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XP Metal Detectors Go Detect App For Smartphones


Steve Herschbach

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I started checking more into a mention of XP DEUS Version 4 updates, especially this badly translated information from a French website:

xp-deus-phone-app.jpg

So I started Googling and there is a Facebook page for the app at https://www.facebook.com/godetect/

Right now it is mainly just a finds recording and track mapping app much like the Minelab XChange system, but phone based. One photo really caught my eye however. It apparently can use the phone location services plus orientation features in combination with the app to superimpose past finds onto a view of the terrain. The prospecting applications for this alone are obvious.

xp-metal-detectors-go-find-app-superimpose.jpg

After my pretty much blowing them off last year XP is really getting my interest now.

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Wow, oh no!! not more toys. but that sure seems to be the right direction they are heading. Makes that detector in a coil seem more logical,  XP has probably had this in the pipeline even before the Deus. I just hope they steer a bit away from proprietary software and let us use the mapping of our choice, leaving it open for faster development, must be a way of doing this without threatening patent security.

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I was thinking about doing the same sort of thing with something like Google Glass where you can see all your previous GPS tracks and nugget finds overlayed onto the actual ground and terrain as you walk around and prospect, let you quickly and easily fill in the blanks you've missed.

 

It's crazy expensive still though, and quite a few unique challenges to even try to make it possible involving a lot of linear algebra that I've mostly forgotten, but I think it's doable with DEM's from the USGS and a fairly accurate GPS and a good smart phone as the brain. Just not sure how useful it'd be after all that work and money.  :lol:

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Jason, doesn't the Microsoft Hololens look like an even better solution? https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us I saw that and had thoughts of looking at terrain with geologic maps superimposed. Going to be some really crazy stuff happening the next few years with virtual and augmented reality.

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Crazy, first time I've seen the Hololens, looks pretty cool.

The stumbling block to developing FPV gps tracks that made me stop...is...hard to describe. Like, there seems to be 2 ways to go about it. You could essentially use glasses like that to walk around entirely in virtual reality via something like Google Earth (or similar) where you already have your tracks and finds stored and an entirely virtual terrain created. Problem is that now you are walking in reality but looking at virtual reality...how accurate are they? How accurate is your GPS? How up to date is the imagery? Not accurate enough I think...that bush in front of you grew last year and its not in the imagery so you trip on it, that GPS is accurate to within a few feet or 10 feet, so you keep tripping on rocks. That 4 inch tall rock is too small to show up on imagery so you trip on it too.

The other way would be more with the Google Glass type setup where you are actually viewing reality, the same reality you are walking in. But it overlays the data of interest over your actual sight and thus it needn't be as accurate, you just look at your GPS tracks in front of you to get a "general idea" where you walked before. Now I just browsed the Hololens quickly so it's entirely possible you could do this with those as well. But here was what made me stop thinking about making something like this - I thought about it when I was in Nevada and walking these wide flat praries or gently sloping mountains. But what about complex topography? Well we can use DEM's (digital elevation models) from the USGS and create an invisible mesh to overlay the tracks on. But there is a ton of data there. You'd essentually need to build the landscape on the fly, or have a ton of memory to store prebuilt landscapes. But with every turn of the head you are rotating that landscape and the aspect with which you view the updated landscape and track also changes. So there is a ton of translational mathematics to do to render those landscapes correctly, and honestly I sucked at linear algebra and I don't think I could build a project myself like that just on the mathematics aspect alone.

But it would be an awesome tool to have! And I still think about it when I walk around in the zone swinging the detector, wondering if there is a simpler way to do it.

*Come to think, there is a 3rd option, a simpler way. Just forget absolute accuracy and get "good enough", and I think there are some pretty sharp shortcuts you could take to produce something that is "sufficient" or a proof of concept...hmm.

Oh I see now that I look closer, yeah those Hololenses are awesome, you can still view reality too, I thought at first it was entirely virtual.

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The organized surveys which clubs in Denmark been organizing for years involve recording every find and all participants carry garmin GPS units. At the end of each day, you turn in your GPS and the tracks are posted to the chart of the hunt. The missing bit in all this, if I as recall correctly, was plotting the individual finds. This integrated smartphone app will solve that problem.

This is MAJOR for the European market where most detectorists see themselves as historians and their hobby as a comtribution to their regional and national history. This is XP's by far biggest market - where they already dominate.

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For any app to be of full use in our environment, the phone`s screen will have to be able to handle direct sunlight, such as screens used in the rugged notebook market, transflective or better. While I have been using a smartphone with Oziexplorer app for a number of years, the screen is a problem but my Portege notebook with its transflective screen this problem is solved to a certain degree. There are phones available with such screens but they are priced way out of the mass consumers reach.

 

Steve Oziexplorer  & Ozi 3D you`ll find will compete with the glossy market driven apps, even outdo them by allowing you to use a map of your choice such as geo maps downloaded digitally or simply scanned in and georeferenced.

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Steve Oziexplorer  & Ozi 3D you`ll find will compete with the glossy market driven apps, even outdo them by allowing you to use a map of your choice such as geo maps downloaded digitally or simply scanned in and georeferenced.

No doubt, but as you may be figuring out I like learning about and using ALL the toys! It is not about what works for me but what might work for anybody under some circumstances in some place.

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