Google Earth Blog: Geocaching Archives

November 01, 2005

Geocaching.com Uses Random Approximate Coordinates in Google Earth

On 22 October I wrote about Geocaching.com supporting Google Earth as a powerful way to search Geocaches. At the time I had no official announcement from the company. Here's a link to the announcement, which provides some additional details on their Google Earth suport.

The most interesting thing about this announcement is this: "...the coordinates used in Google Earth are only an approximation and can be up to 100 ft from the actual location. Do not use the coordinates in Google Earth for cache hunting" Apparently, Google Earth is so accurate in showing cache locations they felt it would take away some of the fun if the placemark showed the real coordinates. If you select "View Cache Details" from the placemark and then "edit" the placemark, select "advanced", select "Location" and compare the coordinates they will be different. Now, given that GPS's are already off by anywhere from 5-75 feet, the actual error in location may be even bigger. You could just enter the real coordinates from the web page if you don't like this feature. But, its interesting they chose this approach. Or, could it be that Geocaching.com was concerned someone would start saving the Google Earth network link placemarks and create their own database of the geocache coordinates?

The announcment also...

The announcement also contained two other features: Geocaching .com is offering GE files for Bookmark lists and for showing where a Travel Bug has travelled (read the Geocaching.com site if you don't know what these are). I'm glad Geocaching.com is taking advantage of GE to provide their customers with useful visualization tools. Geocaching and Google Earth are ideally suited for one another.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 22, 2005

Geocaching.com Officially Supports Google Earth

Geocaching.com has finally released an official network link for supporting Google Earth. The network link lets you browse the Earth in Google Earth and will automatically reveal the Geocaches nearby. This is a VERY cool feature!

If you read my earlier story about the company stifling innovation (because someone wrote a network link to allow convenient searching of Geocaches) this new link is the reason. Groundspeak (the company which runs Geocachng.com) has done a good job with their own implementation of the network link. Except, right now it is kind of difficult to find the network link on their web site.

Here are instructions for ...

Here are instructions for getting the Google Earth network link for Geocaching.com: You have to have at least the free basic account on Geocahing.com, log-in and click on "My Account". In the lower-right of the page under "Google Mapping Features" click on "Download Geocache browser in Google Earth". This will download the network link into Google Earth (assuming you have GE installed).

Once you have the network link downloaded, you will see "Geocaching Network KML" in your Places folder. I recommend you move it from the "Temporary Places" to your "My Places" folder for safekeeping. Next, just zoom somewhere in the world below 500 miles out, pause a few seconds, and you will see geocaches for that view. Groundspeak has made nice looking placemarks for the different types of geocaches. If you click on a placemark you get a brief description and a link to the cache page with all the details, or you can bookmark it for future reference at the web site.

This is a highly useful capability (read the things you can do with this in my first geocaching story). I"m glad Groundspeak is officially supporting this capability. By the way, I'm told you are limited to 150 caches in a view and can only refresh the network link 200 times in a day. You also are able to download a static KML for a specific cache.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 19, 2005

Magnalox - GPS Story Telling for Google Earth

Just ran across the most powerful GPS track visualization tool to date. The Magnalox.Net web site allows you to upload your GPS tracks and turn them into amazing visualization tools. Volker Kinkelin in Germany has created some of my most-wanted visualization tools including: animating your track (while showing speed and height graphs), colorization of your data (according to height or speed), automated geotagging of photographs taken during your track, and it allows you to perform story telling during the track. And, of course he provides the ability to view your track and story from within Google Earth.

As an example, I quickly uploaded the recent flying trip I wrote about here last week. Magnalox calls your uploaded tracks "magnalogs". Once you load my magnalog it will immediately begin animating through the track. Below the graphs you can read my commentary for each event along the trip. You can just step through each story entry (under "Goto Story") for greater control of the story.

Magnalox allowed me to easily generate a Google Earth file of the same magnalog (NOTE: I've made some slight modifications to my log to improve viewing). Each of my story entries are a placemark. If you double click the placemarks you can zoom in and see the better detail provided by Google Earth (e.g. try story entry "10"),

By the way, Magnalox is free to use, and has many powerful features. For example, if you click on the animated cursor in the log it allows you to open that waypoint in a variety of mapping tools including: Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Google Maps, Topozone, Multimaps, MSN, Geocaching.com, and more. Amazing! Great work Volker!

Volker also has written a powerful Pocket PC application which lets you interface your PDA with a GPS and uses the display to provide visualization of your track, integration with points of interest databases, and, of course, simple integration with Magnalox.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 04, 2005

Garmin Buys MotionBased

Garmin, the largest maker of GPS systems, has announced it has acquired MotionBased Technologies, a popular developer of software and web based applications for GPS devices. This was a significant move for Garmin, because their application MapSource mostly provides the most basic functionality for manipulating your GPS device tracks, routes and maps.

In fact, I'm surprised I had not discovered MotionBased myself. According to their blog in the 15 months since they released their first beta, they grew to over 11,000 customers and 150,000 activities (by this I assume they mean GPS tracks). They emphasize fitness applications like mountain biking, running, and hiking. But, it can also be used for any other activitiy where you might carry a GPS. Their applications basically make it easy to upload your GPS tracks and be able to visualize the tracks against maps; analyze and chart your elevation changes, speed, and duration; and many other tools for analyzing your trip/run/bike/etc.

MotionBased added the ability to output your track first to Keyhole and was one of the first applications to support Google Earth. So far they just upload the tracks into GE (the picture here shows the same track as the one above in GE). At least that's all I've seen so far. I'm hoping they take greater advantage of GE features such as network links, placemarks, inputting charts and data as well.

MotionBased provides both free and subscription based services. The free service basically is limited in features and scale, and any serious user would want to upgrade. Currently it costs either $12 a month or $8 a month if you commit to a year. I've used a variety of public domain resources to accomplish some of the capabilities MotionBased provides (see my story here). But, MotionBased makes it much easier and has more features already. I think Garmin has made a very smart move. And the guys at MotionBased are probably walking on clouds. I hope Garmin treats them well.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 24, 2005

Owners of Geocaching.com Stifle Innovation

This is the second time I've seen Geocaching.com owner's Groundspeak stifle innovation and very useful enhancements. OgleEarth just wrote about this earlier today. Last month I wrote an article about Geocaching Google Earth showing a very powerful script written by Andy Fowler which allowed you to see Geocaches at the Geocaching.com web site from within Google Earth. You still had to link to Geocaching.com to see the useful data, it just made it MUCH easier to visualize where the caches are located by using GE. Here's Andy Fowler's views on what they have done, and I agree with him.

A few months ago I saw another web site author (I can't seem to find his web site now) which tried to enhance the ability to visualize the caches using a 2D mapping interface. He also was forced to stop by the Geocaching.com people.

As a Geocacher myself, I have been very disappointed in the lack of innovation of the interface to visualize geocaches at Geocaching.com. Each time they prevent other people from offering useful interfaces, you would think they were about to release their own improvements. But, so far, they haven't. A very non-Internet approach to doing business. In the meantime, I hope some other people take Andy Fowler's script and get it running again.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 15, 2005

Geocaching Google Earth

Even if you have never heard of Geocaching, you'll find the following network link an interesting way to explore the Earth. What is Geocaching? It's a recreational byproduct of the GPS and the Internet. From the Geocaching FAQ:

The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

Back in early July, I read a posting at the GE Community by Andy Fowler who had written his first network link. He did a better posting with details on his blog. Bascially, his network link (like the Flickr50 link I wrote about earlier) when turned on will automatically pull in nearby Geocaching locations based on where you are looking. It checks the coordinates and pulls in the data from the Geocaching web site. Then, you can click on the placemark and find a link to "View @ Geocaching.com". [EDIT: Link no longer provided because it's not working anymore. See "Geocaching.com Officially Supports Google Earth".]

Once you've found a geocache, and clicked on the "View @ Geocaching.com", the Geocaching web site shows all kinds of details for each Geocache including its coordinates, a description of the cache, and maybe even hints on how to find the cache once you get there. It also contains the log entries of other people who have found (or not found) the cache. The log entries may include photos of that spot and details of interesting things nearby. This is an interesting way to see what other people think about a location.

If you are going on a vacation, and own a GPS, you owe it to yourself to use this network link. Plan to visit a few interesting geocaches, or at least use this to find even more interesting places (that you probably won't find in a guidebook). If you are a geocacher, you will find this a much easier tool for finding interesting geocaches than anything I've seen to date.

By the way, my hat is off to Andy Fowler. Great job! This is one of my favorite network links.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack