Bump

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry445542

Thank you Mangani for a wonderful service to the entire community! I wanted to something like this for my own personal use, but found out the enormity of the project and decided I had neither the time or the patience to do so. You are to be congratulated for your work!!!!

Announcement

I have now completed mapping the reports from Bobbie Short's Bigfoot Encounters. There are now more than 6100 mapped reports.

Thanks to those offering comments and continued support. I welcome feedback, suggestions, location assistance, etc.

BigfootMaps

Mangani,

I again applaud your accomplishments in building this incredible geographical database. There is a saying, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, your mapping of reports proves this statement to be true. When people see the "BIG" picture of the combined reports, they are stunned! A number of people have contacted me after seeing your Google Earth sighting database from my Virginia Bigfoot Research website. They had no idea how much recorded Bigfoot activity there is throughout the United States and other Countries. The global presentation you have achieved is truly historic!

Thank you!

William M. Dranginis
Manassas, VA.
www.VirginiaBigfootResearch.Org

Excellent work. Have you thought of tackling "Raincoast Sasquatch?"

Mike,

Thanks. My MO has been to work primarily with reports published on the web. This allows me to include a link to the report details. So I have mapped reports from Robert Alley's research that are included on the WCSRO, IBS, BE, etc. web sites. It is possible I don't have all the reports from the book, but I suspect I have the majority of them.

Has anybody else seen Mangani's sighting pins disappear in Google Earth? I have the GE Community layer active and didn't change any settings, but they do not show up anymore. Any ideas? Thanks!

I just went to the site linked and there are pins all over the place. There appears to be a placeholder at the top of the page where a large image should be that isn't loading though.

This is one of the coolest things I believe I have ever seen! I cannot fathom the amount of time it took to produce this product. I know it's been said before but THANK YOU for your tremendous work!

The amount of sightings is simply astounding. I never knew there were so many in Virginia. Of all places, Virginia! Wow!!

I'd wager that for every one sighting there are probably at least five that don't get reported anywhere.

Thanks again for this Mangani!!!

Thanks. Here's a tip for those who might become viewers: If you haven’t tried out Google Earth, download the program and play with it. (Google for it) Also get a book on it, like Google Earth for Dummies.

3D effects (an oblique view of the encounter-site) dramatically enhance its vividness and the amount of information conveyed. One can circle around a site and view it from all angles. One can zoom in and see small details. And one can look to the side of the site to see the surrounding terrain, escape routes, etc. (The only downside is that, seen close up, buildings and bridges don't pop up in 3D, but lie flat on the ground.)

The way to get 3D effects is to hold down the center wheel of your mouse. Moving it down-screen gives you a more slanted view (down to 45 degrees), moving it up-screen does the reverse.

Moving it left and right rotates the view left and right. Doing this in combination with moving it up and down is unintuitive and dizzying, but one can eventually get a handle on it.

Left-button double-clicking brings you in; right-button double-clicking takes you away. Left-button single-clicking stops both zooms.

More thoughts:

1. This thread should be pinned.

2. One way to indicate which placemarks are approximate would be to use a different icon or color or both to indicate the degree of approximation.

3. Perhaps other info (like the decade, perhaps) could be communicated in a shorthand way with color-coding and shape-shifting.

Awesome Work Mangani, Thank You!

I agree, this thread should be pinned.

@Mangani - 18-aug-2008 kmz error: open file error. could not parse time value 2006-1-255

GE Pro 4.2.0205.5730

i extracted the kml and searched for "2006-1-255" and it doesn't exist, nor does "2006-01-255" or "2006-1-". "2006-01-" produces results and i quickly looked through them but didn't find any obvious formatting problems. i don't know where the "255" is coming from, but i would guess this is just max, random or RGB color(?) value inserted where an expected value is missing.

i'm glad to see you're still keeping this updated! thanks for your hard work!

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not able to duplicate the error when I download the file. That, and the fact that you can't find the problem record when performing a search, indicate to me that the actual problem may be a bug in Google Earth or data corruption problem of some sort (bad RAM?) within your computer.

I have had one other report of trouble with this month's version, but never any previously, so it could be that the growing number of records over stresses some systems or uncovers a bug that is not normally evident with less data.

I'll do another upload in a week or so. See if you still have trouble then.

I get that error message too. It is not an error in his computer. It looks like a date error, look for a sighting on 2006-1-25, you might have done a typo and added an extra 5 to the date.

Really good work and I hope this bug gets fixed soon so I can enjoy these once again.

@Mangani - not RAM, but could be GE version.

@vilnoori - what version of GE do you have?

As big.Foot already stated, he searched for an error like that and did not find it. If there were a data input error then it should also show up with the original copy of the file on my machine and when I download the copy you all are working with. But, as I stated, I am unable to recreate the error on my machine. However, just to be certain, I have now double checked the last file sections that I updated for records with that date, but have not found any problem with the data.

I am using GE Plus 4.3.7284.3916.

Sorry this is causing some folks an issue, but I don't have an answer at this time.

Awesome Job Mangani!! Thank You!!

I think 2006? I update it when it tells me to. It says C 2008 Europa Technologies on the bottom...

To see what version you have click Help - About Google Earth.

The build I am using was released July 8, 2008. If you haven't upgraded for two years, that may account for the problem you're experiencing. Please try upgrading (Click Help - Check for Updates Online) and see if the problem goes away.

OK, thanks Mangani, awesome!

When I look at one of these cool maps with all the pins all over them, the first thing that comes to my mind as an open-minded skeptic is that there are an awful lot of sightings everywhere and no real definitive evidence. Just my first impression.

I like the idea of mapping this, but again, it can be interpreted differently depending on where you fall on this issue.

And yes, I realize the pins are not shown actual size

Just a brief update note. It appears that in order to download my work some users have been linking directly to the bigfootreports.kmz file at the Google Earth Community BBS where the file is hosted. Please be aware that, because of a recent software "upgrade" at that site, now every time I upload a new version of my file the direct download address will change and the old link will break.

I will be maintaining the latest download link address at my BigfootMaps page. So you may check there to see if there is a new update available and link to it directly. Typically I try to do an update every month around this time.

Lately my time has been constrained due to health and economic issues so the updates I have been making have been primarily from the BFRO and also the TBRC and SRI. These organizations make it easy for me to monitor for new reports via RSS feeds. The design of some other groups' websites often do not lend themselves to easily determining what new reports have been added and I have not had sufficient time available to manually parse through those sites or to map reports from other organizations that I have yet to work on at all.

The bottom line is that this effort is far from complete and there will always be more to do then I am likely to be able to accomplish alone. So help, if only identifying new reports, is always appreciated. Better yet would be help with determining coordinates for those reports.

Thanks for your interest and support!

Hi,

I hate to sound "ignert" but when I try to open the bigfootreports.kmz 188 KB (192,512 bytes), I get an error in GE "Failed . . . could not parse time value 2006-11-255"

I can't see any way to edit or correct this? Any advice?

Thx

I get the same error on one of my PC's. I think it might be because the BFRO plugin is already on that machine, but it wasn't yet on my laptop and the new maps worked fine.

I removed the other plugins completely, deleted the cache, set everything to defaults, restarted GE and XP, still no go.

Added the other plugins back, work fine.

The error looks like a problem with a date format.

Not seeing this problem on my computer. If it were a date format issue, I'd expect to see it every time on every system.

This is only the second time I've seen complaints of the file not working for someone. The first time it turned out they were using an earlier version of GE. It could be the earlier versions are constrained on the number of placemarks they can handle, but that's just a guess on my part. I really don't know.

I do know that I am currently using version 5.01 and it is working. If you're having problems and are using an earlier version you might try upgrading.

The upgrade was free and solved the problem.

THX

Thanks again Mangani, excellent work.

I recently discovered NASA's City Lights project and layer for Google Earth. Combined with your work, one can generate maps like the one below, which is very useful...

Click to view attachment