[OSGeo-Discuss] Short codes for locations

[Jon Scarbrough]

Also has similarities to geohash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohash

Lots of code in various languages use geohash already.

Jon Scarbrough

On 10/29/2014 03:34 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
> This sounds very much like the Natural Area Coding (NAC) system:
>
> http://www.nacgeo.com/
>
> Interesting idea in theory, but in practice this has been around for 
> over a decade and hasn't really taken off, quite likely because an 
> alphanumerical code is not of much more use than pure geographic 
> coordinates.
>
> Or maybe it's like the case of "rasters in a database" [1] and this 
> concept just needs a strong champion to sell us the idea and convince 
> the world that we need it?
>
> Daniel
>
> [1] 
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2006-October/013569.html
>
> On 14-10-29 3:53 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> Hi Doug,
>> An interesting and potentially useful concept.
>> It sounds like you are proposing a spatial standard. Have you approached
>> the Open Geospatial Consortium about getting the standard endorsed?
>>
>> With regards to any code which you wish to produce and open source, I
>> suggest considering bringing it under the umbrella of the Open Source
>> Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).
>> Details about OSGeo incubation here:
>> http://www.osgeo.org/incubator
>>
>>
>> On 30/10/2014 1:08 am, Doug Rinckes wrote:
>>> I'm an engineer at Google, and I have just open sourced a geo project
>>> we've been working on for a while.
>>>
>>> I used to work on our maps, detecting missing road networks and in my
>>> spare time mapping roads in Papua New Guinea, Central and West Africa
>>> from the satellite imagery. But without street names or addresses, a
>>> road network isn't all that useful. People can't use it for
>>> directions, because they can't express where they want directions to.
>>> After talking with colleagues from around the world, I discovered
>>> that's it actually very common for streets to be unnamed.
>>>
>>> We thought that we should provide short codes that could be used like
>>> addresses, to give the location of homes, businesses, anything. If we
>>> made them usable from smartphones, we can make addresses for anywhere
>>> available to anyone with a smartphone pretty much immediately.
>>>
>>> We had some specific requirements, including that these address codes
>>> should work offline, they shouldn't spell words or include easily
>>> confused characters. We wanted to be able to look at two codes and
>>> tell if they are near each other, and estimate the direction and even
>>> the distance. The codes should not be generated by a single provider,
>>> because what do you do when they disappear? Finally, it had to be open
>>> sourced.
>>>
>>> Open sourcing the project was important. We wanted to allow everyone
>>> to evaluate it so that we don't go implementing something that turns
>>> out to not be useful. If it does turn out to be useful, everyone
>>> (including other mapping providers) should be able to implement it and
>>> use the codes freely.
>>>
>>> I'm pre-announcing this to a couple of geo lists today, and I'll be
>>> sticking around for comments and questions. The following links
>>> provide more information:
>>>
>>> Github project: https://github.com/google/open-location-code
>>> Demonstration website: http://plus.codes <http://plus.codes/>
>>> Discussion list:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/open-location-code
>>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21forum/open-location-code>
>>>
>>> Enjoy!
>>>
>>> Doug
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>> -- 
>> Cameron Shorter,
>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>> LISAsoft
>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>
>> P +61 2 9009 5000,  Wwww.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>
>