GPS file for Garmins/Tom Toms etc..

[Phrizzb]

1st things first -

As you may or may not know I have entered in a contract with the PDGA to create the GPS file (Points of Interest - POI) for the Course directory. What does this mean? It means that I am (and hopefully with help from folks like you and this wonderful site) creating a file that can easily be uploaded into your GPS navigation device so that all 3000+ courses are right at your fingertips while driving. I am looking for owners of TomTom, Garmin's and Magellan's to help in the testing a creation of the file. This file is for driving directions only and NOT for hole by hole walking (Geocaching) directions. If you own a different device I'd still be interested in hearing from you and soliciting your help. Once this file is created for these navigation devices we can use it to create the iPhone apps, Google Earth files etc…But right now the first task at hand is to get to correct driving coordinates for each course. I am looking for individuals that want to help with the process and help gather the correct coordinates. The ideal candidates will understand how to upload these files into their devices (research how please) and use some basic software for the creation of the files and quality control of the coordinates. If you want to participate please let me know! Right now this is a completely volunteer effort on my part as well as those involved..

2nd File creation – Tour guide!

One of the artifacts from the above file will be a 'tour guide' with lodging, vendors, restaurants and favorite watering holes. This file will be in addition to the course directory file (Courses will be included).

Calling all Disc golf Vendors, Road Warriors and TDs:

Here is your chance to get noticed nationally by all those road warriors and Disc Golf Tourists that come in and out of your town. This is also a great selling point (to be included in the file) for sponsorship for the courses or your tournaments. What I am looking for is Disc golf Vendors (physical or virtual), Restaurants and watering holes and later on Lodging (camping) establishments that are in your area or that you can recommend from your personal travels. You know the ones we disc golfers like – pizza by the slice, good deli samwich, and nice eye candy…LOL oh and cheap and close to the course. I have been traveling in and around the country for my job for the past 10+ years and playing disc for 30 years - so I know firsthand how this file will be a great asset to the players, community and the PDGA as well as to the sponsors themselves. So if you own a GPS or an iPhone etc this file will be for you for you!

Again the first task is to get the course file updated with driving directions and coordinates and the second will be the tour guide. I still want to gather the tour guide coordinates from the Vendors and other Points of interest..but the main effort right now will be the course directory.

State Update - files that have been through pass #1: All are in Garmin format and Goggle Earth files!

Alaska
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Hawaii
Louisiana
Maryland
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
North Dakota
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wyoming
Florida

Thank you for time and thoughts!
Scott Holter #3560
Happy Travels!

Also I want to thank who ever has done such a good job on the coordinates here on this site - I have been using them to double check my coordinates – at some point I'd like to include some of the reviews of the courses in the tour guide file…I will be posting a Google Earth file on the Colorado web site for all to see…Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[Phrizzb]

Premium Membership

Please accept my applogies for posting this and I would certainly understand if you want to take it down (I would hope not) since it would conflict with the Premium membership...I did not see this section prior to posting...

Scott

 

[cblack129]

I'd be willing to help any way i can with gps coordinates.

 

[Donovan]

I have a Garmin and would be willing to help if I can. I have already done a bunch in the Fort Worth/Dallas TX area. What do you need me to do? BTW, I have another idea for you too. I have done some voice files for fun. It might be cool to do one with terms and phrases of disc golf. Might even be cool to have the PDGA get Feldberg or Climo or someone to do the voices.

 

[pointdisc]

Shoot me a pm w/ your e-mail. I did this for WI for my TomTom last year and can send you the file. It has all the courses through spring 2009, but there may be a couple new ones missing.

 

[Roc1Time]

Have a nuvi and would be interested. Have done many manually already

 

[Phrizzb]

Wow great repsonses - Thanks; and again I do not want to cause conflict from the wonderful work that has been done here...

Voices - Cool idea Not sure I want Kenny in teh car with me 100% of the time - but hey these things have a mute button for a reason...LOL - I have heard Yoda, Homer Simpson etc. The tough this is how do you set a voice command to the GPS directions - such as recalculating? Do you know how to do this? One of the sound effects that I thought would be cool is when you arrive at the destination have the sounds of chains being rattled...

I will PM you all with my email since its easier to communicate..

Thanks again!
Scott

 

[Miller]

I guess I'm confused. Doesn't the PDGA have all this information already? If they have the latitude and longitude of every course then you just need some programmer to write a script to make that into a gpx file that almost any gps can import. So I guess you would still need testers to make sure the script works, but the creation part should be easy, no?

 

[timg]

I don't think they have all the information. The only reason DGCR has it is that I looked up every single course on here myself when I launched the site and I continue to do it for each new course.

 

[Phrizzb]

Miller:

Yes and No on the info part - yes they have the info - but NO it is not correct for the Coordiantes in the use of driving directions or are they correct at all..

The coordinates on the PDGA are WRONG for the most part..they are for the first tee and may cause the Garmin or GPS to make you arrive at the closest point to that 1st tee. Examples of this is if the 1st tee is in the far end of the park and that parking lot is at the opposite end the GPS device will try and navigate you to the closest point - which in a few cases that I have experienced led me to pull off to the side of a highway (tee was below the bridge) or I ended up in the Ghetto where the actual tee was behind the fence in the projects (parking lot was behind the fence)...So these coordinates are wrong... and yes 20-30 feet can make a huge difference in this – in fact I have even seen one course in the middle of a lake...

 

[jZip]

hey scott, jeff from NY here.

just to add to what Phrizzb said, not only are many of the coordinates on PDGA not necessarily at the parking area, some aren't even at the course. In many occasions PDGA just put a point in the middle of the zip code associated with the course.

phrizzb, i'll get ahold of you by the end of this weekend.

happy hucking!
spring's almost here :clap:

 

[Miller]

So then doesn't that mean if you get your coordinates or other information from this website that you are basically stealing all of Tim's hard work and handing it over the the PDGA for their site. I don't mind collaboration, but it seems to me that the PDGA should be paying Tim if they want his info.

 

[ERicJ]

Dual GPS

One area that I think the new PDGA online course directory has an edge over DGCR is the ability to specify multiple GPS coordinates. I like being able to have parking lot and first tee locations.

But I will agree that the PDGA site directions are really wrong on some courses.

 

[Phrizzb]

So then doesn't that mean if you get your coordinates or other information from this website that you are basically stealing all of Tim's hard work and handing it over the the PDGA for their site. I don't mind collaboration, but it seems to me that the PDGA should be paying Tim if they want his info.

Who said anything about stealing or getting coordinates? I certainly do not want that impression - I have indeed been using the coordinates here to QA the ones that I have come up with..I am sure Tim had to do it the same way or similar where I read the directions and then in Google earth or in the POI editor that I use and then mark the course...and then I usually head to the local clubs web site to see if they have any additional info...In fact when I do QA the two (mine and DGRUS) I have noticed some inconsistencies and would be happy to share them with Tim so we are in Sync..but I am not just taking them - if that were the case could I not just pay for a membership and get the files directly??

I guess society has come to this point with people being sneaky etc..I am doing this for free - no profit or anything..maybe in the future but right now all I want to get the correct coordinates - double check them as I can and provide the Disc Golf Community with the correct files...

Tim if indeed you do not want this effort on here - let me know and I will be happy to delete the thread etc..if you would like to work together on this and I would hope you would then I'd be happy to discuss..I know I contacted someone here back in 2007 about the proposal I had into the PDGA...but under NO circumstances do I want anyone thinking I am stealing any information from this or any other website!!!

Scott

 

[Phrizzb]

FYI..

Just as a FYI...here was my original post back in July of 2007 of the POI sites..and if you will notice on this thread I have repeatedly rebuffed having a 'script' run on the various sites and have submitted a RFI in order to do this in a very transparent and upfront way...

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/4722

You will also notice there is quite a few non-disc golfers that would like this file for the casual round and family trips..So I think it's in our best interest to put the best 'file' aka foot forward so people can enjoy and make good choices in thier course selections!!

Scott

 

[timg]

One area that I think the new PDGA online course directory has an edge over DGCR is the ability to specify multiple GPS coordinates. I like being able to have parking lot and first tee locations.

But I will agree that the PDGA site directions are really wrong on some courses.

That could be easily implemented here. I think 90% of the coordinates on this site point to the parking lot and then I figured people could use the written directions to locate the first tee.

One field I would consider adding is street address. I don't have it in me to input that amount of data myself this time around but hopefully I wouldn't have to. It literally took around 3 months at 2-3 hours per day (or sometimes more) to get all the lat/lon coordinates that first time around. I was a man on a mission

 

[Phrizzb]

Tim et al,

I may be able to help with the street address on some of these - the file they sent me has some of them (hit or miss).

A few other things that I noticed that I was going to implement in the tour guide files - Start tagging the courses with categories: Ski Resort, Park - State or City, Private etc..

And on the ski resorts having two sets of coordinates bottom of the lift and the top or the first tee - in most cases you can 4x4 up the hill so this may come in handy. I know I have toiled with what the definitive course coordinates to be for Ski resorts..

 

[Donovan]

I personally think parking coordinates, parking address, 1st tee coordinates, and 1st tee directions is obviously the best way to go. If we all took a section of our own areas, we could get quite a bit of this done.

I personall did not gps the lot and the 1st for FTW, but I could do both. As far as the address, some places don't have addresses. I guess we could always go with the standard N/A for those.

What do you think timg. do you want to set this up and have your crew do what they can to update it for you?

 

[Steve West]

That could be easily implemented here. I think 90% of the coordinates on this site point to the parking lot and then I figured people could use the written directions to locate the first tee.

One field I would consider adding is street address. I don't have it in me to input that amount of data myself this time around but hopefully I wouldn't have to. It literally took around 3 months at 2-3 hours per day (or sometimes more) to get all the lat/lon coordinates that first time around. I was a man on a mission

Have you seen this site that produces addresses from lat/lon?

http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php

 

[Miller]

Who said anything about stealing or getting coordinates? I certainly do not want that impression - I have indeed been using the coordinates here to QA the ones that I have come up with..I am sure Tim had to do it the same way or similar where I read the directions and then in Google earth or in the POI editor that I use and then mark the course...and then I usually head to the local clubs web site to see if they have any additional info...In fact when I do QA the two (mine and DGRUS) I have noticed some inconsistencies and would be happy to share them with Tim so we are in Sync..but I am not just taking them - if that were the case could I not just pay for a membership and get the files directly??

I guess society has come to this point with people being sneaky etc..I am doing this for free - no profit or anything..maybe in the future but right now all I want to get the correct coordinates - double check them as I can and provide the Disc Golf Community with the correct files...

Tim if indeed you do not want this effort on here - let me know and I will be happy to delete the thread etc..if you would like to work together on this and I would hope you would then I'd be happy to discuss..I know I contacted someone here back in 2007 about the proposal I had into the PDGA...but under NO circumstances do I want anyone thinking I am stealing any information from this or any other website!!!

Scott

Then I totally respect what you're doing. Thanks for the collaborating and not stealing. :hfive: