Gday guys,

I'm one of the blokes (the technical bloke) behind the iPhone apps for Arapiles and Melbourne. I've recently moved back to Hobart (lived here for a few years, 5 years ago, but we're now back permanently). I'm interested in doing some sort of app for the Hobart craglets (the Hoff and Waterworks to start with I guess), and ultimately would like to do one for Mt Wellington as well. Given that the information is in the public domain for this, I'm interested in doing it as a free app. Having said that, I don't have the time / means / skills for doing photography of cliffs, or the marking up of topo's in Adobe Illustrator, so I'd be interested in other people's input for that sort of stuff.

It appears that topo's are slowly being done (by you Jed?) for the Organ Pipes, and have already been done for Waterworks. Is it possible to get access to the Illustrator files for these? Are they hosted on the Thesarvo? Or do the people creating them just have them on their PC's at home?

The other question I guess, is are people interested in this? Or is everyone happy with the current thesarvo app for their Tassie guides?

Currently the guides would be iPhone only, but I'm working on an Android version as well, though it's a spare time thing, so no ideas when it's going to be out.

cheers

Cam

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7 Comments

  1. Jon Nermut

    Hey cam,

    Just to be clear, thesarvo content is not public domain. Copyright is held by the original authors of content, and its all licenced under a Creative Commons licence. Details of what this means is here: Copyright . For IT people, this is similar to a GPL licence.

    (Take note people who copy and paste content elsewhere - it needs to be attributed to the original source)

    But having said that a free app with attribution to original authors meets the terms, and I can help you get at the content.

    Also the thesarvo iPhone app is going to get rewritten soon as a full native app, based on Stu Dobbie's sydney one. If an icrag one could be better and involve less work from me thats all good too. Drop me a line if you're interested in collaborating on that.

    Other stuff I'm working on:

    • Upgrade confluence platform (done)
    • Move climbs up and down (done)
    • Drag map points & draw on maps (partial)
    • Integrate the online topo creation used by thecrag
    • Rewrite iPhone app
    • Comments on individual climbs

    Cheers

    Jon

    1. Cameron McKenzie AUTHOR

      hey Jon,

      Public domain was a poor choice of words. I just meant that it's not being used for profit by anyone at the moment, so I certainly wouldn't consider trying to steal the content and make money out of it (not that there's any money in climbing guides anyway). 

      I haven't used the Sydney climbing app. Is it any good?

      I don't know if you've used the iCrag stuff before, if not, drop me a line and I'll get you a code so you can download it for free and check it out. Converting the data from thesarvo into a useable form for iCrag will be a bit of work (it pulls the path data out of the Adobe Illustrator files, meaning that instead of just having static images in that app, you have an overlay of routes on them that you can click on, but assigning climbs to Illustrator paths is a manual one obviously). Having said that, I think the result will be a lot better. There wouldn't need to be any code changes to host a Hobart Craglets / Organ Pipes / whatever guide, unless there's specific additional functionality that needs to be implemented, but I'd certainly be trying to avoid that in the short term.

      Anyway, drop me an email and we can have a chat about a good direction forward, whether that be and iCrag thing, or a native TheSarvo thing.

      cheers

      Cam

      1. Doug Bruce

        You're going to need to learn Cam - as did I - that it's "thesarvo" not TheSarvo! (wink)

        Cheers

        Doug

        1. Cameron McKenzie AUTHOR

          The first of many faux pas I'm sure to commit!

  2. Simon Young

    Im all for it mate!! I used the araps app exclusively for a week and its great. Good to have guidebook, headtorch, emergency communication, camera, video all in one device!!! Be so good to have a similar tassie one!

    1. Cameron McKenzie AUTHOR

      Glad you found it useful Simon.

      I think iCrag is only really appropriate for popular areas, as the whole premise behind it is being able to navigate via images etc. and given that most of the crags in Tassie are pretty obscure and don't have photo topo's, it won't work all that well. Having said that, I'm happy to do it as an incremental thing, starting with something simple (Waterworks, Freuhoff, maybe Sphinx Rock etc.) and then working up to other areas. The organ pipes is an obvious one as it's started to have some of its topo's converted over to photo topos (and it's also probably my favorite place to climb in Tassie). Paradiso etc, wouldn't be difficult either.

      cheers

  3. Jed Parkes

     

    Sounds good Cam, shoot me an email, how'd the move go? i just got back in Tas after a month in araps.

     

    My topos are all over the place. They should be (but all aren't atm) attached to the page they are on. You can download them from the Tools menu.

     

    Alternately and probably easier, All my topos i've ever done on topos are in my dropbox.

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/novmhozevwexj2i/9-5Cy4r-BZ

    I've only done 1 topo for the Pipes, rest have been done by various other people and if Jon did them they will be illustrator but others are probably just images and will need to be redone.

    I spent most my time making a topo template (attached to this page)

    Guide Manual

    Just need to get photos now to make topos.