[OSGeo-Discuss] Short codes for locations

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Daniel Morissette <dmorissette at mapgears.com
> 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?
>
>
 Or possibly because of non-open licensing terms?

http://www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/licensing/

 I think I have seen some web services teaming up with What3Words which
does a similar thing except translates coords to a word triple via a
proprietary, secret, server-based algorithm. Its cutesy nature ("I live at
monkey sponge gearstick") seems to appeal to many since it makes memorable
locations.

Anyhooo...




> 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
> >
>
>
> --
> Daniel Morissette
> T: +1 418-696-5056 #201
> http://www.mapgears.com/
> Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000
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