[Geodata] Ok, I'm here . . . (Tiger stuff.)

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Bob Basques wrote:
> Stephen,
> 
> I'm using the Tiger data mainly for mapping right now, I'm interested
> in the addressing side as well, but have a good local dataset for
> this, also looking at OpenStreetmap for some comparable value.

I would be interested in this also, but I'm stack overflow at the moment 
so that will have to wait.

> My main interest, and problem area, at the moment with the tiger data
> is the road classification stuff,  It seems overly complicated, but I
> don't know all the subtleties related to who uses what and how.  I've
> been trying to apply the Googlish looking MAP file to it, and it's
> been an uphill battle.

Yes, well I have two major issues in this area.

1) CFCC to MTFCC change lost a lot of information about the segments as 
it appears to be a courser gain resolution and it seems to be way more 
complicated. I guess we will have to learn to live with this change.

2) When you compare Tiger to Google (Navteq or TeleAtlas) the later have 
a major road classification that is not present in the Tiger data. These 
roads are classified as CFCC=A4* in the old data. Basically the missing 
classification in tiger would allow you to identify the roads in light 
yellow on this google map:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=42.163403,-88.066406&spn=2.585418,2.828979&z=8
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=42.163403,-88.066406&spn=0.161596,0.176811&z=12

> I need to come up with a dataset that will extend the coverage area
> beyond our local dataset for centerline prorated geocoding purposes.

So what are you using for a geocoding engine?
Have you create a tools for processing the Tiger data into shapefiles 
for mapserver?

Stephen Frost posted a script on the postGIS list for loading the Tiger 
data into PostGIS which can be found here: http://snowman.net/tiger/

-Steve