Selecting Waypoints/Caches graphically or in a box: how?

[+Cornfeddog]

I would like to select all the caches in a given rectangular area. I know I can select ones in a circle from a specific zip code or other point. But when I travel for example I would like to be able to get all the caches along I-80 across Nebraska without getting those that are well off my driving route.

 

Is there a way to generate a pocket query to do what I want? (I can't figure it out) Or is there a way to select waypoints graphically and only send those selected to my GPSr? Currently I use: USAPhotoMaps, MapSend Topo, EasyGPS, Cachmate with my eTrex, and SportMap.

 

I can run a pocket query for all of Nebraska. Then upload all the waypoints but then I end up with more than I really need and would like to use those slots for some waypoints from other areas.

 

Any ideas?

[McKenzie Clan]

I guess you could load them all into your map, the de-select the ones you don't want.

 

Kinda time consuming though...

 

Hopefully someone has a better answer

 

Scott

[+geospotter]

You might try this -

 

If you know the high and low values of the rectangle's latitude and longitude, and I assume you would - you drew the rectangle, then just load your large GPX file into EasyGPS. I use ExpertGPS, so I don't know if EasyGPS can do this.

 

Once loaded, click on the latitude column to sort it, select the caches between the low and high coords, and cut/paste them into a new EasyGPS file. In that file click on the longitude coords to sort it and select caches between the low and high longitude coords for the rectangle. Cut and paste as before. Now you have only those caches in the rectangle. I just did it in ExpertGPS in less than a minute.

 

Or select those coords outside the desired rectangle and delete those. Either way.

[+beejay&esskay]

EasyGPS lets you sort on lat and long. You could do the sort and delete the points outside the desired rectangle, if the rectangle were parallel to the equator.

 

Not ideal, but it's a solution.

[+Stunod]

Watcher can filter a pocket query by "box" coordinates.

 

______________________

Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand. - Homer Simpson

ChiTown Cachers * Keenpeople.com Stats

[+Hard Oiler]

I use MS Streets and Trips (got the method from a Markwell FAQ originally). Download the waypoints into S&T. Set up the route you plan to take. Then show information along the route. You can search any distance from the route or points on the route. That will give you the list of caches which you then check off in Watcher and get a filtered list and file so you can just send those waypoints to your GPS.

 

"If you don't know where you are going, then it doesn't much matter where you are." - Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass

[+PDOP's]

I use the same method as HardOiler but if you really want to use a program that will allow you to select waypoints graphically I would suggest the GPSTrackmaker freeware program.

 

It will allow selection of points for upload on screen by drawing a box or selecting individually. It can import Ozi waypoint files which can be created by GPSBabel. You would have to find a highway map and calibrate it manually but that's certainly doable.

 

PDOP's GPS Pages

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cornfeddog:

I can run a pocket query for all of Nebraska. Then upload all the waypoints but then I end up with more than I really need and would like to use those slots for some waypoints from other areas.

---

Luckily, you actually can run a PQ for all of Nebraska, because it has fewer than 500 caches. Some of us aren't so lucky. So, here's what you do (I think; I haven't tested this for the simple reason that I don't have Mapsend Topo. I do this with Street Atlas USA 2003.)

 

First, you'll need GPSBabel.

 

Get mapsend to create a route that follows I-80. Then...

gpsbabel -r -i mapsend -f route.mps -o arc -F route.arc

This will create a file called route.arc, which will contain your route along I-80 in a format the GPSBabel arc filter can understand.

 

Next...

gpsbabel -i gpx -f Nebraska.gpx -x arc,file=route.arc,distance=10mi -o gpx -F NEroute.gpx

Will create a file called NEroute.gpx that contains any points within 10 miles of the route. (Assuming your original GPX file was called Nebraska.gpx)

 

Then, you can load that GPX file into whatever other programs you use.

[robertlipe]

I reviewed the above GPSBabel instructions, touch-tested them against Mapsend routes, and find them to be just lovely.

 

It's a close variation on how I plan my trips when I travel. Yes, you have to "overspray" the pocke t queries pretty seriously and let the local software filter it out, but it makes lots of interesting things possible. I do share WFF's annoyance at the 500 point limit when calculating this overspray, though.

 

I offer this example from my incoming mail filter, that's already detected the incoming mail filter is one of two pocket queries (one from Paducah, KY, one of St. Louis, MO) to get passed to a gpx2html-like substance:

 

gpsbabel -i gpx -f "${TGTDIR}/St. Louis" -xradius,lat=38.6,lon=-90.35,distance=30 -o gpx -F "${TGTDIR}/St. Louis.f"

gpsbabel -i gpx -f ${TGTDIR}/Paducah -x arc,file=/home/robertl/src/geo/route/stl-nash.txt,distance=3 -f "${TGTDIR}/St. Louis.f" -xradius,lat=38.5,lon=-90.5,distance=9999 -xduplicate,shortname -o [ blah blah ]

 

Take the Paducah list and find anything within 3 miles of {I65,I24,I57,I64} and merge it with the St. Louis list and then sort the whole thing, suppressing duplicates (the two PQ's overlap just a tad), sorting by incrdasing distance from my in-laws house, and write that GPX to the output...

 

Yeah, it sounds nerdy, but you only have to do it once. Since it's in my .procmailrc, every PQ delivered to me for either of those two regions triggers this rule so my computer deals with these things and I don't have to.

 

[+Cornfeddog]

Thank you all for a variety of options. I should have thought of the sorting solution in EasyGPS. I'll have to give the others a try. What a collection of collective wisdom. Thanks!

[+2LuknF8]

I use GPSBabel all the time - it is a great program so a special "Thanks" to its creator! I never knew of all the command line functoins. Will someone please post them here?

 

"the future is no place to place your better days"- dmb

[robertlipe]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 2LuknF8:

I use GPSBabel all the time - it is a great program so a special "Thanks" to its creator! I never knew of all the command line functoins. Will someone please post them here?

---

 

You're welcome. 'gpsbabel -?' will give you options until your brain hurts and is the most authoritative list for any given version. The README that was included with your GPSBabel isn't as comprehensive, but is more tutorial-ish.

 

[+2LuknF8]

I am very interested in identifying caches just 3 miles along a route. However, my Mapsend Topo does not save routes in arc files but along with the waypoint files. I just purchased MS Streets & Trips with the hope of using it but GPSBabel does not recognize the est file generated. Can anybody give me an assist with this?

 

"the future is no place to place your better days"- dmb

[robertlipe]

Getting caches into S&T is easy

 

Caches along a route is also a Frequently Asked Question. S&T makes it very easy.

 

[+2LuknF8]

It seems that the latest beta versoin of GPSBabel does not read S&T 2004. Each time I try to create an arc file from a S&T route (extension was .est), it comes up blank.

 

Commands used to make arc file:

C:GPSBABEL>gpsbabel -r -i s_and_t -f fgs_rte.est -o arc -F route.arc

 

file size for fgsrte.arc=0 bytes.

 

Commands used to process arc file:

C:GPSBABEL>gpsbabel -i gpx -f fgs.gpx -x arc,file=route.arc,distance=0.3mi -o g

px -F fgs_rte.gpx

 

Arc filter: Warning: Arc file contains unusable vertex on line 1.

 

To make sure I had the syntax correct for the rest of the commands, I created a route in Mapsend Topo using manually placed waypoints. GPSBabel was able to filter the caches using the arc file from Mapsend. I would really rather use S&T since it follows the roads and Mapsend is point-to-point routes. Any suggestions or corrections?

 

"the future is no place to place your better days"- dmb

[+2LuknF8]

Correction to previous post: file size for route.arc=0 bytes

 

"the future is no place to place your better days"- dmb

[+alexm]

quote:

---

To make sure I had the syntax correct for the rest of the commands, I created a route in Mapsend Topo using manually placed waypoints. GPSBabel was able to filter the caches using the arc file from Mapsend. I would really rather use S&T since it follows the roads and Mapsend is point-to-point routes. Any suggestions or corrections?

---

 

GPSbabels' "s_and_t" option doesn't do .EST files. The "s_and_t" format is really only useful for getting waypoints into Streets and Trips via the "import data" option in S&T.

 

There is currently some work being done to reverse engineer the MS .EST/.AXE file format(s), but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. .EST files are quite complex and very undocumented.

 

Even if/when it does get completed, the routes stored in the .EST format are not arcs per se, but simply lists of stopoff points. The routes are generated on-the-fly. Using one of these to generate an arc from a route would be no better than a mapsend point-to-point route.

 

The best I've seen so far would be the ability to "trace" over a route with the line tool and extract that line as a track/route.

 

...

alex

[+2LuknF8]

Thanks for the info. At least using a line tool will do the trick. Having used GIS for several years, I understand the complexities involved in what GPSBabel already offers and would have been simply astounded if it could handle a route file.

 

"the future is no place to place your better days"- dmb

[robertlipe]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 2LuknF8:

Having used GIS for several years, I understand the complexities involved in what GPSBabel already offers and would have been simply astounded if it could handle a route file.

---

 

Oh, it can handle route files just fine, but it only handles route files that someone has successfully decomposed. As Alex said, the EST/AXE formats are insanely complicated, but there are a couple of guys whacking on that pinata. Currently that's only about a half dozen of the 40-ish formats that GPSBabel supports. (I have no idea how many of those programs can even support routes, but I suspect it's not all of them...)

 

Magellan, however, wisely provided documentation on their Mapsend file format. This lets tools like GPSBabel work very well with it. As you observe, the straight line thing with the number of limited points can be a bit of a drag, but in reality, you're probably pulling everything within a few miles of the roads so it's usually adequate.

 

Probably the sweetest spot in the arc filtering business with GPSBabel is with the Delorme products. While they didn't document their file formats (booooo) at least they used something non-crazy enough that Warm Fuzzies Fuzzy was able to write enough tools to read. With it, you can build a route of arbitrary complexity and length.

 

Oh, and if you want to do the "caches within a box" thing (and it doesn't actually have to be a box, it can be a polygon like a state or park boundary or such) you can do that, too, and using tools like Mapsend or Mapsource to define the vertices and spin those through the polygon filtering in GPSBabel works very well, too.

 

And FWIW, the math in the arc and polygon filters makes my head hurt. Thank Fuzzy for that, too. :-)

 

[robertlipe]

In the name of having all the available information in one thread, I'm adding this here.

 

The aforementioned pinata has been cracked open. There is now a companion project to GPSBabel called 'st2gpx' that's available at http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net/st2gpx/st2gpx.html In my limited testing, it successfully reads Microsoft .est files (and a bunch of other Microsoft mutants that I can't test) and converts them to a GPX route subject to the limitations described in that page. st2gpx, unlike GPSBabel, only runs on Microsoft OSes.

 

st2gpx blah.est

gpsbabel -r -i gpx -f blah.gpx -o arc -F route.arc

 

would let 2LukeF8 resume with the arc filtering in the second command he lists, but he should note that what's in the .est file doesn't really "follow the roads"; it's recomputed by S&T on load, as described in http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net/st2gpx/faq.html

Edited December 19, 2003 by robertlipe