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MLS to GPS

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:52 am
by gbrooksby
I've written a program (C++) that will take a vCard file downloaded from my ward website, geocode it using the Yahoo! geocoding service and convert it to .gpx format.

The gpx format is directly readable by Google Earth. It is also importable into the "My Maps" section on maps.google.com. Furthermore it will import into a GPS navigation device. I've written it and tested it with my own Garmin device, but it may be a simple matter to get it to work with other brands. Our ward RS Pres. finds it very useful. I suspect others may as well.

We've also found mapping the entire ward out very usefull for Emergency Preparedness planning in our ward. I suspect that it could be handy for HT/VT route planning.

If I was interested in releasing this code for co-development, would sourceforge be the best place or is there a better place for tools like this? It's probably not the most robust code right now, but it works.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:57 am
by techgy
brooksby wrote:I've written a program (C++) that will take a vCard file downloaded from my ward website, geocode it using the Yahoo! geocoding service and convert it to .gpx format.

If I was interested in releasing this code for co-development, would sourceforge be the best place or is there a better place for tools like this? It's probably not the most robust code right now, but it works.
Personally I have used many of the programs that Sourceforge supports and have found them to be very helpful. Your program sounds very interesting. Thanks for suggesting it and for your efforts.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:29 pm
by RossEvans
brooksby,

See my comment in your other post about Yahoo's Terms of Use.

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:38 am
by trhodes-p40
hi, I've done the same thing, but had to switch from using Yahoo geocoding web services (as boomerbubba stated). If you do some searching there are other means of getting coordinates.

My stuff is located at: http://mormongps.com

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:55 am
by gbrooksby
I finally got around to making the necessary code changes to use the Google geocoder and Google Maps for display. I'm still surprised that the church isn't providing this at maps.lds.org or through the LUWS.

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:09 am
by aebrown
brooksby wrote:I finally got around to making the necessary code changes to use the Google geocoder and Google Maps for display. I'm still surprised that the church isn't providing this at maps.lds.org or through the LUWS.
It's interesting that you would post this today. Just last night at the 2009 LDSTech Talk, Joel Dehlin announced that LDSMaps would show ward boundaries and individual ward members' homes on a site that clearly is built on Google Maps technology.

Details are certainly sketchy at this point, but it does seem to provide much of what you are talking about in terms of mapping. No connection to GPS devices was mentioned. When the recording of the Tech Talk is posted (most likely it will be in the Announcements & Policies forum), you might want to review it to see how well it fits.

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:36 am
by RossEvans
brooksby wrote:I've written a program (C++) that will take a vCard file downloaded from my ward website, geocode it using the Yahoo! geocoding service and convert it to .gpx format.

The gpx format is directly readable by Google Earth. It is also importable into the "My Maps" section on maps.google.com. Furthermore it will import into a GPS navigation device.

Google Earth would be fine. We use that in our ward, too. And importing to a GPS navigation device is a great idea.

But I would caution against uploading any of this MLS data to the "My Maps" website. That runs afoul of church policy guidance not to upload such data to a third party server. And even Google warns that My Maps data is not perfectly private.

BTW, your headline says "MLS to GPS" but your original post says this data is downloaded from LUWS. Which did you end up using? (The policy against uploading to third-party servers basically applies to both sources.)

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:24 am
by RossEvans
Alan_Brown wrote:It's interesting that you would post this today. Just last night at the 2009 LDSTech Talk, Joel Dehlin announced that LDSMaps would show ward boundaries and individual ward members' homes on a site that clearly is built on Google Maps technology.

Details are certainly sketchy at this point, but it does seem to provide much of what you are talking about in terms of mapping. No connection to GPS devices was mentioned.

I am betting that, like other kinds of functionality, the mapping functionality that is released will meet much but not all of the local needs. So I expect there will still be a need for export of the geocoded data for such custom solutions, and hope that will be in the online product.

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:21 am
by russellhltn
boomerbubba wrote:Google Earth would be fine.
My memory of the demo is it looked like it was based on maps.google rather than Google Earth. (Navigation bar on the left.)

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:23 am
by mkmurray
RussellHltn wrote:My memory of the demo is it looked like it was based on maps.google rather than Google Earth. (Navigation bar on the left.)
Boomerbubba was not addressing that demo. He was addressing brooksby's custom implementation.