[postgis-users] Geocoding

[David Bitner]

Rich has good points, with geocoding the biggest issue is getting good
data to geocode from.  As far as free data goes in the US, TIGER is
pretty much what's universally available.  Getting Navteq or similar
data can be very expensive.  This is why the free service at
Geocoder.us and the Geo::Coder::Us as well as refractions PL/PGSQL
geocoders are based off TIGER data.

My needs were quite different.  As a regional government agency, I
have shapefiles with very good regional roads data in my area.  With
my geocoder I hope to create a solution for others with data like
this.  Something that can easily accomodate many different datasets
(eventually even parcel type data) by providing address parseing and
searching capabilities configureable to different data much like the
geocoding that you can set up through the ESRI products only of course
open source and able to accomodate fast service type output.


On 7/29/05, Rich Gibson <rich.gibson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Alec,
> 
> Geocoder.us is based on the open source Perl module, Geo::Coder::US,
> and the free Tiger data.
> 
> Schuyler has also considered adapting it to use NAVTAQ data, but not
> as open source.  If it used NAVTAQ data we would need to figure out
> the data licensing issues.  They have better data, and it can be worth
> the price, but the free data is pretty good, and did I mention that it
> is free :-)
> 
> Cheers,
> Rich
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/29/05, Alec Brecher <alec at eresearchresources.com> wrote:
> > There have been occaisional threads on geocoding.  I am wondering if
> > anyone has formalized or informalized a project and be willing to make
> > their code available for community consumption.
> >
> > I have explored a number of commercial geocoders and at a minimum of
> > $4,000 per year, rolling out some open code is begining to seem worth
> > the time.
> >
> > I am not looking for highly polished code, just a starting place to
> > contribute to in either Perl or Java.
> >
> > -Alec
> > --
> > Alec Brecher
> > E Research Resources
> > office: 802 253-8908
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> >
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