In Search of a Caching History Map Display

A caching buddy of mine recently asked me if there was a way to display your cache-finding history in a timeline display in Google Earth, or similar type of temporal map display. I thought I had seen this done before, but couldn't remember where or when. So I set off in search of a method for creating such a display. Along the way, I came across POI Editor, a web service that will generate a heat map of your finds, like this:

Generate your own USA heat-map

Not exactly the prettiest map in the world, and without the ability to zoom in or out, it's somewhat limited in functionality. But it still gives you a pretty good indication of where you spend most of your caching time.

Of course, this doesn't answer the original question I set out to find, so my search continued. So I took a look at the GSAK macro page to see if they offered anything in the way of a timeline map display, and while I didn't see anything, I did find a much improved version of a heat map generator, called Google Map V3. This macro generates a heat map respecting whatever type of filter you have showing when you run the macro. For example, running this macro with just my finds filtered results in this nice, interactive Google map:

Each time you zoom in, the display points re-adjust and the data ranges are reclassified. Again, this is not what I had originally set out looking for, but it was too cool not to share. So as my search for a method of displaying finds over time continues, I'll share what I find in my next post. If any readers are aware of any such tools, please let us know in the comments section below. Until next time...

Cache On!