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Runnng Cartridge and Routing simultaniously


pingurus

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Hi,

I want to build a Wherigo where the cacher is given a route on which he should travel and then the Wherigo announces if there is something to be seen near the route.

For this it would be ideal if i can supply the cacher with a gpx file so he can follow this and I only haave to worry about my interesting zones in the cartridge. Is this somehow possible on standalone GPSses? (I don't want to exclude those who don't use a smartphone)

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The two gps models I've used for Wherigo would both require that a person save the game, exit the game, fire up the gps unit, use the gpx navigation you're offering - get someplace needed to trigger the Wherigo, know that, find the Saved Wherigo game, start it, wait for it to find itself, hope it triggers properly, continue....

 

In short, if you're running a Wherigo cart, you can't switch quickly to gps mode.

Edited by Isonzo Karst
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You could have the caches as zones within the cartridge. You can detect when the player gets close and the zone with the point of interest will be displayed within the Wherigo location list. The player could use the point of interest (or cache) zone to navigate to and find it. To do a field note, however, the player must exit the cartridge (and save the game), pull up the map or geocache list, mark that cache as found, then resume the cartridge.

 

For handheld GPS receivers, you need to be careful how many zones you have active (not just visible) at a time as having too many could cause the device to get really slow. I think the community decided between eight and twelve seemed to be the limit for what the handhelds could reasonably do.

 

Let me give you an example of what happens when a handheld's processing limit is reached. I developed a cartridge in 2008, when only the Garmin Colorado was on the market. I had eight zones, one of which was on a timer. The timer would reposition the zone every second. For that zone, I was simulating someone walking her dog in a park. Thus, the zone moved along a route I had created. Everything worked beautifully for the Colorado. The Oregon came out right before I released the cartridge. I was under the false assumption that the Oregon, being released after the Colorado, would be more capable. Not at all! The person who played the cartridge reported it took in excess of thirty seconds for the next page of dialog (when talking with an NPC) to be displayed! I was surprised. So I had to update the cartridge and cut a few zones and the dog walker down to being repositioned every five seconds. Even if you don't have a timer and a zone moving in the background, the handheld is still recalculating the player's distance relative to all active (not just visible) zones. So just be aware this could become an issue for you if you use too many zones.

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Hi,

I want to build a Wherigo where the cacher is given a route on which he should travel and then the Wherigo announces if there is something to be seen near the route.

For this it would be ideal if i can supply the cacher with a gpx file so he can follow this and I only haave to worry about my interesting zones in the cartridge. Is this somehow possible on standalone GPSses? (I don't want to exclude those who don't use a smartphone)

 

maybe you could just include waypoints with your gpx track ?

 

it would mean the standalone user would have to turn on waypoint notifications , and their standalone have the ability to play the audio note or display the message (text/picture?) you included with each waypoint. can they do that ?

 

if they can't do that, you could always provide two gpx files, one for the track and the other for the waypoints, then turn on proximaty alerts for your waypoints.

 

should be pretty easy, if you have users familiar with their units.

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Maybe I haven't asked the question correctly.

I want to hide a Wherigo cache which you preferably do by mountainbike. The route that you will take is given, there are only three or four questions asked on an 18 km trail, but the cachers should stay on a specific track where they will have a nice biking experience.

 

Maybe I found a solution myself:

I create zones which match the track between the questions and an extra zone for each question / cache. Like that I can always activate one zone after another and also disable them directly after I don't need them anymore.

This would be doable, wouldn't it?

Edited by pingurus
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