Cache Density....

[+rutson]

Was bored in Germany, and amongst other things, I got side tracked and was playing with my cache database and a little php.

 

Came up with this:

 

Click for image....

 

It's quite a large map of the UK, you may have to click on the image to see it full size (if the text is blocky, it's been resized).

 

Couple of intersting bits:

 

* Blank areas inland from the wash and mid wales

* hot spots around:

* London (shock horror)

* Oxford (yawn)

* Edinburgh

* Hemel Hempstead (???????)

* Harrogate (Robin?)

* Wilsden area (Biffa and Son)

* Mid south ish lancs (girls?)

* Perth (no comment)

 

Now, if I can just overlay the counties map.....

[+Bekandian]

Nice map, but one comment...

 

It's not Hemel Hempstead that has the caches, it's Berkhamsted and the forest of Ashridge

[+kbootb]

Nice work. Now to make it 'interactive'.

[+third-degree-witch]

hemel hempstead has feck all that warrants a hot spot...other than wally world(entertainment complex n nightclubs) on a friday n saturday night.

[+Beds Clangers]

And I thought Berko was just a Hemel overspill!!

 

Just kidding

 

Nick

[+rutson]

Nice work. Now to make it 'interactive'.

D'ya know the thought HAD crossed my mind.

 

Wouldn't be TOO hard, maybe 15-20 hours work to add zooming and counties overlay and make it 'nice'.

 

What bothers me is that the only way to generate it it to (one way or another) reuse GPX PQ data, which is against the T&Cs. I'm sure as hell not going to put all that work in to

 

a) get my account stopped and/or

not be allowed to share it

 

So it'll proabably stay roughly as it is

[+klaus23]

Correct me if I'm daft, but is it not a pretty decent reflection of population density?

 

I mean, the mountains in Wales, lots of Devon and Northern Scotland have nothing.

 

In comparison, the south coast, London, the northern cities around Manchester/Liverpool and the 'M4' corridor of Bristol/Bath/Swindon/Reading can easily be spotted.

 

In Wales you can see Cardiff/Newport/Swansea and way up north, Newcastle-on-Tyne can be picked out easily.

 

(edited for geographical boo-boo)

Edited April 9, 2005 by klaus23

[+2202]

Correct me if I'm daft, but is it not a pretty decent reflection of population density?

Not at all daft, in fact spot on. Couple that to where active cachers live, (and yes I am one of the Oxford tribe) and the map does quite rightly reflect a number of parameters. I find it unusual that the Vale of York, Northampton/Warwickshire and the Cotswolds are bare (ish).

[+John & Hazel]

Nice work.  Now to make it 'interactive'. 

Why not use the interactive map At GeocacheUK?

[+kbootb]

Nice work.  Now to make it 'interactive'. 

Why not use the interactive map At GeocacheUK?

Oh don't worry, I do use it.

 

However, I think it must have reached a limit as some new caches that have been placed locally are not appearing on the map.

[+Teasel]

However, I think it must have reached a limit as some new caches that have been placed locally are not appearing on the map.

The limit that's been reached is what Macromedia Flash can cope with (or, at least, my programming abilities in that language!). A workaround is to first search for caches around a nearby location, then visit the interactive map link from the search results.

 

Alternatively, try out the new interactive map, which is a little clumsier to use, but has a few more features.

[+Teasel]

Nice work.  Now to make it 'interactive'. 

D'ya know the thought HAD crossed my mind.

Interactive would be nice, but nicer still would be an mpeg animation starting back in 2001 and evolving to the current day. Might be a pretty big file to download, but well worth the wait!

 

ps G:UK has permission to reuse GPX data for statistical purposes, so if you wanted to host it on our database, it'd be a great addition to the site.

[+rutson]

The animation would be perfectly possible. Currently the input is from an mxf file spewed out of GSAK. I chose that was for no other reaosn than it's a nice straightforward csv file and I can read the data from the file, convert to lat,long pop it in an array in two lines of code., I'm lazy like that

 

With a bit of work it could input from GPX, thereby having being able to get the cache placed date. Obviously caches come and go, so it would be nice to have access to archived caches too. I have 1011 archived caches in my dB, I assume there are more.

 

Once the coords and placement dates were loaded into an array/database, it'd just be a matter of calling the 'draw map' routine for a range of dates, saving a set of files, then joining them to make em into an animation.

 

PHP has no function to generate mpegs or similar (not really suprising, it's hardly the right tool for the job) so an external program would need to be called. I'll have a play later if I have time.

[Beer Monster]

Correct me if I'm daft, but is it not a pretty decent reflection of population density?

And then there's Birmingham. Big population, surrounded by green bits, lumpy bits, etc. and only a handful of caches. Looking on the nice new interactive map (good 'un Teasel), I think little Coventry has more caches now.

[+Learned Gerbil]

new interactive map, which is a little clumsier to use, but has a few more features.

can't see hopw you open a cache listing from this. I have followed the instructions to the letter. Clicking on the layer, then clicking on a cache does nothing at all.

[+stora]

can't see hopw you open a cache listing from this. I have followed the instructions to the letter. Clicking on the layer, then clicking on a cache does nothing at all.

Clicking on a cache opens a 'popup' window. Check your settings.

[+snaik]

Was bored in Germany, and amongst other things, I got side tracked and was playing with my cache database and a little php.

 

Came up with this:

 

Click for image....

 

It's quite a large map of the UK, you may have to click on the image to see it full size (if the text is blocky, it's been resized).

 

Couple of intersting bits:

 

* Blank areas inland from the wash and mid wales

* hot spots around:

* London (shock horror)

* Oxford (yawn)

* Edinburgh

* Hemel Hempstead (???????)

* Harrogate (Robin?)

* Wilsden area (Biffa and Son)

* Mid south ish lancs (girls?)

* Perth (no comment)

 

Now, if I can just overlay the counties map.....

"Perth (no comment)"

 

Indeed no comment required!!