[postgis-users] Tiger Line 2010 - Edges

Tue Oct 18 10:53:08 PDT 2011

Hi Regina,

Yes, I was looking at that project, and it looks awesome. However, I'm not yet running PostGIS 2.0. I only really need reverse-geocoding for the US (I've gotten it working in Canada -- thanks). Until recently, it seemed like I was close to end -- since I can get the state and then nearest street. I'm just missing the city/town. All the other features of the PostGIS Tiger Geocoder aren't really needed by me.

However, it appears now that simply getting the town/city for any given street is fairly complex due to the broken-up nature of the Tiger Line data… Which makes me wonder if I shouldn't just jump into PostGIS 2.0. A couple questions:

1. Is the current prerelease version of PostGIS 2.0 relatively stable?

2. Since Macports doesn't yet offer PostiGIS 2.0, is there a Mac binary distribution you can recommend? (http://www.kyngchaos.com/software/postgres has a nice package of everything, except PostGIS 2.0...) Or should I build from source? Although I've compiled various packages in the past, I'm trying to avoid it now in order to simplify and automate the my MAMP-stack build process -- which is why I'm fond of Macports.

3. I have downloaded all the Tiger Line 2010 data (~40GB compressed) -- is it relatively easy to get all that data into a fresh PostGIS 2.0?

Now, having said I only *really* need reverse-geocoding for USA, I wouldn't be unhappy to have forward-geocoding if it wasn't too painful to get working. One important thing I need though is high performance reverse-geocoding. On my Core i7 laptop, I can reverse-geocode ~500/second… Can I expect similar performance from the Tiger Geocder in PostGIS 2.0?

So for so many questions. Although I already really love the design of Postgresql and the power of PostGIS, it's been one long learning curve getting to this point (which I thought was near the end). Looks like there's a ways to go.

Thanks.

…Rene

On 2011-10-18, at 11:26 AM, Paragon Corporation wrote:

> Rene,
> 
> Did you see the email Leo had posted
> 
> http://www.postgis.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2011-October/031132.html
> 
> The reverse_gecoder packaged with PostGIS  2.0 Tiger 2010 does output the
> city names.
> 
> As Dan pointed out -- you need to join with the faces to get that.  Faces
> also helps for determining which side of street a point falls in.
> 
> -- I've reposted Leo's email for completeness
> 
> Please let us know if anything is unclear.
> 
> Thanks,
> Regina
> http://www.postgis.us
> 
> --- LEO's email ---
> 
> Actually we implemented a reverse geocoding function too for tiger 2010.
> That might be more what you are looking for.
> 
> http://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/browser/trunk/extras/tiger_geocoder/tiger_2010
> /geocode/reverse_geocode.sql
> 
> The function usage is described here:
> 
> http://www.postgis.org/documentation/manual-svn/Reverse_Geocode.html
> 
> As far as installing the functions.  A lot fo the functions have
> dependencies on other functions withing tiger schema.  
> 
> If you download the latest PostGIS 2.0 tar ball, that might be the easiest
> way to get started. 
> http://www.postgis.org/download/postgis-2.0.0SVN.tar.gz
> 
> There is a create_geocode.sh/bat scripts that install all the functions in
> the extras\tiger_geocoder\tiger_2010
>  folder and a README which I think is more or less up to date detailing
> installation etc.
> 
> Leo
> http://www.postgis.us
> 
> -- END Email
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net
> [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Dan
> Putler
> Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12:55 PM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] Tiger Line 2010 - Edges
> 
> Hi Rene,
> 
> The edges also include TFIDL and TFIDR fields. These are the foreign keys
> that identify the topological faces on the left- and right-side of an edge.
> If you combine this with the attribute data of the TIGER FACE layers (the
> topological faces), you can then determine the "place" 
> (city, town, or Census Designated place) FIPS code associated with the
> topological face that is bounded by a road edge. To get the name of the
> "place", you then need to use the TIGER PLACE layers. However, many road
> segments don't have road segments that fall into a "PLACE", so you need to
> devise another strategy to deal with them.
> 
> All in all, working with TIGER data is not straight forward.
> 
> Dan
> 
> On 10/18/2011 09:24 AM, René Fournier wrote:
>> Having imported the Edges shape files, I'm able to get quickly find the
> closest street to a given latlng point (reverse-geocode). From this row, I
> get the street name and house number ranges, and state (FIPS code) -- but
> not the city name. Any suggestions on the best way to find the town/city?
>> 
>> …Rene
>> 
>> 
>> 
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