PeakFinder App for iPhone and Android

[ksearl]

Hi Everyone,

I found this app based on some scuttlebutt on Facebook recently. I'm really enjoying it and wanted to throw it out there to people who haven't seen it yet. It's an App where you can view a 360° horizon of peaks where ever you stand, assuming no obstacles were in view. There are also some other features, such as locking the view, checking out lesser known peaks, etc. I wrote a quick blog post about it here if you're interested: http://www.livefreeandhikenh.blogspot.com/2012/03/peakfinder-great-phone-app-for-hikers.html Mark Truman even mentioned it's great to use when trying to identify peaks in photos after the fact, since you can place yourself on top of a peak as well, even if you're not there.

So, my question to VFTTer's is:

Have you used it, and if so, are there better programs out there, where this one just gives you a wire frame type landscape?

Karl

 

[mtruman]

Glad to see you posted this here Karl. As I said in my comment on the blog, I grabbed this app when I was in Utah in January and wanted some idea of what I was looking at. It worked quite well so when I got back home I grabbed the Eastern version (there are two apps that cover the whole US). I have the Android version on my phone and the iOS version on my iPad and on my wife's iPhone. I actually like the iPad version for home use after a hike since you can manually set your view location and then pan around the compass to ID peaks from your photos. So far I've found it to be very accurate. If you set the viewpoints to peaks it basically becomes an electronic Scudder's guide.

I'm also interested to see what other people have tried. I've noticed some recent posts that have shots from similar apps and am thinking about trying some of them out. Just none that use QR codes...

 

[Guthook]

Good find. I think I've seen this before, but I never thought to try it out. Maybe I'll splurge soon and give it a shot sometime. I wonder how it works... if it somehow uses topo maps, it should work pretty much anywhere, right? It would be interesting to see if it worked on relatively out of the way peaks. Karl, how many places have you tried the app? Curious

 

[mtruman]

Good find. I think I've seen this before, but I never thought to try it out. Maybe I'll splurge soon and give it a shot sometime. I wonder how it works... if it somehow uses topo maps, it should work pretty much anywhere, right? It would be interesting to see if it worked on relatively out of the way peaks. Karl, how many places have you tried the app? Curious

They use a combination of usgs.gov data for the elevation models and openstreetmap.org and geonames.org for the peak names. I've tried the app in a number of spots in the Whites as well as originally in Utah. Every place that I've tried (which haven't been out of the way) have worked very well. Based on the data sources I'd say it should be quite good. It's easy enough to check out though if you have some test locations since you can select the viewpoint on the map or go to a peak as a viewpoint - you don't need to use geolocation from the spot. I've done this several times to match up photos taken from a known location after the hike to ID the peaks.

All the info on the app is here: http://www.peakfinder.org/

 

[Guthook]

Like magic I guess I'll have to give it a shot sometime.

 

[ksearl]

So far, I've only been able to try it in my living room and in Manchester. So really, I haven't seen a screen full of mountains yet!

I was wondering if it takes into account your current elevation or if it puts you at your known, grid spot elevation. For instance, let's say I'm on a mountain with a known elevation, but climb a tower on the top that is 60ft. Will it give me the views from 60 feet up, because sometimes that makes a difference of what you can see, especially in the seacoast region. For instance, on Stratham Hill or Blue Job Mountain, I think you can actually see Mount Washington from the firetower, but probably wouldn't be able to at the summit elevation??? I'm wondering if this App takes this extra elevation into account.

Karl

 

[MichaelJ]

That's awesome! I already see my workflow: I carry a GPS tracker and take photos. I use software that then combines the GPS track with the photo timestamps to give me the coordinates of each photo. I can then enter the coordinates into this app and use it to precisely caption my photos. The only "manual" step is noting what direction I'm facing, though that may not be necessary if the photo is obvious.

It appears to put you at ground level (as indicated by its map data set) for any given coordinates or the current location.

 

[DougPaul]

The only "manual" step is noting what direction I'm facing, though that may not be necessary if the photo is obvious.

Some camera bodies now include compasses to save you from this chore.

Hopefully pointing the camera and releasing the shutter will remain manual for a little longer...

Doug

 

[Guthook]

Hopefully pointing the camera and releasing the shutter will remain manual for a little longer...

Depends on how much money you want to spend...

 

[mtruman]

Yes, it puts you at ground level based on the elevation of the lat/long you're at. Pretty much all it can do until smartphones start building in altimeters. Based on this it can't tell you what you can see from the top of a fire tower on the summit (and also what you can't see based on being in the trees ). The horizon representation base on your location is accurate though. It doesn't show you what's behind that mountain that you haven't made it to the top of yet and are currently staring into the side of.

It would be cool if this app provided an API to pull back view data based on location and orientation. Michael's workflow could then be fully automated. There are already apps that will geotag a set of pictures using timestamps based on a GPS track - just one more step.