Geographic calculators

Everybody knows about an excellent site GPS Visualizer with plenty of geographical utilities. I have been using it mainly for converting between various file formats (thanks to the equally excellent embedded GPS Babel tool) but recently I found its utilities for geographical calculations. I like its friendly user interface (allowing to copy easily data from one calculator to another one) and the gem, the "Draw range rings around a point".
 It allows me to see what actually I have loaded in my Garmin Oregon when preparing for a geocaching expedition. For example, In this map, each circle represents one GPX file in my Oregon.

More circles can be drawn together using another GPS Visualizer tool, the "Make a Google Map from a GPX File". Using the same tool, I can even see if the final coordinates of my solved puzzle geocaches fit in the range of the coordinates in my GPS:

Sometimes I need to find coordinates having a starting point, bearing (azimuth) and a distance. I often use http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html to do so:

 

It even shows you formulas how to make such arithmetic.

[CZ] Vylepsene stranky geocachingu

Vsechno je uz shrnuto a popsano na hezke strance Doplnky pro Firefox. Ja chci jen vypichnout ty nejzajimavejsi doplnky, ktere sam pouzivam.

Vsechny pouzivaji Greasemonkey, coz je rozsireni prohlizece Firefox, ktery umoznuje pridavat male "skriptiky" (ktere uz nekdo napsal). Skriptiky zacnou fungovat, kdyz se v browseru objevi stranka (nebo stranky), pro ktere jsou skriptiky urceny, a udelaji na strance nektera vylepseni.

Pokud nejste Premium Member, tak nejde v Google mape v geocachingu nezobrazovat ("filter out") uz nalezene kese, nebo zobrazovat jen urcite typy kesi. Po nainstalovani Greasemonkey a tohoto skriptu to uz pujde.

Ve vasem profilu jde na geocachingu nastavit vase domovske souradnice a od nich pak jednoduse hledat nejblizsi kese. Ve standardni strance lze ale nastavit jen jedno domovske misto. S timto skriptem tam muzete mit mist nekolik.

A malickost na konec: Pro vylusteni napovedy (hintu) v popisu kese se macka "Decrypt". To ale nacte celou stranku znova (coz nekdy trva dele, nez je prijemno). Mate-li nainstalovan tento skript, tak staci tuknout primo na text napovedy a ona se hned zcitelni (nebo naopak znecitelni).

Dik vsem autorum zminenych (a mnoha dalsich) skriptu.

Convert Google Maps to GPX

Sometimes I have a list of waypoints that I wish to see first in a map, and then to load them into my GPS. This happens, for example, when I solve a number of mystery caches before going to find them physically in the terrain. So far I found at least two convenient ways to do it:

Using GMapToGPX bookmarklet

You can get it into your browser by visiting the GMapToGPX home page. Once you have your waypoints (or routes) in the Google Maps page you just click the GMapToGPX bookmark button - and it will save your markers. Depending on the Google Maps mode you may be saving it first into KML format which can be converted to GPX (and many other) format by the excellent GPSVisualizer.

You cannot convert any Google maps. For example, the saving does not work on the geocaching.com maps or on other maps that are mashed-up (enriched) by other contents. So far, however, I have not found it too much limiting.

Using Nav2Us maplets

For more interactive use (for extracting waypoint by waypoint from a Google Map), I like to use the Nav'It maplet, It allows to select markers, to name them and to save them into the GPX format.

The Nav2Us has several more maplets that may be useful in the similar conversions.

Family & Friends on Rajce etc. (photos)

• Blanka
• Blanka on jAlbum
  
• Katrin
  
• Jitka
  
• Kim
  
• Martin
• Akela
• Brko
  

Czech 1000m moutains

You can see nice pages mapping all Czech mountains over one thousand meters above see. Additionally to their very nice pages, I have created files with their waypoints:

• Czech mountains as waypoints (GPX file)
  
• Czech mountains as virtual geocaches (GPX file with groundspeak tags)
  
• Czech mountains for GoogleEarth (KML file)

The virtual geocaches file - once loaded into supporting devices, such as Garmin Oregon - displays full summit descriptions (which is much more than by normal waypoints). It can also be loaded into GSAK.

[CZ] Ceske tisicovky

Ceske tisicovky mapuji veskere tisicimetrove vrcholy Ceske republiky. Jsou velmi hezky dokumentovany, existuje o nich i mila knizka. Jen jsem (zatim?) nenasel jejich seznam ve tvaru waypointu, ktery bych mohl nahrat do sveho GPS. Tak jsem si takovy soubor (lepe receno, soubory) vytvoril:

• Ceske tisicovky jako bezne waypointy (GPX soubor)
  
• Ceske tisicovky jako virtualni geocache (GPX soubor s groundspeak rozsirenimi)
  
• Ceske tisicovky pro GoogleEarth (KML soubor)

Soubor ve tvaru virtualnich geokesi ma vyhodu, ze v pristrojich jako Oregon se zobrazi cely popis vrcholu (u normalnich waypointu Oregon text vyrazne zkracuje). Take to lze nahrat do GSAKu.

My geocaching friends

Geo-visits

With Google Charts, it is easy to create small non-interactive maps with filled selected countries. For example, the countries I have visited so far.

Such map is created by making a URL with several parameters (e.g. which countries to fill or what colors to use). If you do not want to do it manually you can use a small JavaScript that reads your personalized list of countries to be colorized (which is also a JavaScript file) and creates the chart URL itself. See the source of the page above as an example.