AW: [OSGeo-Discuss] Batch geocoding

Sat Feb 5 07:54:31 PST 2011

BTW: the geocoding engines of Yahoo and Google provide different spatial accuracy (cf. http://www.geoinformatics.com/blog/in-the-spotlight/quality-assessment-of-volunteered-geographic-information-vgi)
But I do not know whether that is relevant for your task.

Cheers,
hj

Von: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Im Auftrag von JP Glutting
Gesendet: Samstag, 5. Februar 2011 16:37
An: OSGeo Discussions
Betreff: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Batch geocoding

For anyone who is considering using Fusion Tables, it has a very nice feature that allows you to select a point that has been badly geocoded, and find the right location searching in a small pop-up map, and then select from a set of alternate locations. Your choice modifies the coordinates of the geocoding, but not the address itself. A very nice and quite easy way to fix problems.

Cheers,
JP

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:37 AM, JP Glutting <jpglutting at gmail.com<mailto:jpglutting at gmail.com>> wrote:
It is pretty slick, but I just started using it about an hour ago, so I haven't thought much about what to do with it. I did see a comment where someone from Google said that reverse geocoding is not possible yet.

I am going to have to get up to speed with PostGIS, but this is a pretty simple operation. I didn't number the addresses, but each event has a real address and a "cleaned" address column in a table. The CSV that I uploaded to Fusion was just a "select distinct..." of the cleaned addresses, so it will serve as a lookup table for all the addresses in the original table. I'm not sure how I am going to reorganize the tables afterward, but I want to interpolate temperatures for each data point based on other data that I have, and I think PostGIS only does simpler operations right now, so I might  have to export the points into shapefiles for each day an event occurs and do splines in another package, then copy the interpolated values back into the database. I am sure there is a more elegant way to do that, I really need to think about it some more.

(Oh, hey, I just saw that you can compile R into Postgres. That is pretty crazy, but potentially totally awesome: http://postgis.refractions.net/pipermail/postgis-users/2009-March/022894.html)

Cheers,
JP

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:17 AM, Dan Putler <dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca<mailto:dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca>> wrote:
Glad to be of help, I'm just curious about what the licensing / terms of use on the KML files that come out of fusion tables. Plus I want to know if it will reverse geocode. It is very slick, but I can imagine violating the terms of use almost instantly.

In terms of your next problem (which seems like one for the PostGIS user list), did you create a unique address ID? if you did, can't you put it in the data you created the fusion table from and then just do the appropriate table join in Postgres/PostGIS?

Dan

On 02/04/2011 03:08 PM, JP Glutting wrote:
That is a nice trick, I will remember that. I really just need the coordinates, since each coordinate needs to go back into a database in a register of a location-time that needs more data added later. These are the "generic" addresses, with the apartment numbers stripped, so each address will provide coordinates for multiples DB entries on different dates, and I won't really be using them on the same layer. But I am sure I can figure out a way to get the data back out with PostGIS (the original data is in Postgres anyway).

Cheers,
JP
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 11:59 PM, Dan Putler <dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca<mailto:dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca> <mailto:dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca<mailto:dan.putler at sauder.ubc.ca>>> wrote:

   JP,

   If you export the KML, and then feed it into QGIS you can then
   save the resulting layer as a shapefile, which is probably what
   you are really hoping to have since you can then easily feed it to
   R, PostGIS, or a number of other tools to pull the coordinates.

   Dan

   On 02/04/2011 02:20 PM, JP Glutting wrote:

       Hi Bernie,

       You can't actually get the lat-lng back out of a Fusion table.
       It will geocode all the addresses, but you can't get the
       numbers back, you can just make a map or layer or something.

       http://groups.google.com/group/fusion-tables-users-group/browse_thread/thread/91c43c73107164eb

       Unless I export it to KML and pull it back out of there?

       That seems like a lot of work. But it sure geocodes like
       gangbusters.

       Cheers,
       JP

       Public Health - GIS - Bioinformatics
       http://www.bmeisis.com <http://www.bmeisis.com/>
       http://www.jpglutting.com

       On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Connors, Bernie (SNB)
       <Bernie.Connors at snb.ca<mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca> <mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca<mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca>>
       <mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca<mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca> <mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca<mailto:Bernie.Connors at snb.ca>>>>

       wrote:

          Try Google Fusion Tables.  All you have to do is put all of the
          address components in one field and it should be recognized and
          geocoded.

          --

          *Bernie Connors, P.Eng*

          Service New Brunswick

          (506) 444-2077

          45°56'25.21"N, 66°38'53.65"W

       www.snb.ca/geonb/<http://www.snb.ca/geonb/> <http://www.snb.ca/geonb/>
       <http://www.snb.ca/geonb/>

          *From:*discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
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       <mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>>>] *On Behalf Of *JP
       Glutting
          *Sent:* Friday, 2011-02-04 09:34
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          *Subject:* [OSGeo-Discuss] Batch geocoding

          Hello,

          I have a large set of addresses (around 150k) that I need to
          geocode for a study (my Masters thesis on heat-related
       mortality).
          I am looking into different solutions, but I can't find
       anything
          that seems like it would work properly.

          I could script a solution using Google's map API, but there
       is a
          limit of 2,500 addreses per day (I can get around them with a
          little patience).

          Right now the best solution I am looking at geopy for geocoding
          addresses (http://code.google.com/p/geopy/). It seems like
       a good
          system, I think I can use it to pull addresses out of my
       database
          and write back coordinates. There is one thing that I am
       not sure,
          about, though, is whether I am actually allowed to use the
       Google
          API without my use being liked to a specific web page. The
       terms
          of service and form for getting a Google API key require a URL
          linked to a Google account. In fact, it looks like the API can
          only be used through a web site:

              "5.2 _Account Key_. After supplying Google with your
       account
              information and the URL of your Maps API
       Implementation, and
              accepting the Terms, you will be issued an alphanumeric key
              assigned to you by Google that is uniquely associated with
              your Google Account and the URL of your Maps API
              Implementation. Your Maps API Implementation must
       import the
              Google Maps APIs using this key as described in the
       Maps APIs
              Documentation
       <http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/>, and Google

              will block requests with an invalid key or invalid URL. You
              may only obtain and use a key in accordance with these
       Terms
              and the Maps APIs Documentation
       <http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/>."

          So it looks like I can't even get it to work without a URL.

          I can always write a script that loops through results
       extracted
          from the database, creates URLs and parses the XML results
       one at
          a time, but that seems like a fairly inelegant solution.

          Does anyone have any good ideas about how to geocode a few
          thousand addresses?

          Many thanks,

          JP

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