SUM: MI International Geocoding and MapX

[Gary Schwartz]

Thanks to all who responded to my query.  It seems that the consensus is that
international street-level geocoding remains next to impossible through any
consistent and coordinated effort.  Currently, the best work around seems to
be geocoding to the place/settlement name.  This offers it's own challenges
(English vs. Native vs. every other possible spelling, etc.,) and doesn't
provide the kind of accuracy that many applications might require.  However,
for those who would find this acceptable, Steven Feldman forward this
information:

Try GeoLocata from whereonearth.com
It offers world wide geocoding to settlement point or postcode.
Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

There product seems pretty solid from a first glance and we have requested
more info from them.  I know of several other global gazeteers, but I don't
know if they have any "geocoding" software wrapped around them, so if any of
them are listening, I'd be interested in knowing what they offer.

Thanks also to Ole Gregor who shared some of the difficulties that they have
with geocoding in Denmark and Zoran Markovic who described some of the trouble
with GeoLoc (the MapMarker equivalent for Australia and New Zealand).  I've
attached both of their messages below for those who are interested.

If anyone else has any thoughts that they'd like to share, please let me know.

Gary.

Ole Gregor wrote:

> Hi
>
> That's a tricky one.
>
> I'm living in a country with a long tradition of coordinatet adresses and we
>
> still has problem with geocoding in MI. Our adresses is different than the
> US ones (e.g. mine is Gudenaparken 62 and as you can se there is a special
> danish character and the number after the street name - a special case is
> that I also could have used a aa instead og a and it would still have been a
>
> valid adress) and the MI abbrevations file is not convenient outside US. We
> have done part of our geocoding in MS Access after a wash of both the
> mapadresses and the client adresses. The situation is much more mixed in a
> lot of other countries and in some there is no central accepted/avaliable
> adresss databases.
>
> I whish you luck with your Sissifos (a person from Greek mythology with a
> large continius work)work
>
> Ole Gregor
> Dept. of environment, natureconservation, planning and highways, Viborg
> County, Denmark
> (45) 8727 1307
>

Zoran Markovic wrote:

> Gary
>
> Unfortunately, I do not think you can have a general solution.
> As you said, each country has its own geocoding solution,
> often incompatible with MapMarker.
>
> For example, Australia and New Zealand use GeoLoc software
> with its own spatial streets database.  I have not heard of
> anybody successfully porting this database to MapMarker.
> But, GeoLoc is a decent software with fuzzy matching etc.
> The streets database is not 100%, but its OK (95% satisfactory).
>
> The problem is that GeoLoc is a batch processor, not a
> command line type processor - I will be very hard
> to interface it with something else.
>
> I presume you are trying to create an Internet based distance
> measurer or locator (real time) for the whole world and I do not envy you.
>
> Good luck
> Zoran
>

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MI International Geocoding and MapX

[Steven Feldman]

Try GeoLocata from whereonearth.com
 
It offers world wide geocoding to settlement point 
or postcode.
 
Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
Steven

MI International Geocoding and MapX

[Gary Schwartz]

Hi all,

We're about to get involved in a project that is giving me ulcers just
thinking about it, and I was hoping some of you might have some
experience or advice to share that might abate my acid reflux.

We're working with a client who needs to do address-level geocoding on a
world-wide basis.  Right now they're interested in just a handful of
countries, but that list is likely to grow.  As far as I know, there is
no single solution for international geocoding.  MapInfo has a MapMarker
version for just a few countries.  Beyond that, there seems to be street
data available at a price for many countries.

What I'm wondering is if anyone knows of any International geocoders or
can share their experiences with working with International street data
for geocoding.  What countries have good data?  What countries have bad
data?  What are the pitfalls with working with other countries' address
information (i.e., address formats, etc.,) in either MapInfo
Professional or (better yet) MapX?  My only real experience has been
with the US version of MapMarker and performing geocoding with MapX and
StreetPro EAL.

We envision creating a single interface that will accept an address,
determine what country the address is for, and based upon that, utilize
either that country's version of MapMarker (or other available geocoder)
or, where that is not available, use MapX and street data for that
country to perform the geocode.  I'm sure you can understand my
stomach's response to this.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, and, of course, summarized
back to the list.

Thanks,
Gary.


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