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 More seriously: the data is old - in my area (Edinburgh), it shows Leith Central Station, which has been closed so long that it's part of the elaborate in-joke of Irving Welsh's Trainspotting. My suburb of the city - Gilmerton - is listed as a separate village. And it matters not in the slightest! What I'm most interested in is the relationship among caches and between the caches and fixed landscape features like hills and coastlines. Looking forward to it going live! Link to comment
+rickrich Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Major flooding in Minneapolis.... Half on Mpls is under water! Link to comment
Jeremy Posted April 18, 2004 Author Share Posted April 18, 2004 Anyone commenting on US specific maps at this point is intellectually challenged. Link to comment
+Navdog Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Maps! Who needs maps? That's why you have a GPS. Link to comment
+Amazon Annie Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Hi Jeremy, Being outside the US (but just a bit north) I'm THRILLED to hear of the new maps! When I was planning a trip down to Florida last month I used the maps to figure out the caches along the I-75 on the way down. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You will make my planning much easier. Annie Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Bump Any updates on when this will happen? I know there are some problems with the maps but couldn't they be added now and updated later? Link to comment
+DomHeknows Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Motorways seem to be missing - at least the M6 near congleton, crewe and sandbach doesn't exist. That and Astbury seems to be west of congleton on this map (and its actually south east!) For the uk it would be nicer to have tighter integration to streetmap i think. Link to comment
+New England n00b Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Anyone commenting on US specific maps at this point is intellectually challenged. Well, that's uncalled for. I'm looking at New England, and all I see is Massachussetts! Just how old ARE these maps! Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 (edited) Anyone commenting on US specific maps at this point is intellectually challenged. Well, that's uncalled for. I'm looking at New England, and all I see is Massachussetts! Just how old ARE these maps! From the first post in this topic US Residents - If you are in the US, nothing will change and the current link does not contain this data. This is only an enhancement for data outside the US. Edited April 29, 2004 by PDOP's Link to comment
+New England n00b Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Anyone commenting on US specific maps at this point is intellectually challenged. Well, that's uncalled for. I'm looking at New England, and all I see is Massachussetts! Just how old ARE these maps! From the first post in this topic US Residents - If you are in the US, nothing will change and the current link does not contain this data. This is only an enhancement for data outside the US. Really? Link to comment
+yorkstan Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 I checked the village I live in (Yorkshire, England) and it was about 2 miles away from where it should be. Does not give me confidence for finding a cache. For the UK, Streetmap.co.uk or Multimap.com would be much better. Yorkstan Link to comment
+garri Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 ...or Multimap.com would be much better.Yorkstan Multimap.com works better for Catalunya and Spain too. Link to comment
+The Scout Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Its has very poor detail for the UK, in my area it shows villages in the middle of the Bristol Channel (which is a tidal estuary). Town names are mis-spelt, the road plan is misaligned with main roads missing. This isn't going to give members in the UK anything to get excited about! Link to comment
+DirtRunner Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 I don't know about the rest of the world, but the neck of the woods where I am is perfect. It even had Myrtle Station noted. How cool is that ? Good Work Jeremy DirtRunner. Link to comment
+Divine Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 Nice to see there's something new on the mapping front. The map, like av8tors32 already pointed out, are very weak on the street level. I still get better results even with the old MapQuest, which has actually very precise maps at some parts of Finland (yes, only some ). I also noticed that at least around my home town, many dots marking town centers or villages etc. are actually on water of a nearby lake, which makes one wonder how precise the maps are. I also wonder why our capital is written with its Swedish name. Link to comment
+Starglider Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 I like the new maps! I just looked at the area around my hometown here in Germany. Okay, there is not much detail (but more than I expected!) and the data is rather old (showing a railway that has ceased to exists a decade or so ago) but that is much, MUCH better than the grey nothing we see today. As far as I am concerned I am pleased if the map shows major cities, highways, rivers and coastlines just to give me an idea where the caches are. I only use the online maps to plan where I go next but not as a reference when I am in the fields. That's where my MapSource or Topo maps come in and I would never expect an online map to be that detailed and accurate. Did I mention that I like the new maps? For now I just wished I could see those little red checkmarks that should mark the caches I found or own. That was my major reason for upgrading to premium membership but now it seems this feature doesn't work at all . Link to comment
garpled Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 This new map may all be very well - I tried it out, and the details are not very good for Denmark, I don't see roads, only a strange selection of locality names - some of them very minor. But if the zoom-out and pan functions still remain reserved to Premium Members, chances are that my newly started interest in geocaching will go from medium to nil. When I first visited Geocaching.com a few months ago, the map function was quite good. But it has since been reduced to disappointing to bad, after the new policy restricting the best function to Premium Members. Perhaps it's naive to think that good things can remain free on the Internet, but this payment barrier certainly came too soon for me to develop a real enthusiasm for geocaching. What a shame. Best regards and good luck to all remaining geocachers. Frank B. Jacobsen Link to comment
+Divine Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 Perhaps it's naive to think that good things can remain free on the Internet, but this payment barrier certainly came too soon for me to develop a real enthusiasm for geocaching. What a shame. I don't want to turn this to a membership fee related thread, and while I think the upcoming out-of-US mapping feature is way better than the current gray-nothing one, I still agree with you, that it does seem a bit strange. However, geocaching, as an activity, is 100% free for everyone who take the trouble to browse the Geocaching.com pages. You can search caches in your country, you get their coordinates, you can print e.g. MapQuest map of particular cache, insert the coords into your GPS unit and go find the cache. No one's charging you anything out of it. If you want you can create a free account to Gc.com and log your finds online and get some personal statistics, and search nearest caches from certain coordinates (e.g. your home or another cache). It's still all free. If you choose to pay, you get some tools, like Pocket Queries, that make certain things easier for you. The basic activity is still free. Everyone who chooses not to pay for premium membership still has all the basic tools to get coordinates, and log caches online, which we call geocaching. I see no problem if a service provider (Gc.com in this case) offers useful but not necessary extra features for those who decide to support them with upgrading their membership. The 'payment barrier' doesn't prevent anyone from searching geocaches. I'm not aware of the zoom-out/pan problems you mentioned, and don't know if they are premium membership related in any way, though. Hope you will get an answer for that. Also, I'm sorry that you feel like you do. To me it worked vice versa: I geocached eight months as an ordinary non-paying member and developed my enthusiasm for the activity during those months. Then I decided to upgrade my membership, not only to get my hands on the extra features, but also show my support to the site which offers the means for the hobby I like so much. I only hope that the all the premium members paying the same amount of $$ would get the extra features about the similar level for their money's worth. Link to comment
Team Lizzzard Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 I agree with divine and just wanted to mention that I am looking forward to this "new and improved" feature for us non-US users. Even though the map data is far from being perfect (from what I've seen in the demo) it is still a lot better than the "GPS72 style" maps we have now. Thank you! Link to comment
+shunra Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 I'm all for limiting the best functionality to paying members only. I don't see other ways to reduce traffic on the servers, or to get money in order to buy faster ones However, there should be no discrimination between paying US members and paying non-US members. Link to comment
Jeremy Posted May 9, 2004 Author Share Posted May 9, 2004 I've been bugging them for the map data. I'll hit them up again on Monday and see what the holdup is. Link to comment
Rangers of Ithilien Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 Having just checked out this map and seeing that my village was about 4 miles away from where it is supposed to be, I dont think I am going to be bothering to use this when it becomes available. The thing is, if this data cost money, shouldnt there be some sort of requirement on the supplier to provide correct information? At the moment I think I shall stick with streetmaps for the uk! Tiffany Link to comment
+southdeltan Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 Having just checked out this map and seeing that my village was about 4 miles away from where it is supposed to be, I dont think I am going to be bothering to use this when it becomes available. The thing is, if this data cost money, shouldnt there be some sort of requirement on the supplier to provide correct information? At the moment I think I shall stick with streetmaps for the uk! Tiffany Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of people read the first post of a thread then hit reply. I thought the subject of out of date or incorrect data had been discussed and addressed in this thread? southdeltan Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 I've been bugging them for the map data. I'll hit them up again on Monday and see what the holdup is. Thanks Link to comment
Rangers of Ithilien Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 Having just checked out this map and seeing that my village was about 4 miles away from where it is supposed to be, I dont think I am going to be bothering to use this when it becomes available. The thing is, if this data cost money, shouldnt there be some sort of requirement on the supplier to provide correct information? At the moment I think I shall stick with streetmaps for the uk! Tiffany Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of people read the first post of a thread then hit reply. I thought the subject of out of date or incorrect data had been discussed and addressed in this thread? southdeltan No, we dont just read the first post then hit reply. I didnt notice any comments from Jeremy addressing the poor UK data included in the demo (purely the catalonian) and I certainly didnt see any comment about whether a requirement to have correct date could be based on whether it had been paid for or not. Tiffany Link to comment
+BalkanSabranje Posted May 16, 2004 Share Posted May 16, 2004 Fast feedback from the center of the continent: - nice to have a map; - the data is partly inaccurate/outdated, partly plain wrong (names of rivers etc.); - the distances are to be changed into the metric system (who needs miles??); thx, BS/2 Link to comment
Team Lizzzard Posted May 18, 2004 Share Posted May 18, 2004 so, what's the status on this topic? [GTL]S. Link to comment
+Starglider Posted May 18, 2004 Share Posted May 18, 2004 - the distances are to be changed into the metric system (who needs miles??); I doubt that our friends on the island will agree with you Link to comment
+hikemeister Posted May 18, 2004 Share Posted May 18, 2004 If you're in the US, ignore this thread. The (hopefully) improved maps are for outside the US. I am from the US, but will be traveling to the Netherlands and France in July and August and plan on doing some geocaching. It has been driving me nuts trying to figure out the locations of caches relative to major landmarks with just a grey background map -- this will be a fantastic addition, and just in time for me. Thanks! Link to comment
Jeremy Posted May 18, 2004 Author Share Posted May 18, 2004 The map provider was hesitating releasing the maps since there are some politically incorrect names for certain countries. I let them know we might as well release them since the current maps are so bad, and deal with the riots as they come. I'll let you know what I hear. Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 I'll let you know what I hear. Bump I'm listening. Link to comment
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