I've been working hard on a couple of new features for Playak and am looking for feedback. We now have the possibility to add earth coordinates to any spot or river listed on Playak and then the spot pages will automatically show links to fly to a spot with Google Earth, and they will also show a Google Map, which can be dragged around, zoomed etc.

To see what I'm talking about, look at the 2 examples I've made so far:

Isle de la Serre, France:
playak.com/article.php?sid=251

Hepatitis Waves, Denver:
playak.com/article.php?sid=79

Huningue, France:
playak.com/article.php?sid=256

(hmmm, the last 2 links don't work in IE yet, for me... only in firefox... have to correct that somehow).

To add this sort of info for all Playak destinations will be a lot of work, so I first want to hear from you if this is useful at all....

If yes, I will need volunteers to help with finding the exact Google coordinates of all the spots we have on Playak.

I personally think this is a very cool feature, but who am I? Also, I will not be able to do this without your help, so if you like it, please volunteer...




Cheers,
Jeroen

I think it would be a good idea but it all depends on if people would use it. I wouldnt think that i would use it. I use google earth to scout putins but not in england or anyother places. and most of the good kayaking is in blurry spots. but that is one little opinion and i have been known to be wrong on a lot of things

after hearing the possibilities of google earth i went in there with all sorts of expectations to scout rivers but...

overall i think it doesn't make sense, as waterfalls with 20+m do not show up on the map and thus it doesn't seem to be a satisfactory tool for scouting...

it might make sense for having a look at the surrounding landscape whereas i also doubt the correctness of the features given there...

thus i still like to refer to detailed maps and local informations...

but yep..to find a spot might be ok...but usually we know there's a river and there's a road and to find the playspot it needs some local knowledge...

only my own humble opinion

thanks for the feedback. i think it's just nice for people to fly to a certain spot per google earth. just looks nicer than a text description alone. mainly for dreaming about paddling in a boring office.

and the combination with google maps even makes it useful

I totally agree Jeroen, it is also cool if you are traveling to new places to see where the best spots are on the map.

If it is possible to add the spots in as a comunity effort, then this would be a very powerful tool, everyone could put down their local runs and playspots.

It strikes me that this'd be great for travellers, and spots that are near 'civilisation.' Combine with road map overlays and all that jazz. I'm with shiva on the blurryness factor, and I personally can't find even the known rapids on my local rivers - despite knowing exactly where there should be a big boat-thumping wall of white - let alone scouting an unkown one.

Overall I think it's a great idea, but probably more trouble than it's worth, but I've been wrong before

Like it al lot, Jeroen!!!

great idea, ive tried google earth before and dont think itwould be much use in actually scouting rapids, but itsstill nice for finding creeks and just knowing where everything is in comparisoe, seems like a good feature to me.

a similar project for french rivers, spots and slalom courses has recently been completed on eauxvives.org
please check
www.eauxvives.org/carto/map.php

presently on the map you can locate more than 60 slalom courses, more than 60 freestyle spots, and ... over 350 rivers sections

I think its a great idea, I use it all the time.