Google Maps Engine

I started playing around with Google Maps Engine to see if it provides a nice environment for creating and storing cache information in an online mapping tool. Spoiler alert: it does.

While meant more for business use, you can also use the Map Engines Lite version for free. It's a great way to create and share your own personalized maps.

In the example below, I used GSAK to export a CSV file containing a filtered list of the most difficult caches (D/T rating > 4.0/4.0) in my neck of the woods. Then I simply imported that file into my GME account, and presto, a share-able, customizable map.

Cache On!

No-Touching Zone

Here's an opportunity to take a 5 minute break from trying to find a cache every day this month, and take some comfort in just just how difficult it was to navigate in the 1800's without a GPS; compared to how easy we've got it now:


Cache On!

News You Can Use

AR GPS Compass Map 3D
This interesting android app sports a 3D Compass and Waypoint Finder with Map and Augmented Reality Display.


The Rand McNally Foris
Everyone recognizes the Rand McNally brand for their maps and atlases. But did you know they also have their own line of GPS devices? Neither did I.



And Speaking of Rand McNally...
They've teamed up with geocaching.com and Good Sam in search of the best small towns in America. This year's event features a new category: Best Town for Gecoaching. Read more about it here.

That's it for this week. Cache On!

Geocaching in Education

I'm not a teacher, but I come from a long line of them, and happen to be married to one as well. As such, I have the utmost respect for our educators and have always been troubled by how under-valued and under-appreciated they are, at least in American culture. But that's a rant for another day.

Switching gears slightly, I've been pleasantly surprised to see the growing use of geocaching as a teaching aid in the classroom. It doesn't take a brainiac to see the broad range of educational applications afforded by our little hobby - everything from math (geometry, algebra and trigonometry) to geography to history and more. Makes me wish I was back in school...

Following are some specific examples I found from educators describing how to integrate geocaching into the classroom:

• Use of Geocaching as a Fun Teaching Tool
• Integrating Geocaching into the Mathematics Classroom
• MathCaching
• Geocaching: How to Use it in Your Classroom
• Geocaching Across the Curriculum

I'm sure there are many more examples out there, which is pretty impressive considering no one had even heard of geocaching just a mere ten years ago.

Cache, and Educate, On!

Stuck on 1,997K?

Lots made this week of the impending placement of the 2 millionth cache. See the latest Latitude 47 blog post for more on this topic. And check out the two, cool videos showing cache placements and travel bug movement over time. Not to be too morbid, but the TB video kind of looks like a terrible epidemic spreading across the globe. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, there have certainly been a lot of happy Travel Bug carriers making the trek to the Hawaiian Islands; all in the name of TB placement:



While the thought of there being two million active geocaches across the globe is pretty phenomenal, it sure seems like they've been stuck at or around 1,997,000 for a while now. Every time I check the main geocaching.com page, the total count hasn't made a lot of movement. I guess with so many caches around the world now, there are probably almost as many being archived as there are being hidden.

Regardless, now's your chance to get your 15 minutes of fame. I understand gc.com will post the Cacher's name and GC number of the two-millionth cache when it is hidden. So get out there and hide a cache this weekend to get your shot at making geocaching history. And if that's not enough incentive for you, then check out the 2-millionth cache contest going on at notaboutthenumbers.

Cache On!

The Forgotten Mapmaker

A very interesting article from The Atlantic on the business of creating digital, online maps, and how the data is collected and processed: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-forgotten-mapmaker-nokia-has-better-maps-than-apple-and-maybe-even-google/263150/.

Cache On!

Trackprofiler

I recently ran across another GPS track mapping tool called, Trackprofiler, which I'm really enjoying using. The tool allows you to upload your GPS tracks (in almost any format, including GPX, KML, and OziExplorer, among others), and then edit, organize and publish them. Not only can you publish your tracks on the Trackprofiler site, but you can also embed your results in your own website:


You simply upload your track data, and the site generates a profile and track map, complete with trip statistics. The information is kept in draft format until you decide to publish it, if you decide you first want to clean up the data, add photos, etc. Some of the track editing tools available are shown below:

I still like and use EveryTrail, but I also like all the track editing features included with Trackprofiler. I'll probably keep using both for a while until I decide which one I like best. So check it out, if you're one of those old-timey cachers that still uses a stand-alone GPSr device (there's still a few of us around, right?).

Cache On!

Got The Jitters?

According to AppleInsider, the new maps that Apple will be serving up in iOS 6 will leave Google Maps in the dust. They claim that Apple's new vector-based maps will refresh faster and look cleaner than Google's image-based (raster) maps. Of course, Google Maps still offers many other features that the new iOS 6 maps may not, such as street view; voice prompted, turn-by-turn navigation features; and 3-D building models.


Of course, if you use the geocaching.com app. on your iPhone, you'll still see ground zero displayed on a Google Maps map (if you are a premium subscriber). But if this presumed "jitteriness" of Google Maps is too much to handle, then you might just want to enter the cache's lat/long. coordinates into the new Apple map and let it guide you to that next cache.


Cache On!

Maphead

I admit it; I'm not much of a bookworm. I spend most of my time outdoors or in front of a computer screen. But my family bought me a great book a while back as a gift. It's called, Maphead, and was written by Ken Jennings, who is better known as the all-time reigning Jeopardy! champion. I think my family got me the book because I'm somewhat of a geo-nerd. What they didn't know, and what turned out to be an added bonus, is that there is an entire chapter of this book dedicated to geocaching.

In chapter 10, Mr. Jennings does a great job summarizing the history of geocaching, and provides some very interesting insights through interviews with Dave Ulmer (hider of the very first "geo-stash"), Jeremy Irish, along with top-cachers; EMC of Northridge CA, and Alamogul. It includes some interesting tidbits about how Ulmer was not a fan of geocaching.com at all for many years, and a discussion of what might have prompted the world's most prolific cacher at the time, CCCooperAgency, to suddenly just walk away from the sport in 2009, never to cache again.

So if you are a fan of maps and cartography, you will really enjoy this book. And, if you also enjoy geocaching (and who doesn't?), then you'll love this book; especially chapter 10.

Maphead is available on Amazon: Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks

Cache On!

Return of Google Maps

Word on the street is that Google Maps will become available once again to premium members using geocaching.com beginning May 22nd. This is according to a Geocaching Podcast tweet yesterday. If true, this is good news for a lot of people who prefer seeing Google Maps on the site rather than Open Street Maps. The switch to OSM for all users began last February when Google raised the fees for heavy users of their mapping services.

Cache On!

They Grow Up So Fast

Hard to believe that our favorite hobby just celebrated its twelfth birthday this week. Seems like just yesterday  only the nerdiest of nerds, and the most extreme outdoor enthusiasts, carried a GPS receiver around with them. And without too much effort you could have cached-out an entire 10-mile radius around your home. Ahh, those were the days. And who could forget the fun in carrying around reams of paper with the cache information in one hand and a marked-up topo map in the other? Boy, how times have changed!

Most of you have probably seen this nice little trip down memory lane, but if not, it's not the worst way to spend the next one minute and nineteen seconds of your life. Enjoy.



Happy Birthday Geocaching, and Cache On!

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!

OpenStreetMap, Part II

We talked a little about OpenStreetMap, or OSM, a few weeks ago after Groundspeak made the decision to switch their geocaching.com online mapping service from Google Maps to OSM as a result of Google deciding  to charge host sites for the use of their mapping services. This has sparked a lot of new interest in OSM, especially from the geocaching community, as to how to edit OSM maps, and how to load OSM maps onto GPS receivers.

I ran across this great post yesterday from the GeoGearHeads. It includes links to some very helpful information and tutorials on these topics, as well as a great, approximately 15-minute podcast, about OSM. Following is one of the OpenStreetMap for Beginners tutorials to get you started:


OpenStreetMap for Beginners Part 1: Add points of interest from David Ellams on Vimeo.

Cache On!

Roll Your Own Trail Mapping Website

In a number of previous posts, I've highlighted some of my favorite GPS track uploading websites, such as Everytrail and others, that let you share your GPS tracks and photos in a web-based mapping environment.


Well, now there's a site that lets you create your own, personalized version of these types of track-sharing tools, called Trail Charts, by TripGeo.


Using a spreadsheet as the main data source, Trail Charts is a mapping API which can be used on your website to display a large number of separate KML feeds (trails) on a map. You can customize how data fields from your spreadsheet are displayed on the map. A great example of Trail Charts in action can be found at MrHollister.com. Mr. Hollister shares his amazing photos and GPS tracks from numerous hikes in around the Yosemite area using this service. 

If you keep copies of your GPS tracks, this could be a great way to share your geocaching adventures with others.

Cache On!

Access KML's on Your Mobile Device

Google announced this week that you can now access custom Google Earth content (KML files) on your mobile device. Previously, this was only possible from a desktop or laptop machine running Google Earth. This could come in handy when you've converted your cache waypoints file from GPX to KML format and you want to see your data in a Google Earth environment on your mobile device. The 6.2 release of Google Earth for Android and iOS also includes improvements in navigation, which make it even easier to fly to your favorite spots on the globe. As would be expected, the Android version is available now in "Google Play". The iOS version will be available in the App store "soon". 



Cache On!

More On Maps

You’ve probably noticed by now, or at least heard, that Groundspeak has changed the background basemap they use on the geocaching.com website, from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap. They cite cost as the main reason for doing so in this brief Latitude 47 blog post. This sparked off a lively debate, as seen in that same blog post’s comment section.

For those not familiar with OpenStreetMap, or OSM, it is often referred to as the Wikipedia of geography, because all of the mapping is done, and updated, by the user community; a method known as crowd-sourcing. The maps are then made available for free.

One of the main complaints reiterated in the Latitude 47 blog’s comments was that the OSM maps are not nearly as accurate as Google Maps. While this is probably a legitimate concern in certain parts of the country, especially in some of the more rural areas, I don’t think this is true overall. Not only are the OSM maps in my neck of the woods just as accurate as Google and Bing Maps are, they are also more detailed in many respects (similar to the example shown in the Latitude 47 post). For example, the OSM maps of the parks and open spaces here in the San Francisco Bay Area contain far more trail detail (with labels) than Google maps does.

OSM View of Redwood Regional Park

The same view in Google Maps. Where'd all the trails go?

Of course, I am fortunate enough to live in an area with a very active OSM community that is constantly updating and adding features to the maps. I realize that’s not the case everywhere.

My two main complaints, however, with the new map interface vs. the old is that the satellite imagery is poorer than Google’s, and the rendering speed is much slower than before. I understand that Groundspeak is addressing the drawing speed issue, but I think we’re stuck with the imagery resolution problem for now. Oh well, we can always copy and paste a cache’s coordinates into Google Maps and open up street view; as long as it’s still free for us to do so. ;)

You may be interested to learn that there has been a concerted effort underway for some time now, advocating that people, and companies, switch to OSM as their online mapping provider. And it’s not just Groundspeak that realized that the “free” online mapping services that Google offers isn’t really free at all. Just this week, Foursquare announced that they too are switching from Google to OSM, for mainly the same reason that Groundspeak did.

OSM has been very popular in Europe for years, and just seems to be starting to gain momentum here in the U.S. It’s likely that OSM’s popularity will continue to grow as the maps continue to improve in quality and more companies begin to dump their pay-for-geography services for the OSM alternative. And the growing interest in OSM isn’t limited to just online mapping: NavFree touts itself as "The world's first free professional GPS navigation software for the iPhone and iPad, for free." How can it be free, you ask? Because it uses OpenStreetMap.

Cache On!

GPS News

Lots of GPS items in the news this week:

• You can add the airline industry to the growing list of various agencies concerned about potential GPS interference from the proposed LightSquared 4G LTE Network.
• The US Supreme Court ruled that a warrant is required to place a GPS device on the car of a criminal suspect, but didn't address the larger issue of police tracking using mobile phones.
• For you GIS Users, DNRGPS is great for transferring data between your Garmin GPS device and your GIS software. The new release of the application will be Open Source software.
• Buy a new Nüvi 2000/3000 and get free map upgrades for life.
• Waze lets you report traffic with the wave of your hand:

That's all for now.
Cache On!

And In Other News...

Lots of odds and ends this week in Geocaching, including:

Geomate .jr's are no longer in production. 
In fact, the company that made them, Apisphere, has apparently gone out of business. You may be able to get the devices cheap on eBay now, but beware, since support will be non-existent.

National Geographic's TOPO! is Migrating to AllTrails
The TOPO! program was one of my favorite mapping and GPS track display tools. But I received an email from NG this week informing me that production and support is going away, and instead, NG is forming a partnership with AllTrails to handle my trail finding and uploading needs. While I've been using a similar online tool, EveryTrail, for years, I might have to give AllTrails a whirl and see how they compare. There's even an app for that.

Leap Day Souvenir
If you're like me, you've had February 29th, 2011 circled on your calendar for a long time now, as most people do not have an 02/29 cache find; seeing as there have only been two of them since geocaching began. Well, in case you need any further incentive to find a cache on leap day, Groundspeak is offering a souvenir badge for those who do.

Cahce On!

The New Google Map Maker

Who better to update hiking and biking trails in Google Maps than geocachers?!



Cache On!

Historical Topographic Maps

Many of us old-timey cachers, who have been caching since the pre-smartphone era, latched on to this hobby as a result of a pre-existing love of the outdoors. Most of us already had recreational GPS receiver devices that we used for navigating through remote hiking, biking and/or 4x4 trails. When geocaching came along, it just gave us just one more excuse to break out the ol' GPSr.

Of course, most GPSr's back then did not have built-in background maps, so we still had to rely more heavily on the beloved USGS TOPO map to keep ourselves from getting lost. As such, many of us have acquired quite a collection of TOPO maps over the year, myself included.

If you grew up with a, some might call it sick, fondness for TOPO maps, then you might be interested to know that the USGS is converting all of their historical printed topographic quadrangles to an electronic format and making them available for download. This will be a great way to see how much has changed in your area of interest over the years, if at all, as these maps include such wonderful detail. I know I'm looking forward to seeing the railroad alignment that used to run through my neck of the woods long before I arrived here. There is no longer any physical evidence that it ever existed. The only clue I've had up until now, ironically, is from a geocache: Eastport.


Cache On!