[postgis-users] geo-coding question

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Lee,

Very nice site. So it looks like you are using TeleAtlas for the map 
data (according to the "Proprietary Rights Use of Maps Notice" link) are 
you using it for the geocoder also? Why not?

Do you plan on posting your changes to the geocoder?

So did you have a specific question you needed help on?

Thank you for sharing,
   -Steve



Lee Keel wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-
>> bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Stephen Woodbridge
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:39 AM
>> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
>> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] geo-coding question
>>
>> Lee,
>>
>> The refractions team work a geocoder in pgsql procedures that assumes
>> some Tiger data has been loaded. There are occasional requests for help
>> on loading data, but I'm not sure if there is an explicit well defined
>> procedure for that. I think the PostGIS geocoder was written as a proof
>> of concept and I am not aware of anyone using it in a production
>> environment. OracleSpatial geocoder is a mature production quality
>> geocoder, but it expects Navteq data, or data that can get munged into
>> Navteq format.
>>
>> The difficult part of geocoding is handling address standardization and
>> handling fuzzy searching. Once you can standardize the addresses the
>> query part is trivial in comparison. Much of the Oracle's geocoder is
>> written in Java in their application server.
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>>
> 
> Steve,
> 
> You are absolutely correct that the most difficult part of the geocoding
> process is the address parsing.  We have spent many hours refining our
> parser to work as much as possible and we have some more to go.
> 
> The website that I sent before is in a "production" environment.  We are
> using postgres plpgsql functions to do our geocoding against the full US
> Tiger 2006 2nd Ed dataset.  I agree that there is probably not an explicit
> well defined procedure for loading the Tiger data.  We currently are
> converting the data to shapefiles, then importing the shapefiles with a
> little messaging done after that.  Of course that will change in the next
> Tiger release when the data is available in shapefiles already.  But even
> then, it is obvious that any geocoder that is using tables for address
> parsing will be expecting certain tables to exist with certain columns.  I
> don't know any way around that part of it. 
> 
> We have gotten around a lot of the need for fuzzystring matching by doing
> the live search.  So the user can quickly and easily see their selection
> within the dropdown as they are typing.  We have been working on a
> fuzzystring match side for another page that has a different purpose, but
> that is probably round 2.
> 
> I know the OracleSpatial geocoder is a LOT more mature than what we have,
> but what we have is a pretty good starting point.  We definitely have some
> enhancements left to be made, but I thought this live geocoding search is a
> pretty good show case for the speed of postgres\postgis against a roads
> table of more than 39 million rows.
> 
> Regards,
> Lee Keel
> This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender. This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail.
> _______________________________________________
> postgis-users mailing list
> postgis-users at postgis.refractions.net
> http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users