MLS to GPS

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.

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.

brooksby,

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

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.)

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.

mkmurray wrote:Boomerbubba was not addressing that demo. He was addressing brooksby's custom implementation.

Right. The demo, I am presuming, uses the Google Maps API and possibly the parallel API from Microsoft, as well. (Like maps.lds.org does today) And the application would be custom-programmed at lds.org. It would not necessarily look like the Google Maps public web site at all, but it might.

What brooksby mentioned in his original post was the "My Maps" section of the public Google web site. That is another creature entirely. It is a third-party web site, and using it to display maps and data downloaded from MLS or LUWS is pretty clearly coloring outside the lines of church policy.

(There are other ways to use Google Maps, even My Maps, in ways that do not violate policy, but brooksby seems to be talking about a straight upload to My Maps.)

I should have been more clear. I use the VCF file downloaded from the LUWS. Of course this flows from what is input to MLS. I was too loose with my terminology.

I was hoping to attend the recent Tech. Talk, but missed it due to - you guessed it - a church meeting. I'm glad to hear the church will be producing ward maps with boundaries. The big question is, "when?!"

Another follow up. I was only making an observation about Google's "My Maps" ability to read .gpx format. I don't upload any data from the church website there. As I said, Google Earth can also read .gpx. Since it's a standard format there are a host of programs that could ingest this type of file.

One version of my program writes straight to KML. The beauty of this is that a bishop could use it off-line and make notes about individual members on the map. If the KML file were then maintained in an SVN (or CVS) repository, you could have version control over the KML file. As members come and go, you could update the file while maintaining all previous notes made.